AT & T & Pasadena City Council

In 1973, American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) agreed to a consent decree that not only paid $45,000,000 back pay to women and minority men, but also established a Model Affirmative Action Plan, which would permanently alter the recruiting, transfer, and promotion policies of the company (Fullinwider 287). This was a landmark decision that created a benchmark for dealing with discrimination and affirmative action within the workplace across the United States (Bernard 16).

Historically, AT&T had been the largest private employer of women in the United States, with fully half of its employees, or 400,000 out of 800,000, being women -- 80 percent of them, however, employed in clerical, administrative, or operator positions (Bernard 16; Fullinwider 285). Jobs had been categorized as ômaleö or ôfemaleö jobs, with men usually employed in the higher paying craft positions or as managers and executives. In fact, as Fullinwider points out, jobs within AT&T were much more segregated than when compared to the national average (286). Additionally, minority men were typically allotted the poorer paying jobs, or, like the women, were paid less when in similar positions as a white male (286). These practices were challenged in 1970 by the Equal Employmen

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on only to be passed over for promotions time and again as inroads into creating a diverse workplace have decreased (Poe Q1). So, while the override function was not ôfairö in essence, it may have prevented such oversights from happening. According to Poe, however, one of the reasons for this decline is that the corporate culture of companies has remained stagnant and shut women and minorities out of advancement. Since simple hiring goals have been attained and the population is officially ôrepresented,ö many companies do not strive to go beyond these goals into actively recruiting and promoting women and minorities for key executive positions (Q1). Pasadena City Council Case In 1985, the Pasadena City Council voted to include Armenians under the ôprotected classö of citizens, along with women, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans, Pacific Islanders, and handicapped persons, to be considered for affirmative action practices (Varley 293). At this time, Armenians made up approximately 10 percent of the population, along with 25 percent blacks, 22 percent Hispanics, 6 percent Asians, and 37 percent whites. However, this percentage was not reflected in the city government leadership. For example, of the seven members on t
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1732
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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