and ford. we go further, so you can. >> is this airline safe enough to fly? you should watch this story before you make your reservations. you're a former member of the n.t.s.b. would you fly on an allegiant plane? >> i have encouraged my family, my friends and myself not to fly on allegiant. >> what sets allegiant air apart from its competition can be found in public documents. an alarming number of aborted takeoffs, loss of cabin pressure, smoke and fumes in the cabin, unscheduled landings, and engine failures. >> he came on and he said, "the mechanics have been working on this right engine. we apologize for that. we'll get you up in the air as soon as possible." as we started taxiing, everything was going okay. and then it's like, as soon as the wheels came up, the engine blew.

>> oh, ( bleep ). >> we saw in our company a lot of meetings where there were just men. like, we would have a meeting and i would look around the room and i'm, like, "this meeting is just men. something is not right." >> that's not all that wasn't right at marc benioff's company, salesforce. to his great surprise, it turned out that despite a reputation for championing women, the company was paying men more than women for the same work. why do you think-- given your culture, why do you think it happened here? >> i think it's happening everywhere. >> but why particularly here, and why is it happening everywhere? >> there's a cultural phenomenon where women are paid less. >> i'm steve kroft. >> i'm lesley stahl. >> i'm scott pelley. >> i'm anderson cooper. >> i'm bill whitaker. those stories, tonight, on "60 minutes."

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>> kroft: allegiant air is a small, ultra-low-cost carrier based in las vegas, that happens to be one of the country's most profitable airlines. but, according to federal aviation records and interviews with pilots, mechanics and industry experts, it may also be the most dangerous. the airline flew 12 million passengers last year on its 99 planes to 120 destinations from california to florida. but it's had persistent problems since at least the summer of 2015, when it experienced a rash

of mid-air breakdowns, including five on a single day. it was not a fluke. public documents show an alarming number of aborted takeoffs, cabin pressure loss, emergency descents, and unscheduled landings. yet, for the most part, allegiant's difficulties have managed to stay under the radar of the flying public. it's entirely possible that you have never heard of allegiant, or flown on one of its planes. but if you shop for the cheapest ticket, live near cities like pittsburgh or cincinnati that are under-served by major airlines, or you rely on regional airports, then you probably recognize the company's colors and logo. allegiant has some of the lowest fares, the least frills, and the oldest fleet in the business. right now, nearly 30% of its planes are antiquated, gas-guzzling mcdonnell-douglas md-80s, almost all of them purchased second-hand from foreign airlines.

it also has more than its share of angry, traumatized passengers willing to share their experiences. >> dan mannheim: people are screaming. the stewardesses are running up and down the aisles. >> chris shuemake: the smoke started pouring in out of all the vents you know, started fig witsmoke. >> shanyl shuemake: all i kept thinking was, "thank god we're on the ground." >> kroft: for the past seven months, we have been scrutinizing "service difficulty reports" filed by allegiant with the f.a.a. they are official, self-reported records of problems experienced by their aircraft. what we found raised some disturbing questions about the performance of their fleet. between january 1, 2016 and the end of last october, we found more than 100 serious mechanical incidents, including mid-air engine failures, smoke and fumes in the cabin, rapid descents, flight control malfunctions, hydraulic leaks and aborted takeoffs. >> john goglia: something significant is going on, and it should be addressed.

>> kroft: we shared the reports with john goglia, who has more than 40 years of experience in the aviation industry, including nine years as a presidential appointee to the national transportation safety board. now retired, goglia remains a respected figure in the aviation industry, and occasionally testifies as an expert witness on safety issues. >> goglia: there's another one, engine fire. >> kroft: we wanted to know what he thought of allegiant's 60 unscheduled landings and 46 in-flight emergencies. i mean, is that common for an airline of this size? >> goglia: very, very high for an airline of this size. i hate to make comparisons, but we've seen that before, in airlines that are no longer with us, that had experienced a number of accidents and killed a bunch of people. i don't want to repeat that. so i try to push on allegiant to-- to-- clean up their operation. >> kroft: what do those reports say about allegiant? >> goglia: well, just the service difficulty reports say that somebody's not paying

