State - Lansing Dems question Snyder role in discrimination claims

By Kathy Barks Hoffman AP Political Writer LANSING, Mich. (AP) -- Democrats are using allegations of job discrimination against women while Rick Snyder was president of Gateway Inc. to question the leadership abilities of the GOP gubernatorial candidate who has promoted himself as a savvy businessman. Lieutenant governor candidate Brenda Lawrence said the U.S. Labor Department claim that the computer maker denied support technician jobs to 26 qualified female applicants in 1996 creates doubt about Snyder's commitment to women's rights. "Can we trust the administration of Rick Snyder to look out for us women?" Lawrence asked this week at a news conference. "We deserve leadership that is going to fight for us." Snyder campaign spokesman Bill Nowling said Tuesday that Gateway decided to settle the case even though it disagreed with the finding, and that the attacks are just political bluster. "What we have is Rick's opponent, who's trailing badly in the polls -- especially among women -- resorting to the same old Lansing political tricks to scare voters," Nowling said. Gateway settled the case in 1998 without admitting any wrongdoing, offering to hire the women and give each $4,630 in back pay, according to a Labor Department statement from July 14, 1998. Snyder is leading Democratic rival Virg Bernero in recent polls. The Ann Arbor businessman has campaigned as an outsider without political baggage who's the best choice to revamp state government and the struggling economy. Bernero has tried to appeal to female voters by contrasting his support for abortion rights with Snyder's opposition to abortion except in cases of rape, incest and to save the mother's life. The Democrat has also raised questions before about Snyder's record at Gateway, running a television ad noting that the company laid off thousands of workers while Snyder was a company director. A similar charge was made in an ad paid for by the Michigan Democratic State Central Committee, which also noted that Snyder made millions of dollars from selling his Gateway stock. Snyder joined Gateway when it was a fledgling computer maker in 1991, becoming president and chief operating officer in January 1996 before leaving management in August 1997. He remained on Gateway's board of directors until the company was sold to Taiwan-based Acer Inc. in 2007, returning for seven months in 2006 as interim CEO. The Department of Labor's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs discovered Gateway's alleged hiring issues in 1997 during a routine review. At the time, Gateway had $265 million in federal contracts with the General Services Administration and the National Air and Space Administration. The agency's investigation determined that Gateway's initial application review process screened out qualified women at a much higher rate than men for positions at a call center in Hampton, Va. In the 1998 release, the Labor Department said it was pleased with Gateway's steps "to resolve the problem and assure equal employment opportunity for all applicants in the future." Published: Thu, Sep 23, 2010