Coors Brewing was accused of age bias
Past litigation haunts rivals
By Arthur Kane
Denver Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 08, 2004 -
During the time Republican U.S. Senate candidate Pete Coors was a top executive at the Coors companies, more than two dozen former employees sued the Golden brewer, alleging age discrimination that violated federal law.
The brewing company, which settled the five lawsuits that combined had 30 plaintiffs, repeatedly laid off older workers and replaced them with younger employees who were paid less and did not cost the company as much in benefits, lawsuits filed between 1993 and 1996 charged.
Two of the lawsuits claim the company had a "pattern" of discrimination. It is unclear how much money the company paid to its former employees because the settlements are confidential.
Pete Coors touts his experience as a businessman as he campaigns to represent Colorado in the U.S. Senate.
Some former employees said the age discrimination accusations call into question how he ran the company.
"Ever since 1985, they started laying off people and seemed to zero in on older workers," said Thornton resident Kenneth Arthur, who worked as an engineer at Coors for more than 20 years before being laid off in 1992. "You eventually knew it was going to be your turn."
Others blame midlevel managers and support Coors' campaign.
Coors campaign spokeswoman Cinamon Watson declined to comment on the lawsuits and said Coors would not talk about them. "You'll have to get all the comments from the company," she said Thursday.
Company spokeswoman Aimee Valdez said Coors has not had a large number of lawsuits and age- discrimination complaints for a company with more than 5,000 employees.
Discrimination "charges and litigation are pretty much facts of life, and Coors has had relatively few cases," Valdez said. She said the company did not have a pattern of targeting older workers for layoffs.
In the past five years, she said, Coors employees filed 13 complaints with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which investigates workplace discrimination.
Ten of those complaints, which are confidential, were dismissed by the federal agency or by the courts. One was handled through mediation, and two are pending, she said.
Court documents and interviews show that Pete Coors knew about the allegations of age discrimination.
Denver attorney Charles Welton, who represented seven former Coors security employees in a lawsuit, said his clients told Pete Coors they were being discriminated against, but he did not intervene.
Boulder resident Marlene Seader said Pete Coors recorded a companywide voice mail warning of cuts.
It was about two weeks before Christmas 1991, and Seader, then 51, was going on vacation. Her supervisor, she said, assured Seader her job in the company's meetings and events department was safe.
During her vacation, she was called to a meeting at which she was told that after 13 years with the company, she would be laid off.
"He just failed to step up," said Seader, one of the plaintiffs in the 1993 lawsuit. "I had never been laid off before, but for them it's just business."
The lawsuits charge the company dismissed older employees to cut costs, violating a federal law designed to protect older workers from discrimination.
"Defendant Coors was extremely concerned about the age of its workforce and the costs associated with the higher salaries and medical benefits of older workers," the 1993 lawsuit, with 18 plaintiffs, charged.
"Coors developed a company- wide scheme to eliminate older employees and hire younger employees. Numerous supervisors told their employees that they intended to hire only younger workers."
Valdez said there was no discrimination and that hundreds of employees in the past decade took voluntary retirement without complaint.
Martin Katz, a professor at the University of Denver's Sturm College of Law, said big companies are sometimes targeted for discrimination lawsuits, but a large number of plaintiffs often signals a problem.
"Where there's smoke, there's fire," he said, adding that top executives would likely know about the problem and should have stepped in. "Thirty (plaintiffs) sounds like a fairly large number."
Kenneth Arthur, whose wife was ill and dependent on his medical insurance, said he was rehired as a temporary employee at about half the salary soon after he was laid off.
He scoffs at Pete Coors touting his credentials as good businessman and a good citizen in the community.
"I think he's not truthful at all," he said. "He's eliminated way more jobs than he's ever created.
