LAWFUEL’s lead story, from the New York times, reports that a top woman lawyer hit GE’s glass ceiling and has landed her former employer with a lawsuit accusing the company of systematically discriminating against women in both pay and promotions.
Yesterday Ms. Schaefer, 43, filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court in Connecticut, accusing G.E. of systematically discriminating against women in both pay and promotions. She is seeking to have the suit certified as a class action.
David Sanford, one of her lawyers, said he expected as many as 1,700 women to join the suit and that he was asking for back pay, raises and compensatory damages totaling about $500 million to be distributed among the plaintiffs.
Ms. Schaefer is not sure that many women will sign on. “The women at G.E. are scared to death, so this is the loneliest thing I’ve ever done,” she said.
Ms. Schaefer maintains that G.E. has done a stellar job of helping women migrate up through management. But she said that only 13 percent of G.E.’s officers were women, about the same percentage as six years ago. Moreover, she said that many male general counsels were part of G.E.’s “senior executive band,” the job level just below corporate officer. She said that most female general counsels, including herself, were ranked lower.