attention. >> kroft: you're a former member of the n.t.s.b. would you fly on an allegiant plane? >> goglia: i have encouraged my family, my friends and myself not to fly on allegiant. >> kroft: we wanted to ask allegiant and its c.e.o., maurice gallagher, about all of this. what they gave us instead was a brief statement from their vice president of operations, which says, in part: "all of us at allegiant are proud of our strong safety record, as noted in the most current, comprehensive f.a.a. audit. safety is at the forefront of our minds and the core of our operations." but john goglia and other aviation experts we talked to aren't so sure. they believe allegiant's problems come from the confluence of its aggressive sind aafety culture they find to be lagging. the business strategy which has produced 60 straight quarters of profits, occasionally with margins approaching 30%, requires the airline to keep costs down and "push the metal:"

keep the planes flying as often as possible. but allegiant's aged fleet of md-80s, which it is phasing out and is responsible for most of its problems, require a lot of maintenance and reliable parts are hard to come by. is there anything that separates the maintenance systems at allegiant from the ones at the larger carriers? >> goglia: well, the first and most obvious piece is the lack of infrastructure. they don't have the number of mechanics. and we've seen some problems with the contractors that they've used. we're seeing problems that require feet on the ground, people looking at the airplanes when they're being worked on, so that these problems are caught during maintenance and not caught by the crew as a-- as a surprise and emergency. >> kroft: we found numerous planes with the same recurring issues and others returned to service before they were ready. like allegiant flight 533 last july, which was delayed in cincinnati on its flight to las vegas. mercedes weller and dan mannheim, who says he paid $80

for his roundtrip ticket to vegas, remember the pilot's announcement as they pushed away from the gate three hours behind schedule. >> mercedes weller: he came on and he said, "the mechanics have been working on this right engine. we apologize for that. we'll get you up in the air as soon as possible." as we started taxiing, everything was going okay. and then it's like, as soon as the wheels came up, the engine blew. here we go, we're taking off. say "blast off!" oh, ( bleep ). >> weller: the force of it was so hard that it-- it popped open the cockpit doors. and there was smoke in the cabin, and fire coming out of that engine. and i just remember thinking... that i would never see my daughter again. >> kroft: weller and mannheim said the plane had to circle at a low altitude on one engine for about 25 minutes while the airport ground crews cleared debris from the runway for an emergency landing. >> mannheim: everyone turned their phones back on, and i called my family, and, i was

pretty much telling them goodbyes. >> kroft: you thought this was it? >> weller: i texted my husband, and i said "if something happens, just know that i've been very happy, and i love you." >> kroft: the plane eventually landed safely back in cincinnati. for their trouble, allegiant offered to re-book mercedes and dan the next day, and gave everyone a $150 voucher. but that was not the only problem allegiant's small fleet encountered last july. there were nine other allegiant planes that also had to make unscheduled landings during that month. four of those planes had engine problems, two reported fumes in the cabin, four had instrument or flight control problems. and that's not all. over the course of one weekend in july, allegiant canceled or rescheduled 11 separate flights leaving las vegas, all for mechanical issues. >> goglia: you think that's a big red flag? >> kroft: something's wrong >> goglia: something's wrong. >> kroft: among the most

concerned are the people that have to fly the planes. daniel wells, a captain for atlas air with 30 years experience, is president of teamsters union 1224, which represents pilots from allegiant and nine other airlines. we wanted to know how unusual it was for a small airline with 99 planes to have 25 engine failures or malfunctions in less than two years. >> dan wells: well, i-- i don't have all the data in front of me to compare with other airlines. but i can say that those are extraordinarily high numbers. >> kroft: outside the norm? >> wells: outside the norm, for sure. if i come into a career as an airline pilot now, i will go my entire career, maybe 30 years, and never have an engine failure, ever. >> kroft: what are allegiant pilots telling you about their airline? >> wells: what i hear from hundreds of conversations with allegiant pilots is, the management of allegiant seems to denigrate the pursuit of safety. >> kroft: why are we unable to talk to any allegiant pilots? >> wells: well, i think that

says volumes about the company. i would love to put up some of the allegiant pilots. but they can't. and they can't because they know that they would be terminated. at the very least, disciplined. and that's just for speaking up about concerns. son thr behalf. >> kroft: captain wells says they have every reason to fear retaliation, considering what happened to one of allegiant's pilots three summers ago. on june 8, 2015, this allegiant md-80 jet with 141 passengers aboard had just left st. petersburg, florida for hagerstown, maryland when a flight attendant informed the pilot that there was smoke in the cabin. >> kroft: concerned about a fire, captain jason kinzer and his co-pilot made a quick decision. >> kroft: captain kinzer landed the plane, and was met at the end of the runway by fire and

