Six current and former Bayer employees have filed a lawsuit against the drugmaker and its US unit over charges they suffered gender discrimination, denial of equal pay and promotions, and retaliation. And they are seeking $100 million in damages and class-action status. They are represented by the same firm that filed suit against Novartis and resulted in a $152 million over similar charges (back story).
The lawsuit alleges a pattern discrimination in pay, promotions, and the treatment of pregnant women and mothers. Specifically, they charge Bayer pays women less than their male counterparts; deny promotions to better and higher paying jobs; limits employment opportunities to lower and less desirable job classifications, and exposes them to different treatment and a hostile work environment.
The lawsuit goes on to maintain that Bayer has either published or disseminated articles that suggest men are better suited to be managers than women; describing females as prone to “mood swings,” “indecision," and "backstabbing;" and concluding that “women with power are ‘loose canons’ who often feel threatened by colleagues,” according to the lawsuit (read it here).
The women - who occupy or occupied such jobs as associate director, deputy director and director positions in the Women’s Healthcare and Oncology Divisions - also charge "Bayer has created a workplace in which vice presidents can announce with impunity that they are 'never hiring another woman over 40 again. They’re all crazy!' or can dictate that the only kind of working mothers who can succeed are ones who hire full-time nannies or otherwise abdicate their child-rearing responsibilities. In fact, a senior manager has announced that he 'needed to stop hiring women of reproductive age.' "
“My pregnancy should have been a time of joy, laughter and happiness. But I was not able to enjoy that because of Bayer’s discrimination against me, and I will never be able to get that experience back," one of the plaintiffs, Vicky Barghout, says in a statement sent to us. "No company has the right to do that. Bayer does not respect the mothers who work for it; instead it rewards hard-working mothers and pregnant women with demotions, pay reductions, and denial of job opportunities. All of this from a company that is supposed to concern itself with women’s health.”
We await a response from Bayer. UPDATE: A Bayer spokeswoman sends us this: "Bayer is aware of the lawsuit filed today in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey alleging gender class discrimination by Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals and Bayer Corporation. The company had previously received administrative complaints of discrimination from six current or former Wayne, New Jersey-based employees from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
"Bayer was prepared to cooperate fully with the Commission and respond to each of the discrimination charges, but the plaintiffs elected to terminate all six administrative proceedings and file the lawsuit without further investigation or findings by the Commission. Bayer denies the allegations of gender discrimination and will vigorously defend itself against these charges. Bayer will not comment further on pending litigation, other than to note that it is committed strongly to a policy of non-discrimination and equal treatment for all employees."
photo courtesy of 3neus Flickr creative commons
16 Comments
They should go after Pfizer, as soon as a rep gets pregnant, she can plan on having all kinds of problems keeping her job. THere should be tons of female reps willing to file.
Would love to see them defend themselves against this! Unfortunately, this goes on more than the public realizes in most of big pharma...very sadly. The courts have tended to side with the large corporations, not surprisingly, and in particular, the most recent incident where Pfizer left the "over-aged female rep" stranded in the parking lot. I truly hope that our court system will start to recognize this pervasive behavior and the discriminatory practices against women in the workforce. It seems to be the minority that still can't get equal treatment under the law.
Insider, you should know that it is at Pfizer where the term "eternity leave" was coined, i.e. stretching a 12 week maternity leave into STD, then the "bridge back to work" (another Pfizer term), so that returning mothers could work part time for a number of months before full time return to work. It has become the corporate inside joke, how many post partum women have gamed the system to stretch a 12 week leave to, in some cases over a year. And of course their job has to be waiting for them when they return.
As a boss, you had best not be talking about loss of productivity, etc. or you will most assuredly find yourself on the business end of a hefty lawsuit that will probably put a damper on any plans you might have for more children.
you can bawk in shock, but its true, the powerful corporate type women make everyone lives miserable. with the presumptuous and self-aggrandizing power-hungry outlook on life, they are the worst to deal with in the dirty works of corporate politics.
Now go ahead and hate on me - but both men and women know this and feel this way. Not saying all women who fit the above profile are that way. but there are several who are stereotypical of this persona
I heard firsthand of unbelievable stories that fit right into this accucation. A pregnant rep was given birth control pill samples by her direct manager; as well as wrote out a name of an anti-depressant for her on company sticky note: Stating that she seemed to have post partum depression. I have had equally looney male and female managers, and of course, some great ones. All in all, in the corporate environment everyone needs to grow up and out of gender bias. All types of bias. Try to examine like a judge..who does the best job? The answer should be gender, ethnicity and color free.
