Kodak Internal Audit Finds Pay Inequities

Eastman Kodak will pay out $3 million to increase the salaries of 2,000 female and minority employees in New York and Colorado after employee complaints of racism and sexism in determining pay raises. The workers will also reportedly receive a share of about $10 million in retroactive compensation. Kodak said it does not discriminate but acknowledged that since late 1998 the Rochester, N.Y.-based company fired or demoted an unspecified number of floor managers who determined annual employee pay raises. “We did a study of 31,000 of our jobs in the U.S. and found discrepancies,” said Kodak spokesman Charles Smith. About 12% of the female employees and 33% of the black employees at Kodak will get the compensatory raises. The percentage of Latino employees who will get raises was very small, Smith said. The $3-million pay-raise allocation was not in response to a threatened lawsuit or as a settlement to some prior action, Smith said. The problem was raised by employees who complained to supervisors last year, Smith said. However, Smith said the Rev. Norvel Goff, president of the local NAACP, had met with Kodak officials in February and was instrumental in resolving the problem.