rescue trucks that confirmed his concerns. >> kroft: it would take another 22 seconds, and prompting from ground control, before that voice identified himself as "rescue fire 2." but, with the clock ticking and confusing radio chatter, kinzer did what he had been trained to do. he deployed the emergency chutes and evacuated the aircraft, with eight people sustaining mostly minor injuries. the incident drew unwanted attention to allegiant, but nothing compared to what followed six weeks later, when the airline abruptly fired kinzer for his actions. >> wells: i haven't spoken to a single captain, both allegiant

and otherwise, that knows the details, that didn't say, "he absolutely did the right thing. and if i was there, i would have done exactly the same thing." >> loretta alkalay: i've never ever heard of an airline firing a pilot for an emergency evacuation. >> kroft: loretta alkalay has a lot of experience in things like this. she spent 30 years at the f.a.a., prosecuting enforcement cases in the northeast region. she was particularly annoyed by allegiant's letter of termination that blamed kinzer for what it called an "evacuation that was entirely unwarranted," and for not "striving to preserve the company's assets." >> alkalay: yeah, it's really-- it's really outrageous. and-- and that's where the f.a.a. should have stepped in, to look at the safety culture, because the message to all the other allegiant pilots is: "don't ever have an emergency evacuation if you don't see flames in the cockpit." i mean, that's-- what other message could you get? >> kroft: did the f.a.a. investigate? >> alkalay: i have been told that they never questioned the pilot.

>> kroft: we decided to question the f.a.a. as far as the f.a.a. is concerned, what's more important: the safety of the passengers, or the assets of the airliner? >> john duncan: certainly the safety of the passengers is what's always important. >> kroft: john duncan is the executive director of flight standards at the federal aviation administration. he oversees the operations, maintenance and airworthiness of all u.s. carriers. that doesn't seem to be the values of allegiant as expressed in this letter of termination. you've seen it, right? >> duncan: i've seen the letter, yes. but just that letter, and-- and nothing else, so i don't know the rest of the story in that regard. >> kroft: so, nobody asked you to conduct an investigation, so you haven't? >> duncan: to my knowledge, we haven't been asked to investigate, through a whistleblower complaint, the termination of the captain. >> kroft: what do you think the f.a.a. should have done? >> alkalay: well, they should have been all over that. i mean, it's outrageous. what kind of safety culture would allow that to happen? i mean, it's just so inimical to safety.

>> kroft: captain jason kinzer filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against allegiant, which is scheduled to be tried next month. as for the f.a.a., which is charged with enforcing airline safety in the u.s., it has not brought a single enforcement action against allegiant in nearly three years. how can that be? more on that when we come back. >> cbs money watch correspondents eshed by lincoln financial. no matter who you're rock -- responsible for, lincoln can >> good evening. tax day is tuesday. the i.r.s. says 80% of filers so far are getting refunds. president trump and japan's prime minister abe are expected to discuss trade this week. and bank of america, trucking giant and netflix report earnings tomorrow. i'm elaine quijano, cbs news. polk county is one of the counties

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>> kroft: allegiant air is an ultra-low-cost carrier primarily known for its rock-bottom fares and its high profit margins, but what really sets it apart from the competition is that its planes have been nearly 3.5 times more likely to have serious in-flight mechanical failures than other u.s. airlines. that figure comes from a seven- month review we conducted of safety records on file with the federal aviation administration. what's equally surprising to us is what some have called the f.a.a.'s passive approach to correcting allegiant's difficulties. it has to do with a change of policy. over the last three years, the f.a.a. has switched its priorities from actively enforcing safety rules with fines, warning letters and

sanctions, which become part of the public record, to working quietly with the airlines behind the scenes to fix the problems. it may well be what's allowed allegiant to fly under the radar. but loretta alkalay, who spent 30 years as an f.a.a. lawyer, says it does not absolve the agency of its responsibility to ensure airline safety. the f.a.a.'s job is to enforce airline safety, isn't it? isn't that part of its job? >> alkalay: yes. when the f.a.a. knows that an airline has a problem, or there are sufficient red flags, it is supposed to step in and protect the public, because airlines have to operate, by statute, to the highest level of safety. >> kroft: and there are red flags here, in the case of allegiant. >> alkalay: yes, there's definitely red flags. >> kroft: but you wouldn't know it, talking with the f.a.a. wesked john duncan, the executive director of flight standards, to comment on the more than 100 serious mechanical incidents we found at allegiant in a 22-month period ending last october.

