TalentTuning

When President Obama issued a statement last week marking the 47th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act, the federal legislation that sought to end gender-related wage discrimination, he noted ongoing wage inequities and the fact that women continue to earn only 77 cents for every dollar earned by men. Unfortunately, he failed to mention the recent judgment against Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis, one so enormous that it could do more to resolve the persistent wage gap than any government measure.

The Novartis verdict, issued late last month, was record breaking by many measures. The jury ruled that the company, which for more than a decade had been listed among the top 100 companies to work for by Working Mother, had discriminated against its female employees in pay and promotions for at least five years, from 2002 through 2007. During the five-week trial, Novartis employees testified about a boss who refused to hire women because, as he said, “first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes flex time and a baby carriage”; a manager who invited his female colleagues to sit on his lap and showed them pornographic pictures; and company trainers who routinely told female employees not to get pregnant. The 12 women who testified were awarded $3.36 million in compensatory damages, while Novartis was held liable for an additional $250 million in punitive damages. Nearly 5,600 other female employees can now file for individual damages that could amount to upward of $200 million. It was far and away the largest penalty ever associated with a gender-discrimination lawsuit—and many were quick to deem it precedent-setting. Within the next year, the Novartis case will be followed by a potentially larger complaint against Walmart. That case has been tied up in court since 2001, but in April a federal appeals court ruled it could proceed as a class action. Walmart has said it will appeal that decision; if it does go to trial, it stands to be the largest civil-rights class-action suit in history.

The experience of the female Novartis employees, though, is not unique. College-educated women make 20 percent less than men from the moment they enter the workforce, according to a 2007 study from the American Association of University Women. Ten years later, full-time working women who haven’t yet had children make 23 percent less than their male colleagues. Inequity persists even among the most highly educated: a recent Catalyst study found that female M.B.A.s make $4,600 less than their male peers in their first jobs out of business school. Discrimination based on race, nationality, and, of course, gender, is illegal, so why does it persist?

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