NATIONAL BRIEFING

LABOR

Judge Certifies Class in FedEx Suit

A federal judge certified a class-action discrimination suit against FedEx based on allegations the delivery service paid thousands of current and former minority employees less than their white counterparts, skipped them for promotions and gave minorities poor work evaluations.

The case includes an estimated 10,000 hourly workers and about 1,000 low-level management employees in 14 Western states. James Finberg, an attorney for the class, said three times the number of package handlers and loaders are minorities compared with drivers, who earn more.

CONTRACTS

Former DHS Official Pleads Guilty

A former Department of Homeland Security official faces up to a year in prison and a fine up to $100,000 after pleading guilty yesterday to a conflict of interest charge, according to the U.S. Attorney for D.C. and the department's inspector general's office.

Andrea Grimsley, 57 of Fredericksburg, helped oversee a contract bidding process that involved McLean-based FedBid.com, a firm with which she was negotiating a job that she eventually accepted. Grimsley had been the chief of the headquarters support branch for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division of DHS.

COMPANIES

Pfizer said 23-year board member Stanley Ikenberry, president emeritus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, was elected leader of the company's 12 independent directors, effective Oct. 1. Pfizer is one of a number of U.S. companies that have named a lead director in response to shareholder pressure for separation of the roles of chairman and chief executive. At Pfizer's annual meeting this year, shareholders proposed splitting the positions and naming an independent director chairman.

Wells Fargo said its board amended the regional bank's corporate governance guidelines to give stockholders more say in elections. The new guidelines call for a director nominee in an uncontested election to tender his or her resignation for consideration by the Governance and Nominating Committee if a majority of the outstanding shares are designated as "withheld" from the election. The committee would then recommend board action on the resignation.

Compiled from staff and news service reports.