multiple engine failures, aborted takeoffs, cabin pressure loss. that's 100 serious incidents. >> duncan: and we take those very seriously. and we look at each one of them. we look for the root cause, and, and then we address that root cause, and assure that a fix is put in place to make sure that that problem is resolved and doesn't reoccur. >> kroft: and you're satisfied that all of the problems with allegiant have been fixed? >> duncan: we're satisfied that, that we are-- we are taking the appropriate actions, with regard to allegiant and every other carrier that we work with, to make sure that those problems have been-- have been appropriately dealt with. >> kroft: looking at the f.a.a.'s records, you would have to conclude that that is a very optimistic assessment. go back to august 17, 2015, around the time the f.a.a. switched priorities from enforcement to compliance, and you can see the differences in their approach. allegiant flight 436 was leaving

las vegas full of passengers when it nearly crashed on takeoff. barreling down the runway, the pilot had trouble controlling the plane. running out of asphalt, he made a last-second decision to abort, traveling at 120 knots per hour, barely avoiding disaster. >> goglia: something inside him said, "i'm not putting this in the air." and thank god he didn't, because that was-- going to result in a bad outcome. >> kroft: the problem turned out to be a missing cotter pin that holds together essential components necessary for the pilot to fly the plane. john goglia is a former member of the national transportation safety board. >> goglia: i mean, this is a critical flight control. so this isn't-- isn't fixing a coffee maker. this is fixing a critical flight component. and obviously, that wasn't done adequately. >> kroft: according to the detailed report from the f.a.a. investigator, allegiant and its maintenance contractor, a.a.r., failed to perform procedures that would have caught the

error, no less than five times. the report called it "a deliberate and systemic act of non compliance" that had endangered thousands of passengers on more than 200 subsequent allegiant flights. the inspector recommended strong enforcement action and maximum fines, but superiors, citing the new compliance philosophy, ignored the recommendations and closed the case. >> alkalay: actually, the file called for a much larger investigation, but the f.a.a. just said, basically, letter of correction, which means nothing. >> kroft: so, it wasn't even a slap on the wrist. >> alkalay: right. >> kroft: or barely a slap on the wrist. >> alkalay: well, letters of correction are nothing. they are not enforcement action. there's no record. i mean, the f.a.a. knows that there's a letter of correction, but you can't use it to augment a sanction. they're just-- they're basically nothing. >> kroft: are you aware that your own investigator recommended a heavy fine? >> duncan: yes. >> kroft: and yet, to our

knowledge, there was no enforcement action. no fine. >> duncan: so, as we-- >> kroft: nothing other than what's been described to us as not even a slap on the wrist. that was a major screw up, wasn't it? >> duncan: this was certainly a major event. and-- and so, our charge in these kinds of events is to assure that they don't happen again. >> kroft: this was three years ago. i mean, this was 2015. and we've had all these other incidents, these 100 incidents, that have occurred since then. it seem like they're on top of it? >> duncan: all those incidents have been addressed, as i've described multiple times. >> kbathonly people that seemed to be paying attention to allegiant were reporters at the "tampa bay times." the airline has a major hub in st. petersburg, and the paper began keeping track of allegiant's missteps, digging into records and documenting the potential dangers. the coverage prodded the f.a.a.

to undertake a thorough review of allegiant's operations in april of 2016. three months later, the f.a.a. concluded there were no serious deficiencies, re-certified the airline for five more years, and says it has been monitoring ever since without noticing any systemic problems. but last july, while allegiant was having a very bad month, we decided to follow up where the "tampa bay times" had left off, to see if the airline had improved its operations. we filed a freedom of information request with the f.a.a. asking for more than a year's worth of mechanical interruption summary reports from allegiant, and seven other airlines so we could make a comparison. we received the documents for every airline except allegiant, which objected to their release. what do you make of that? >> goglia: well, obviously, they have something to hide. and you have a number of them from other airlines-- a whole stack from united airlines. calls into question why allegiant is stopping it. you know, is there something

