By: Cecil Angel, Staff Writer, The Detroit Free Press
June 20, 2001
The number of lawsuits against Ford Motor Co. by white male employees alleging racial, age or gender discrimination is on the upswing.
In the last four weeks, four lawsuits were filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit alleging discrimination.
James Fett, a Pinckney lawyer, said Tuesday that he will file two separate complaints with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission by Friday on behalf of two white Ford managers who say they were denied promotions because of their race.
In February, two class actions filed within days of each other claimed that the company's management performance-evaluation system was geared toward removing older white males.
"What Ford is doing is so blatant it's amazing they've gotten away with it for so long," Fett said.
Ford spokeswoman Anne Marie Gattari said the evaluation system affects only the company's 18,000 managers, who are about 5 percent of the company's workforce. "It's fair and it's not discriminatory," she said. "We look for the best talent in all populations of people."
One of the managers who filed suit last week is William Lehrer, 54, of Milford. Lehrer claims the evaluation system, which last year forced departments to rank 10 percent of managers in a top category, 80 percent in a middle performance category and 10 in an unsatisfactory category, cost him raises and promotions and is forcing older white men from the company. He still works for Ford.
"Consideration of race in employment decisions to benefit minorities and to disadvantage white males is standard operating procedure" at Ford, the lawsuit says.
In his lawsuit, Lehrer names Ford CEO Jacques Nasser as the architect of a policy to increase the number of minorities and decrease the number of white males at the company so its workforce reflects the customer base.
The policy affects hiring, promotion, lateral transfers, executive training and compensation and evaluation, the lawsuit says.
"We talk about people being our most important asset, yet we treat them this way," Lehrer said.
Lehrer asks for actual damages, compensatory damages for pain, suffering and humiliation, punitive damages for Ford's misconduct and to deter such wrongdoing in the future, court costs and attorney fees.
Contact CECIL ANGEL at 313-223-4531 or angel@freepress.com
Copyright © 2001 Detroit Free Press
Record Number: 0106200272
