Coca-Cola Racial Discrimination Response
- The Civil Rights Act of 1964
Coca-Cola has been sued for race discrimination and racial harassment by 16 black and Hispanic employees located in Queens and Westchester, New York. These employees claim that they were forced to perform low-level jobs that were not assigned to white workers.
One of the victimized employees, Sondra Walker claimed that she was subjected to degrading racial slurs.
The plaintiffs allege that their complaints went unheeded, no disciplinary action was taken against their aggressors, and, in fact, they were subject to retaliation.
Walker cited two particular incidences that were quite egregious: on one occasion, a white employee was permitted to wear a Confederate flag bandana on his head, and on another occasion, a white employee who was asked to clean a sewer uttered a racial slur.
Guillermo Nunez, a plaintiff who is claiming he suffered infliction of emotional distress, retorted that it was his belief that Coca-Cola was an ethically minded employer prior to its indifference to racial harassment.
Coca-Cola spokesman Toney Anaya stated that Coca-Cola was aware of the allegations and was in the process of conducting an in-house investigation.
1 A. How could a global company like Coca-Cola have allowed such a serious incident of racial harassment to occur? What could have been done to avoid it?
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1.B Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Affirmative Action
This is the practical assignment where you will practice skills related to employment law that will translate into real-life skills that will be utilized in your career as a human resources specialist.
The assignment is as follows:
Ray and Debbie are the owners of a technology company with over one hundred employees. Their company has hired you as an HR Specialist. Your first task is to complete a memorandum:
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- Creating a new company policy pertaining to race discrimination that complies with the terms of the civil rights act and all applicable laws;,
- Discussing potential employee training that can be enacted to help avoid or reduce any company legal liability associated with racial discrimination; and
- Addressing steps that should be taken in the event a complaint is received pertaining to race discrimination.
**Please cite the textbook reference below and other scholarly authors! Moran, J.J. (2014). Employment law: new challenges in the business environment. (6th Ed.). Boston: Pearson
ZV, 1C. Coca-Cola’s strategy for handling harassment and discrimination among its employees has serious flaws, as evidenced by the racial harassment allegations made against the business., A global company such as Coca-Cola ought to have implemented the required procedures training and policies to stop this kind of activity., Coca-Cola has numerous rules in place to prevent discrimination and racial harassment., However, employees could not completely comprehend the seriousness of these behaviors or the company’s objectives if there were no continuous, efficient training and awareness initiatives in place. (Inclusion and Diversity and Anti-Harassment Policy, 2024).
The mere fact that complaints were allegedly disregarded and no disciplinary action was taken raises the possibility that Coca-Cola failed to enforce its standards which may have prohibited racial discrimination and harassment., To support the impacted staff and ensure that proper disciplinary actions were taken against those implicated in misbehavior Coca-Cola should have launched an immediate and impartial investigation into the claims., This would show workers that the business is dedicated to upholding an inclusive and courteous work environment and takes racial harassment seriously., The effectiveness of anti-discrimination policies is undermined when there are no repercussions for the offenders such as allowing racist slurs., This meant that management did not respond in a timely manner and/or that there was a cultural tolerance of discriminatory behavior (Coca-Cola Bottling of Mobile to Pay $35000 to Settle EEOC Sex Discrimination Suit 2016).,
Coca-Cola should have used routine audits of workplace culture and employee feedback systems to spot any discriminatory or harassing trends early on and stop future incidents., The organization needed to make an effort to establish a culture at work that values inclusion and diversity. Additionally, in order to ensure that workers felt comfortable using the reporting channels, the organization ought to have a greater knowledge of them. For accusations of harassment or discrimination, Coca-Cola needed to make sure that staff members had easy access to a private, impartial, and confidential reporting system (Findlaw.com, 2024).
In closing, to resolve these concerns, Coca-Cola must act quickly and forcefully in the future. This includes strengthening reporting procedures, providing more thorough employee training, and holding all staff members responsible for fostering an inclusive and courteous work environment. This will allow them to restate their commitment to diversity and inclusion and work toward ensuring that such instances never occur again. This will help the company to gain the trust and credibility of the employees again (Coca-Cola, 2024).