there that they don't want you to see? is there something there that the f.a.a. doesn't want you to see, either? so that actually points at both of them. >> kroft: seven other airlines had no problem with us looking at their records. >> duncan: i appreciate that. >> kroft: only allegiant. >> duncan: i have no idea what their rationale is in that regard. >> kroft: six days after this interview, the f.a.a. overruled allegiant's objections and produced the documents. they showed, on average, that the airline was nearly 3.5 times more likely to have mid-air breakdowns than american, united, delta, jetblue and spirit. but even more disturbing are new allegations from the ranks of allegiant's own pilots. their union president, captain daniel wells, says he's concerned that allegiant is trying to gain a competitive cost advantage by softening safety standards adhered to by the major airlines; that pilots are being told to think twice before declaring costly

emergencies; and that allegiant's maintenance department tries to talk pilots out of reporting problems with their aircraft, to avoid delays and keep the planes moving. >> wells: what i hear from the allegiant pilots are, they get a call from maintenance control, from-- who is an agent of the company, and says, "you didn't write anything up, did you?" meaning, you didn't notice any maintenance problems on the airplane. and that's a very clear message to send to pilots, that the company is discouraging you from recording maintenance deficiencies. >> kroft: is that legal? >> wells: no, because our captains are required to report any mechanical deficiencies of an aircraft. >> kroft: in response, allegiant's statement to us says, in part, "any employee who fails to report safety-related concerns through available channels is in violation of company policies, and may also be in violation of federal regulations." the head of the pilots' union told us that allegiant's maintenance operation is

discouraging pilots from reporting mechanical difficulties on the flights. would that alarm you? >> duncan: certainly discouraging pilots from reporting legitimate maintenance problems would concern me a great deal. >> kroft: that's against the law, isn't it? i mean-- >> duncan: it's certainly against-- >> kroft: --aren't pilots required to report this? >> duncan: they are. it certainly doesn't meet the safety standards that we would anticipate. >> kroft: have you ever heard this before? >> duncan: i have not. >> kroft: is that something you might look into? >> duncan: it's something that we do look into on a routine basis, yes. >> kroft: is it something you will look into? >> duncan: it's something we will continue to look into. >> kroft: it must be noted that there has been a sharp drop-off in the number of allegiant's service difficulty reports, since we notified the airline and the f.a.a. that we were working on this story and began requesting information. it may have to do with the fact that allegiant replaced ten of its old md-80s with new aircraft from airbus. but we do know that this serious

incident that occurred in september is not reported in the public record. allegiant flight 514 had just landed in fresno, california and was rolling up to the gate, when it suddenly stopped short as the cabin began to fill with fumes and smoke. scott shuemake, his brother, chris, and sister-in-law, shanyl, were on the plane. >> scott shuemake: i'll never forget this, the most absurd thing i've ever heard in my life. captain comes on and says, "ladies and gentlemen, we've been informed there's-- there's smoke in the cabin. please start breathing through your shirts." >> chris shuemake: "--your shirts." >> kroft: through your shirt? >> all: yeah. >> kroft: was it hard to breathe? >> shanyl shuemake: you couldn't. >> chris shuemake: the crying flight attendants walking around kind of blindly-- >> scott shuemake: not making eye contact. >> chris shuemake: yeah, not making eye contact, blindly handing out wet cocktail napkins. >> shanyl shuemake: she's just crying. >> chris shuemake: and saying, "breathe through this." >> kroft: the oxygen masks in the cabin didn't deploy, and the passengers say minutes went by before the crew moved to get them off the plane. >> scott shuemake: we're like, "open the damn door. we just need some fresh air. like, it's okay that, you know,

there's a problem. you guys can take your time tof, but open the door." >> kroft: so, how long were you on the plane? >> chris shuemake: 12 to 15 minutes. >> scott shuemake: 12 to 15 minutes, yeah. literally just breathing this, this white substance. >> kroft: the captain eventually dropped the stairs at the back of the plane and passengers evacuated one by one and walked across the taxiway to the terminal, but not before receiving one last instruction from the cabin crew. >> shanyl shuemake: they said, "make sure you take your carry- ons." >> chris shuemake: so then they, yeah, they told us, come on, say, "take your carry-ons and exit the plane out the rear." >> kroft: allegiant has yet to tell passengers what they were breathing, but the airline confirmed to us that the fumes were from skydrol 4, a hazardous hydraulic fluid. in a brief statement the day of the incident, allegiant said only that "a mechanical issue arose that caused a visible haze to appear. passengers deplaned with any carry-on items" and "proceeded to the terminal, per normal procedures." >> scott shuemake: they can't have the image on the 6:00 news of a bunch of passengers jumping