I have heard of reps streching the maturnity leave and then quitting on their own on the first day. Yes, there have been abuses on that end. WHat I was talking about is a rep coming back for the first day and required to meet her District manager at 7:30 am not in her town but at the opposite end of the territory which was a 2 hour drive. So she needed to leave at 5:30 to make the meeting which I consider harassment. That seemed to happen every week at Pfizer. THe managers were pro's at retaliation and harassment. HR said they had a zero tolerance but HR did not seem to know what Harassment was. HR made that very clear that the managers could do anything they wanted and it was not harassment because they were trained not to harass their reps. However it appears just the opposite, they were trained to harass their reps and HR supported it no matter how bad it was.
During one maturnity leave at Pfizer, we had one rep sending all kinds of unapproved documents to physician's offices that were even marked do not show to physician. Boy, were the physicians upset. Of course Pfizer got rid of the reps that reported the problem and kept the rep doing all the illegal activity. She was the only rep that I ever saw that retured from matrunity leave and survived. That is what you call encouraging off-label marketing. THe rep was perfectly confident she could do anything she wanted and nothing would happen to her ans she was correct.
Insider, it may not surprise you therefore that at a DIA/DDMAC seminar I attended a number of years ago many of the examples of unapproved detail pieces were of Pfizer origin. Also, many reps were expert at Desktop Publishing, and were thus able to create "home made" detail pieces nearly identical to company approved but with the "right" messaging. An ex reg affairs colleage has a whole closetful of such violative material from Pfizer, which were "donated" by suspicious physicians.
Again pressing some billions from bad, bad European companies. The leader of the free world knows how to play the game (or change the rules if he's not winning) :-)
Keiner:
As I read the suit, it is now a civil action that the US Courts are providing a forum for pursuing. Six citizens of the US are seeking some millions - it isn't a government action against Bayer seeking 'billions.'
On that basis, the US gov't and 'leader of the free world' are uninvolved. Then again, perhaps your comment was misplaced?
I, for one, have learned not to bawk in shock at the misogyny that pops up in the comments whenever there's an article about gender discrimination.
Geez louise, where to begin in this sea of nonsense? First, let me recommend that anyone who wishes to opine on this case first read the attachment that details the complaint. Secondly, let me state for the record that I am a female working in the pharma industry. Do I think men are treated better? Yes, but it's because women cry "sexual discrimination" or "sexual harassment" every time they feel they've been slighted. What man runs to HR or to an ambulance chaser every time they have a complaint? Some of the complaints and evidence of discrimination brought forth by the plaintiffs in this case are laughable. One woman claims that because they hired a man from the outside for a position that she was interested in, she was discriminated against. I would be willing to bet that a casual observer could compare their CV's or answers to interview questions and figure out why the man was hired. Another woman blamed a miscarriage and her pregnancy-related breast cancer on discrimination. And she wonders why she wasn't selected for an Outcomes Research position in Oncology. And I'm sorry to say, but the complaint that a Jewish woman was asked "what a Jew like you is working at a German company" and then told to explain herself is just implausible. I hope she has three witnesses, because no one will believe that story. There is only one complaint that I thought had any merit and that is the case of a male at the same title as the plaintiff who was making $30K more a year. Sadly I do believe that story, and that is a legitimate complaint. The rest of the idiocy just serves to make all of us women look like fools. And one other thing--why is this suit filed in New Jersey? Oh yeah, that's right... New Jersey is favorable to plaintiffs. They can load the jury with those casino workers and the ambulance chasers will get their payday. Ka-ching! Oh, well, if New Jersey doesn't work out, they can try again in Detroit or Mississippi; other good plaintiffs' venues. And if those venues don't work out, maybe the women can start buckling down and exerting effort like the rest of us females who have to work twice as hard to overcome the negative representation made by people like these plaintiffs.
Where did you read about who the women were and what their position is/were. I am curious about the situation because I have observed similar situations with my employer and would like to see what grounds they have to pursue this.
to JK: It's in the link above (labeled "read it here").
Big shock. I still have nightmares about working at Novartis, and that was the Canadian division.
I really, really hate being a drug rep. I am trying very hard to save enough money to go back to school and leave this corrupt, conniving, bullshit job.
I ended up in pharma out of desperation. For nearly five years, until the recession of 2008, I was doing sales for an OTC cosmeceutical company. Much more fun. Until retail in my area plummeted and they had to cut back.
Now I am once again a pharmaweenie on contract, which is much easier to take as there far fewer pressures. The minute I get another offer, in a different sector (hopefully public) I am outta here for good.
Kudos to you folks who can take the crap and roll with it. I hope you retire well and give a big finger to the nightmare you leave behind.
FYI Ariz Mointer----
Women at the corporate level of pharma, and this is not to excuse their behaviour, have to be fiercer and nastier than the bastards they supercede. They have to play the game dirtier to get anywhere. And yes, I agree, they are the worst to work with.