Ethics Newsline®

CHICAGO
Ford Motor Co. last week agreed to pay $7.5 million to settle a sexual-harassment complaint filed by female workers at two Ford facilities near Chicago.

Last week’s settlement will cover 700 to 900 women who worked at the Ford plants from 1996 to the present.

Ford also agreed to increase the number of female managers, more rigorously enforce its antiharassment policies, and pay an estimated $10 million for sensitivity training for its 40,000 workers.

The case surfaced last year, when 19 women claimed they were routinely and persistently subjected to verbal abuse, confronted with pornographic images, and groped by Ford’s male employees.

After a preliminary investigation, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) notified Ford officials that it had found sufficient evidence to back the women’s claims, according to the Washington Post.

EEOC executive John Rowe praised Ford for cooperating with the subsequent investigation, saying that the automaker’s conciliatory approach made further litigation unnecessary, the Post reported.

The settlement is the fourth-largest sexual-harassment case in EEOC history, and follows a $34 million settlement paid by Mitsubishi Motor Manufacturing Co. last year on similar charges.