with their-- with their arms crossed on a yellow-- on a yellow slide. the fact that they made such a big deal about reminding us to take our carry-on bags as we're getting off the plane. in-- >> shanyl shuemake: so it'd look normal. >> scott shuemake: yeah. there was nothing normal about the way we deplaned that aircraft. >> kroft: do you think the general public is aware of the issues involving allegiant? >> alkalay: no, no. people believe that if they hold a certificate and they're flying, they must be safe. the f.a.a.'s on it. >> kroft: but the f.a.a. is not on it, you say. >> alkalay: it does not appear that they are on it when it comes to allegiant, no. >> kroft: most of the public is also unaware that allegiant's c.e.o., maurice gallagher, was one of the founders of valujet, another low-cost carrier with the same business model as allegiant. valujet never recovered from the crash of one of its planes in the everglades in may of 1996. loretta alkalay, like the former n.t.s.b. member, john goglia, says she would never fly allegiant. do you know anybody in the industry that-- that flies allegiant?

>> alkalay: no. no. and i know that a lot of people talk about how they don't fly allegiant, so it's very concerning. i know people that worked at the f.a.a. who say they would never fly allegiant. >> kroft: i mean, that's quite an admission. i mean, this just seems like one of those secrets that everybody knows, and then if you have a plane go down, it'll all come out. >> alkalay: you know, if, god forbid, there is an accident, i think there will be a lot of people saying, "well, we knew. we knew and we did nothing." >> steve kroft's own history of a close call in the air. >> kroft: you know, i've been in a plane crash. >> at 60minutesovertime.com, sponsored by lyrica. before i had the shooting, burning, pins and needles of diabetic nerve pain these feet... ... made waves in high school... ... had a ball being a dad... ...and built a career in construction. but i couldn't bear my diabetic nerve pain any longer. so i talked to my doctor and he prescribed lyrica.

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>> stahl: the "me too" movement has shaken the workplace to its core. it has such power that it has come to mean more than sexual harassment. "me too" is now also about the issue of unequal pay between men and women. according to the u.s. census bureau, a woman made 60 cents for every dollar made by a man in 1960. 40 years later, in 2000, that gap had been narrowed by just a

dime. and it has taken nearly two decades more to shave another dime off the gap. today, women still make 20% less on average than their male counterparts. a tech company called salesforce is the perfect example of just how tough it can be to close that remaining pay gap. salesforce is huge. 30,000 employees, $10 billion in annual revenue, and it was just ranked by "fortune" as the number one best place to work among big companies. that helps explain why founder and c.e.o. marc benioff was so cocky when the woman who runs his human resources department came to talk to him in 2015 about equal pay. so, when cindy robbins came to you and said, "do you know we may have a problem with unequal pay in the company?" what was your reaction? >> marc benioff: well, i said, "that's not possible here." you know, it's-- it's not possible.

>> stahl: why was it impossible? >> benioff: it's impossible because we have a great culture here. we're a-- we're a best place to work. and we don't do that kind of thing. we don't play shenanigans paying people-- paying people unequally. it's unheard of. it's crazy. >> stahl: crazy, because benioff had already made promoting and retaining women a priority at salesforce. but personnel chief cindy robbins says he'd never ordered an audit to make sure men and women were being paid equally. did you suspect that there was a problem? >> cindy robbins: i suspected there was some level of disparity because we've never really had this as part of our pay philosophy or as our pay culture. >> stahl: and the assumption was it was true in all companies, at that point. >> robbins: it was. started to be talked about, but not really. and what i told marc was, "the one thing we can't do is do the assessment, look u >> stahl: so, did you agree to the audit just to prove to her that she was wrong?

