CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A Northeast Ohio company has agreed to pay $2 million to settle a sex discrimination lawsuit brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Glunt Industries, which is headquartered in Warren, was accused of refusing to hire women to work in its plants and in management and retaliating against a female human resources representative who hired three women.

The money will go toward backpay and damages for women who were discriminated against, according to court records. The company also agreed to change its policies and provide records to the EEOC, including any sex discrimination complaints for the next two years.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Boyko has to sign off on the settlement before it becomes official.

Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer reached out to the company and its attorneys for comment. The company denied the accusations and did not admit to any wrongdoing as part of the settlement.

Glunt is a large fabricating and machine operation company with some 225,000 square feet of production space at several plants in Northeast Ohio.

The EEOC sued Glunt in 2024.

The commission accused the company of failing to hire women at its plants for years and noted in its lawsuit that the plants didn't have women's restrooms.

In 2019, Glunt hired Ginger Burns as its human resources manager, the company's first woman in a management position, according to the lawsuit.

Burns hired three women -- one to work in one of its plants and two others as project managers. In 2021, Glunt officials fired the three women from their jobs and forced out Burns the next year, solely because they were women, according to the lawsuit.