REFERENCES
Coca-Cola bottling of Mobile to pay $35,000 to settle EEOC sex discrimination suit. (2016). US EEOC. https://www.eeoc.gov/newsroom/coca-cola-bottling-mobile-pay-35000-settle-eeoc-sex-discrimination-suit
Coca-Cola. (2024). Human rights policy. https://www.coca-colahellenic.com/en/about-us/corporate-governance/policies/human-rights-policy
FindLaw.com – 42 U.S.C. § 1981 – U.S. Code – Unannotated Title 42. The Public Health and Welfare § 1981. Equal rights under the law – last updated January 01, 2024 | https://codes.findlaw.com/us/title-42-the-public-health-and-welfare/42-usc-sect-1981/
KW, 1.D, Discrimination of race is an occurrence when one race of employees receives preferential treatment over another race (Moran, 2014). Coca-Cola has not been new to discrimination accusations and lawsuits. In 2001, Coca-Cola was involved in the nation’s biggest class-action settlement due to race employment discrimination. The allegations against Coca-Cola involved pay variances between races and a glass ceiling that kept African Americans from obtaining any positions in their company past entry-level management (Mehrit, n.d.).
In the situation with Sondra Walker and Guillermo Nunez, there was another occurrence of racial discrimination. Title VII does not allow for racial discrimination and when allegations arise, the company must investigate the allegations in a prompt manner (Moran, 2014). Coca-Cola had knowledge of the allegations as stated by spokesperson Toney Anaya. Due to the fact that there was more than one incident, it can appear as though an in-house investigation by Coca-Cola did not occur urgently.
Coca-Cola allowed for such an incident to occur by not responding to the complaints quickly. According to Walker and Nunez in their complaints to Coca-Cola, their complaints were not addressed, leading to professional policies being enforced poorly, relationships and organizational culture not centered around ethical practices. It is evident that training was inadequate to the employees of the organization. If their discrimination prevention practices and procedures were properly attended to, it could have established with the employees that they should not be targeted at any time, thereby decreasing their motivation and productivity levels. The EEOC provides that approximately 75% of employees who have faced harassment do not report it to their superiors. This can lead to financial detriments to the company, along with negative reputations (Grace, 2023). The employees of Coca-Cola did report the discrimination and harassment, which indicates that either Coca-Cola did not perform regular training of its employees, or if they did, actions were not taken to cease problematic and discriminatory behaviors.
In order to avoid the discriminatory practices at Coca-Cola, they could have implemented mandatory discrimination and harassment training and also provided protections against retaliatory behavior. According to McHugh (2021), the sole intent of instilling proper behavior is not the correct way to combat discrimination, while routinely evaluating and updating their policies that arise promptly is beneficial. Practices such as regular audits of discrimination policies to ensure that all protected categories are recognized and visibly presenting information to report incidents made clear to employees is essential (McHugh, 2021).
Coca-Cola also could have extended their training to include external resources if needed and mandated training on a consistent, regular basis as well as part of all on-boarding of new employees. Proper training would have taught the employees what is permitted or discriminatory and established clear and concise boundaries of what is not tolerated in the workplace. The administering of time-sensitive guidelines for investigating claims instead of delayed reaction time prevents additional incidents to transpire.
References
Grace, C. (2023, November 9). Why anti-harassment, bullying, and discrimination training is important. LRN. https://lrn.com/blog-why-effective-anti-harassment-bullying-discrimination-training-is-important
McHugh, C., Esquire. (2021). Preventing workplace race discrimination. United Educators. https://www.ue.org/risk-management/the-workplace/preventing-workplace-race-discrimination
Mehri, C. (n.d). The Coca-Cola Company Racial Discrimination. Discrimination Lawyer Washington DC – Mehri & Skalet. https://findjustice.com/cases/the-coca-cola-company/
Moran, J.J. (2014). Employment law: new challenges in the business environment. (6th Ed.). Boston: Pearson. ISBN: 9780133075229
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Inclusion and Diversity and Anti-Harassment policy. (2024). https://www.coca- colahellenic.com/en/about-us/corporate-governance/policies/inclusion-and-diversity-policy
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PLEASE RESPOND TO THE 2 PEERS OF THEIR THOUGHTS OF Coco-Cola.