>> benioff: i really felt that there's no way that this can be true. >> stahl: but you said, "let's do the audit." >> benioff: i said, "well, we have to do it." you know, she-- she actually, she said, "well, do you agree that we're going to pay men and women equally?" i said, "of course i agree." "well, you-- you know that-- what-- what it's going to cost you, don't you?" "i don't know. what is it going to cost me?" "well, i don't know. you have to agree first." so, i said, "okay, i agree. i agree. all right, let's do this." >> stahl: so they did the audit, and benioff found that salesforce did have a persistent pay gap between women and men doing the same job. and it was widespread? it was a lot of cases? >> benioff: just everywhere. it was through the whole company, every division, every department, every geography. >> stahl: so how did you remedy that? >> benioff: we said, we're going to pay men and women equally at salesforce, and we're going to go through and we're going to level set every job and every division, every department. and we're going to make sure that we have gender equality. >> stahl: so when you went to correct, how much did it

actually cost? >> robbins: it cost about $3 million, for us to do those adjustments the first year. >> stahl: more than 10% of the women at salesforce got bigger paychecks. as a pioneer in cloud computing, salesforce was already a powerhouse at the time-- the fastest growing software company ever. 150,000 companies use its products to manage every detail of their relationship with their customers. one of the reasons it's considered such a great place to work is that, from 1999, when he founded the company, benioff has emphasized philanthropy and social responsibility. he pays employees to give their time to local schools and charities, and salesforce has donated more than $180 million to non-profits. why do you think-- given your culture, why do you think it happened here? >> benioff: i think it's happening everywhere. >> stahl: but why particularly here, and why is it happening

everywhere? >> benioff: there's a cultural phenomenon where women are paid less, and the world economic forum says that it'll take more than 100 years for us to pay men and women equally. so we better get going now. ( laughs ) >> ellen kullman: i think what he's doing is absolutely phenomenal. and he is committed. >> stahl: ellen kullman is the former c.e.o. of dupont, and now co-chairs an organization of high-powered businesswomen pushing for equality in the corporate world. >> kullman: our daughters are facing the same issues that we faced early in our career. and we made a decision that unless people like us did something about it, who would? >> stahl: what they did was form paradigm for parity, which basically tries to jawbone big- company c.e.o.s into closing their gender gaps. >> kullman: what we're saying is they should have gender parity at senior leadership in the company. that means 50% of your most

senior leaders are women. >> stahl: so it's not about pay. it's really about numbers of women in the upper echelon. >> kullman: so, pay's an outcome of an un-level playing field. until you level that playing field, you're going to get that same outcome. >> benioff: we saw in our company a lot of meetings where there were just men. like, we would have a meeting and i would look around the room and i'm, like, "this meeting is just men. something is not right." >> stahl: and these would be the leadership meetings. >> benioff: these would be a leadership meeting. and then i said to myself, "i am not going to have any more meetings that aren't at least a third women." >> stahl: really? >> benioff: absolutely. >> stahl: but that meant giving everybody promotions. >> robbins: not necessarily. it meant identifying who the high-potential women were. >> stahl: potential. >> robbins: yes. >> stahl: okay. >> robbins: so, a door opened. our job was to stay invited to these meetings, going forward. >> stahl: technology companies are notoriously male-dominated, both in their overall workforce and in management. so, achieving power parity in silicon valley is a struggle.

so, what percent of the leaders in this company are women? >> robbins: 20% of our leadership are women. >> stahl: what would you like? >> robbins: oh, well-- >> stahl: 50%? >> robbins: i would love 50%. >> stahl: yeah, there you go. >> robbins: i'm a woman, you know? i'm an executive. >> stahl: did you yourself, in your career, ever discover that you were being paid less than a man who was doing a comparable job? >> robbins: you know, there were times in my career where i said, "i don't know if this is the right pay." and i kind of thought, "well, if i say something, it's going to go up the chain. and do i want to be viewed as the complainer?" right? >> stahl: this is so what women across the board fear. women are afraid to ask for a raise. this is a huge problem that we have. >> robbins: uh-huh. >> benioff: this is part of a total package. you can't look at one of these things independent of the other. you know, at some point you're going to ask me about "me too." because that's the fourth door.

you know, you can say equal opportunity is one critical part of gender equality. then you can say equal advancement, that's a critical part of gender equality. then you can say equal pay, that's the third door. and the fourth door is preventing sexual harassment. all of these things together is gender equality. >> stahl: one recent case of gender inequality in hollywood got so much attention, that it ended up in jimmy kimmel's monologue at the oscars. >> jimmy kimmel: and we all know the story. mark wahlberg was paid $1.5 million to re-shoot his scenes, while michelle williams, for her re-shoots, got per-diem. she was paid $80 a day for the same thing. >> stahl: ironically, the re- shoots were for a film titled "all the money in the world." >> kimmel: to his credit, mark wahlberg announced he would be donating all $1.5 million to the time's up legal defense fund. ( applause ) so i guess now the ball's in your court, michelle. what are you going to do with that 80 bucks? ( laughter ) >> stahl: we had the "me too"

