Unfortunately the article lacks the detail anyone would need to make an informed decision, but my gut reaction is to immediately question the legitimacy of this as a class action suit. While discrimination certainly still exists, I have difficulty imagining the kind of institutional gender bias alledged here actually took place to thousands of female citi employees. Also as has already been pointed out, how else do you measure bonuses other than to look at past performance?
Okay, I realize they were trying to tie this all together as a discrimination thing, but past performance is the only thing you can really base bonuses and pay raises on. What is a manager supposed to do, say, “Well you stank this year, losing the company millions, but we think you’re in for a hot year so have some more money”? That part should never have been included.
I had to read that part again to understand the relevance of it. I think the issue they have is that if the women were discriminated against by not having good support resources, then their results would be affected. If the pay bonuses are based on the past performance (which was reduced because of discrimination) then they are saying there is a problem. I am a bit on the fence with this.
I understand where they’re coming from – because if you discriminate on assignments and give all the bad assignments to women, who then naturally receive no bonuses or raises because of it, it’s part of the whole issue. What gets me is, at least the way the article puts it, they were going after the whole structure of using past performance as a measure for bonuses and pay. It’s one thing to say, “And in addition to getting cruddy assignments we lost out on these bonuses and pay because of the way assignments were handed out” and another to say, “Because they base bonuses on past performance I didn’t get a bonus because my performance was cruddy.” It’s a small difference in this case, but could affect whether CitiGroup continues a bonus program at all in the future.
It’s the smae thing as “I’m black therefore by that factor alone, I’m discriminated against and my performance suffers as a reuslt.” BUT…don’t you dare say it suffers because I’m black, or a woman as the case may be here, then that’s a whole other can of worms. Pretty soon the whole country will be sub-par as white men, the only group that is not protected will finally give up due to crap like this
Not necessarily. Here, they are saying that they were given bad assignment because of gender. If they actually were, I would say that their performance did suffer due to discrimination. Of course, we would have to prove that they were given worse assignments based on gender. I understand what you are saying, but I don’t think it really applies here.
Of course, the only way to really prove the assignments given to women were worse (I may be misunderstanding the industry here, so bear with me) would be to compare near-identical assignments given to men and see how they panned out. If the comparison assignments also turned out bad, then there would be discrimination if such assignments were purposefully and disproportionatly given to women. If the comaprison assignments turned out well then I don’t see how there would have been discrimination.
All of this is moot since they settled, but worth thinking about.
interesting……I actually worked for Smith Barney. It is an extremely sexist company. The women put in charge know nothing, they are just there to satisfy the “requirements” Most of the men are dogs, who pant after everything in sight ( married or not)
A good portion of the brokers, want your business but once they have it, do not want anything to do with you again, and push it off on their assistants or trainees. No wonder the stock cannot stay up.
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Unfortunately the article lacks the detail anyone would need to make an informed decision, but my gut reaction is to immediately question the legitimacy of this as a class action suit. While discrimination certainly still exists, I have difficulty imagining the kind of institutional gender bias alledged here actually took place to thousands of female citi employees. Also as has already been pointed out, how else do you measure bonuses other than to look at past performance?
Okay, I realize they were trying to tie this all together as a discrimination thing, but past performance is the only thing you can really base bonuses and pay raises on. What is a manager supposed to do, say, “Well you stank this year, losing the company millions, but we think you’re in for a hot year so have some more money”? That part should never have been included.
I had to read that part again to understand the relevance of it. I think the issue they have is that if the women were discriminated against by not having good support resources, then their results would be affected. If the pay bonuses are based on the past performance (which was reduced because of discrimination) then they are saying there is a problem. I am a bit on the fence with this.
I understand where they’re coming from – because if you discriminate on assignments and give all the bad assignments to women, who then naturally receive no bonuses or raises because of it, it’s part of the whole issue. What gets me is, at least the way the article puts it, they were going after the whole structure of using past performance as a measure for bonuses and pay. It’s one thing to say, “And in addition to getting cruddy assignments we lost out on these bonuses and pay because of the way assignments were handed out” and another to say, “Because they base bonuses on past performance I didn’t get a bonus because my performance was cruddy.” It’s a small difference in this case, but could affect whether CitiGroup continues a bonus program at all in the future.
It’s the smae thing as “I’m black therefore by that factor alone, I’m discriminated against and my performance suffers as a reuslt.” BUT…don’t you dare say it suffers because I’m black, or a woman as the case may be here, then that’s a whole other can of worms. Pretty soon the whole country will be sub-par as white men, the only group that is not protected will finally give up due to crap like this
Reagan,
Not necessarily. Here, they are saying that they were given bad assignment because of gender. If they actually were, I would say that their performance did suffer due to discrimination. Of course, we would have to prove that they were given worse assignments based on gender. I understand what you are saying, but I don’t think it really applies here.
Of course, the only way to really prove the assignments given to women were worse (I may be misunderstanding the industry here, so bear with me) would be to compare near-identical assignments given to men and see how they panned out. If the comparison assignments also turned out bad, then there would be discrimination if such assignments were purposefully and disproportionatly given to women. If the comaprison assignments turned out well then I don’t see how there would have been discrimination.
All of this is moot since they settled, but worth thinking about.
interesting……I actually worked for Smith Barney. It is an extremely sexist company. The women put in charge know nothing, they are just there to satisfy the “requirements” Most of the men are dogs, who pant after everything in sight ( married or not)
A good portion of the brokers, want your business but once they have it, do not want anything to do with you again, and push it off on their assistants or trainees. No wonder the stock cannot stay up.