Soft drink giant Coca-Cola said today it would pay $8.1 million to compensate more than 2,000 mostly female employees after a federal audit and an internal company review found they were underpaid in 1999 and 2000.
Under the terms of an agreement the world's largest soft drinks company agreed to pay $4.2 million to 980 former and current employees who worked at Coca-Cola headquarters in Atlanta.
Federal agencies discovered the salary discrepancies, which affected workers in mostly professional-level positions, after conducting a review of Coca-Cola's pay practices between December 31st, 1998 and December 15th, 2000.
Coca-Cola also said it would pay an additional $3.9 million to 1,100 current and former employees in its North American division after an internal investigation turned up similar pay problems.
A handful of the workers due to receive payments are men.
Coca-Cola's decision to award back pay to the workers, some of whom were fired in a sweeping restructuring in 2000, came about a year after Coca-Cola agreed to pay $192.5 million to settle a racial discrimination lawsuit filed by black workers.
The suit claimed the company discriminated against blacks in pay, promotions and performance reviews. More than 85 per cent of the 2,200 Coke workers covered by the settlement eventually approved the deal.
A dissident group of black Coke workers, however, has filed a series of bias lawsuits demanding $1.5 billion in compensation for alleged racial bias. Coca-Cola has denied the allegations and vowed to fight the lawsuits vigorously.