Employees for Christ
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![Text Box: Marietta Goodman, Tai Laosebikan, and Sharron Mangum were class plaintiffs in the reported Coca-Cola $192.5 million dollar class action settlement before deciding to opt out to pursue their claims individually. They opted out for various reasons, but primarily to tell the story of the injustices African Americans, Latinos, Asian and women suffered on a day-to-day basis because of their ethnicity, religion, gender and/or sexual orientation, etc.
Here are their stories…
Marietta Goodman was hired by Coca-Cola as a Senior Administrative Assistant before her forced termination in 1999 after five years of service.
While employed at Coca-Cola Marietta witnessed and was subjected to derogatory comments about African Americans, Hispanics and other minorities. Her supervisor, a Caucasian female, expected her to provide maid services to her office and when Marietta wouldn’t comply enlisted the assistance of a temporary employee to berate her with obscenities and rude behavior.
Marietta witnessed a Caucasian manager mistreating and insulting African American employees almost daily. She also observed a Caucasian manager chasing an African American female down the corridor while screaming obscenities.
Marietta pay was significantly lower [by several thousands dollars] than her Caucasian counterparts.
Marietta filed multiple complaints in Human Resources, yet she received no assistance.
Upon her manager, a Caucasian male, learning that she had gone to HR, he held a secret meeting without her knowledge and preceded to solicit peers to create false testimony of her performance to fire her.
Tai Laosebikan who was a lead class action representative before opting out of the reported Coca-Cola $192.5 million dollar settlement, was employed as a Systems Analyst with Coca-Cola for ten years before uncovering that his manager was a career racist. He was fired in 1999 for allegedly exhibiting physical threatening and intimidating behavior towards his manager and peers.
Tai’s manager had a history of falsifying documents, which included performance appraisals, lying, harassing, intimidating, and slandering African American and minority employees.
Tai’s salary was significantly lower than his white peers despite having equal or more education and experience. He was passed over numerous times for promotions that his less qualified white peers received.
After Tai reported his findings to former CEO, Doug Ivester, he was fired in November 1999. However, it didn’t end here.
After opting out of the Race Discrimination Settlement and retaining an attorney to pursue his wrongful termination, Tai busted a conspiracy funded by Coca-Cola to use “forcible entry” into his home to murder him and his family and destroy taped evidence.
In addition, Tai states that Coke illegally edited his court transcript and videotaped deposition.
Sharron Mangum received a promotion to Human Resources prior to her malicious firing in 2003 from Coca-Cola. She was employed for nine years with a stellar performance record and without a single blemish within her personnel file.
Sharron was paid significantly less than her white colleagues and had a heavier workload when she was an Administrative Assistant in the Finance Department. She was also passed over four years consecutively for promotions while her peers received 3 to 4 position upgrades within a year.
As a Human Resources professional, Sharron honored her duty to inform Coke officials of the ongoing race discrimination, the gender discrimination, reverse discrimination, the harassment and threats that employees suffered daily. However, to her dismay, she was ostracized and alienated.
From 1999 to 2003 Sharron was set up for failure—documents she needed to perform her job were hidden, destroyed or removed from her office.
Coke officials sought the assistance of managers and peers to intimidate and physically harass Sharron daily. When none of these tactics worked, Sharron’s life was threatened.
After reporting to Coke officials in October 2002 and to her attorney, Willie Gary in December of 2002 that managers at Coca-Cola’s Atlanta Beverage Base Plant was running a billion dollar scam on women and minority owned businesses, Sharron was fired for allegedly hacking into a Coca-Cola computer.](image2598.gif)
