The U.S. Mint in Denver has agreed to pay out nearly $9 million to its female employees to settle claims of sexual harassment, retaliation and discrimination. Observers believe it is the largest gender-discrimination settlement in Colorado history and the largest settlement made by the Mint for its employees in memory.
Roughly half of the Mint’s 132 female employees are expected to receive the money, based on individual claims that they were propositioned for sex by their managers; forced to endure displays of pornographic posters, sex magazines and e-mails of nude women; and retaliated against for speaking out.
The agreement was reached Thursday after two weeks of mediation in Denver. Lawyers on both sides said that they expect the agreement to be approved by an administrative law judge within the next three months and that the money could be distributed within a year.
“It’s about time,” press operator Jessie Solano said Friday. The 30-year-old Denver woman has been employed at the Mint for seven years.
Dan Shaver, chief counsel for the U.S. Mint headquarters in Washington and chief negotiator for the government, said the government has no plans to appeal the settlement.
“We hope it would be approved by the judge,” he said. “An individual may file an appeal. But I can’t imagine an appeal coming from us.”
Between 1998 and 2003, 102 formal complaints of job discrimination were filed against the Denver Mint, more than three times the complaints filed against the larger Philadelphia Mint.
In early 2003, 71 female employees filed a petition internally complaining about hostile working conditions, including sexual harassment and retaliation. A month later, 32 of the women filed a class complaint with the Denver office of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The EEOC certified the class complaint to include all female employees.
According to published reports, one female inspector found 40 to 50 sex magazines hidden in the ceiling of a men’s room, and stacks of sex magazines were found in a hidden area of the attic, next to a bare light bulb and what appeared to be a “masturbation area.”
The reports stated that one female employee returned from bereavement leave after burying her husband only to be propositioned by her supervisor. Other women complained that male workers offered to pay them for sex.
Becky Bailey, spokeswoman for the U.S. Mint in Washington, called the settlement a fair and just resolution, adding that it “reaffirms that the Denver Mint is a model workplace and one that fosters diversity and equal employment opportunity.” She said she knew of no other class complaint involving the Mint.
Denver lawyer Lynn Feiger said the class complaint includes all of the Mint’s 107 full-time and 25 on-call female employees, with about half of them having sufficient evidence to validate their claims to a portion of the $8.99 million settlement.
One former employee, April Garcia Kass, sued the Mint for discrimination and was awarded $80,000 by a 10-person federal jury in September 2005.
She was not part of the class complaint.
At a rally Friday evening outside the Mint, Sandy Gemeinhardt, who has worked at the Mint for 14 years as a federal police officer, said, “Some attitudes have changed (since the filing of the complaint), but some haven’t. This (settlement) will get their attention, I think.”
Staff writer Manny Gonzales contributed to this report.
Staff writer Mike McPhee can be reached at 303-820-1409 or mmcphee@denverpost.com.
