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 "male" or "female" 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