Benefits August 16, 2005

$40M Morgan Stanley Sex Discrimination Claims Fund to be Distributed

August 16, 2005 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - A $40 million sex discrimination claim fund from Morgan Stanley will be distributed to 67 current and former female employees from the company's Institutional Equity Division (IED).
Reported by

The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced in a Web statement that the fund would begin payouts. The fund was set up as part of the $54-million landmark settlement last year (See Morgan Stanley Agrees to $54M Sex Discrimination Settlement ).

Get more!  Sign up for PLANSPONSOR newsletters.

The EEOC’s lawsuit alleged that Morgan Stanley had engaged in a pattern of sex discrimination since 1995 against Allison Schieffelin and a class of other women. The allegations included claims that Morgan Stanley regularly excluded women from work-related outings, paid women less than male peers, and denied them warranted promotions.

According to the federal agency, the case settled on July 12, 2005, after a jury had been selected and just prior to opening arguments. The $54-million monetary award was structured so that Allison Schieffelin – who initiated the EEOC’s investigation by filing a charge of discrimination in 1998 – was paid $12 million; $2 million was to be spent by Morgan Stanley on new diversity initiatives in the division; and $40 million was earmarked for distribution to eligible claimants via a claims process to be administered by former federal Judge Abner Mikva as a court-appointed special master. The average award is about $606,000.

The three-year consent decree also provides for increased anti-discrimination training for associates and managers in IED and Morgan Stanley’s hiring of an outside monitor to assess the company’s compliance and field employee complaints.

“We are hopeful that this suit has changed discriminatory practices common to Wall Street,” Elizabeth Grossman, the EEOC’s New York District Acting Regional Attorney, said in the Web statement. “It should signal the industry that no matter how well-regarded a financial institution may be, there is no safe harbor for employment discrimination.”

Benefits August 15, 2005

Study: Health care System Costs Drive Consumer Costs

August 15, 2005 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - A new study conducted by Interactive Data Corp. (IDC) and Kronos Incorporated shows 85% of hospital executives believe if hospitals better addressed their controllable expenses it would alleviate the rise in health care costs.
Reported by

The study found that 30% of health care executives allocate more than 20% of their budget to agency costs to fill nursing and other essential positions, according to a Kronos press release. The company says more than 15% of the $1.7 trillion in health care spending goes to paying the salaries and benefits of hospital workers.

Get more!  Sign up for PLANSPONSOR newsletters.

But the study found that consumers are concerned that controlling labor costs would mean a decrease in health care quality. Only 20% of consumers believe the outlook for controlling US health care costs while maintaining health care quality is very favorable or favorable, compared to 55% of hospital executives. But those in health care believing managing workflow processes will allow staff to be able to focus more on the patient.

Hospital health care executives surveyed in the study cite labor productivity, a shortage of qualified nurses, and labor costs as three key controllable expenses for health care organizations. Their most common response to the question of how to solve today’s health care crisis was to invest in workforce management solutions.

“Reducing consumer health care costs is a lofty goal, but stabilizing these costs is achievable. Similar to taxes, when health care costs are stabilized, consumers benefit,” said Charlie DeWitt, senior director at Kronos Incorporated, in the news release.

The “Curing a Sick System” study surveyed 1,100 US consumers and 200 US hospital and health care financial executives to gauge their attitudes and perceptions on the health care system. Additional information on the study can be found here .

More information about Kronos Incorporated, a workforce management company, can be found at www.kronos.com .

«