women speak up, and now we've had a rash, small rash, but a rash of women speaking out and saying, "i'm not paid the same." it's interesting that it's coming at the same time as "me " it-- it's as if women are gaining muscles. >> kullman: it's about time. >> stahl: when ellen kullman was running dupont, she found that one thing holding women back-- especially when it came to promotions-- was unconscious bias. >> kullman: and the perception is, do they need longer in a job to prove themselves, as opposed to a man? we were promoting women every 30 to 36 months into the same kind of jobs as we were promoting men every 18 to 24 months. so if you go out ten years, they're being paid vastly differently. >> stahl: i'm going to read you a statistic. when men had children, their earnings went up 6%. so they're rewarded for being a father. when women have children, their earnings decrease 4% with each child. >> kullman: unconscious bias.

the assumption that they're not committed. the assumption that they won't be there when you need them. >> jill: our example is-- shannon is the proud parent of a new baby boy. >> stahl: some companies are now offering their employees unconscious bias training sessions, in which facilitators try to help people identify attitudes they may not even know they have. >> jill: shannon is a woman who returned to work last month after taking maternity leave. the assumption is, shannon will be tired, not able to give work her full attention. and the conclusion is, i'd better not give shannon any challenging tasks. she won't be able to concentrate. >> stahl: that's the so-called mommy penalty. at salesforce, they have worked to address it by offering on-site daycare, generous family leave, flexible schedules, and now, equal pay. but benioff has found out just how hard bringing that about really is. >> benioff: we did it the first time. we were so happy with ourselves. it was great. then all of a sudden, we kind of

did our audit again, and the same thing happened again. we're, like, "how can this be?" but it turned out we had bought about two dozen companies. and guess what? when you buy a company, you don't just buy its technology, you don't buy its culture, you also buy its pay practices. >> stahl: so, they would come in, and the men were paid much more and then that got eaten up into your statistics, into your audit. so you had to redo the whole thing all over again, costing as much as the first time. >> benioff: it cost us as much as the first time. in total, it's now cost us $6 million. >> stahl: are you going to have to do this audit every year? >> benioff: more than every year. we're going to have to do this continuously. this is a constant cadence. you're going to have to constantly monitor and keep track of that, but that's easy today. we run our company the same way every company is run, with computers and technology and software. what do you think, that we're running our pay scales on 3x5 cards? >> robbins: there is power in data.

i'm looking at all forms of data now that i was not looking at a couple years ago, in my role. i'm looking at how women and men are given merit increases, stock grants, promotions, and taking a look at, "is there bias? is there disparity?" >> benioff: hello, i'm marc benioff, i'm the c.e.o. of salesforce.com. >> stahl: benioff's become a national figure, an activist c.e.o. who takes public positions on controversial issues. in 2015, he threatened to pull salesforce investments from states that passed anti-gay or anti-transgender laws. now, his cause is equal pay for equal work. this is your passion. >> benioff: this is part of who i have become as a leader, that i believe, as a c.e.o., that i can show other c.e.o.s how to create a great culture in their company. you can't be a great c.e.o. and say that i'm not committed to gender equality today.

i-- i don't think it's possible. >> stahl: well, you say that companies have to do this, but you are talking to c.e.o.s, some of whom are telling you, "i can't do this." >> benioff: many c.e.o.s will just simply say, "i'm not interested." i've had c.e.o.s call me and say, "this is not true. this is not real." and i'll say to them, "this is true, look at the numbers." >> stahl: look at your own numbers. >> benioff: look at your own numbers. >> stahl: for many years, c.e.o.s have publicly embraced the concept of equal pay, but then complained about how hard it is to get there. remember that prediction that it'll take 100 years to get to pay parity? 100 years, really? >> benioff: oh, it's crazy, isn't this? >> stahl: yeah. >> benioff: this is ridiculous. >> stahl: it won't take 100 years, or will it? >> benioff: well, you know, i mean, there is a lot of resistance. but this, there's never been an easier time to make this change. c.e.o.s, with one button on one computer, can pay every man and every woman equally. we have the data. we know what everyone makes. there's no excuse. everybody can easily do this now.

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>> kroft: 50 seasons of "60 minutes:" from april 15, 2001. mike wallace set out to interview mel brooks about his broadway show, "the producers," but mel brooks had his own idea.

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