GM Settles Up

A $42.5 million agreement

The job-discrimination complaint was one of the most ambitious ever brought by the Federal Government Filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the ten-year-old proceeding accused giant General Motors (1982 sales: $60 billion) of failing to hire and promote enough women and minority-group members. Last week GM completed seven months of intense negotiations with the agency by promising to spend $42.5 million over five years to increase the representation of women and minorities at all levels of the company. The agreement, which the automaker consented to without admitting to any of the charges, was the largest settlement yet of an E.E.O.C. complaint.

The agreement was novel in another way. While past discrimination settlements have focused on remedies like the payment of back wages, the GM terms require the automaker to invest heavily in worker education and training. They call, for example, for GM to earmark $15 million for scholarships and college and university endowments. As a result of this aid, more than 100,000 women and minorities, together with their families, will be eligible to attend classes at 28 U.S. institutions. GM will spend an additional $8.9 million to train 1,250 white-collar workers for better-paying and more responsible jobs within the company.

By the end of last year, women accounted for about 17% of the car manufacturer's nearly 450,000 U.S. employees; minorities constituted some 17.5%. Many of the new gains are expected to come in white-collar positions. Only some 6.5% of GM's managers are women, for example, while minorities make up 8.9%. Said one company official: "I would suspect we're going to see more emphasis on moving women and minorities up through the ranks of the organization."

General Motors, in a particularly hectic week, became part of another Government action when the Environmental Protection Agency ordered it to recall 112,000 of its 1979 Chevrolet Chevettes for exceeding maximum federal standards for carbon-monoxide emissions GM said separately that it is calling back 367,700 vehicles, produced mainly during the 1983 model year, to correct defects involving brakes. In addition, a federal judge released confidential company documents reportedly indicating that GM knew that its 1980 X-model autos had brake problems before it started producing the cars. The material was assembled in connection with a Justice Department suit demanding that GM recall all 1.1 million of the 1980 X-models. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.