Taking the Tube

NBC has glumly maintained radio silence since the news broke last week: the network agreed to shell out $2 million to settle a sex-discrimination suit brought by women employees in 1975.

As indirect acknowledgment that NBC has practiced sex discrimination, some $1.6 million in raises and back pay will go to former and present employees The rest of the money will go for legal fees and a staff to monitor compliance with the settlement. NBC also agreed to move women into 15% ol its high-level jobs by 1981.

NBC's settlement is just the latest in a string of whopping payoffs in sex-and minority-discrimination suits. AT& T agreed to payments totaling $75 million, mostly to women. Similar proceedings have cost Merrill Lynch $ 1.9 million and Bank of America more than $3 million. Northwest Airlines is fighting a court decision ordering it to pay compensation to some 3000 stewardesses. The cost could run to $40 million. Current targets of such suits include Reader's Digest, Newsday, Saks Fifth Avenue and nine high-priced Manhattan restaurants that refuse to hire women as waitresses. One restaurant that has already knuckled under: New York's venerable "21," which recently paid damages and hired its first women to wait on tables.

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