Three former employees of Google have filed a class action lawsuit
against the internet company, alleging a pattern of discrimination
against women workers, including systemically lower pay than their male
counterparts.
The lawsuit was filed by ex-Googlers Kelly Ellis, Holly Pease, and
Kelli Wisuri in San Francisco Superior Court on Thursday, and follows a suit against the tech giant filed
earlier this year by the United States Department of Labor, which said
it found evidence of an "extreme" gender pay gap at the company.
The three claim that during the course of their respective time at
Google, which spans, between them, from 2005 through 2016, the company
"discriminated and continues to discriminate against its female
employees by paying female employees less than male employees with
similar skills, experience, and duties," reads the suit.
"The net result of this systemic discrimination is that Google pays women less than men for comparable work."
Kelly Ellis, an experienced software engineer, resigned from Google
in 2014 after four years "because of the sexist culture," says the
complaint.
The suit alleges that Ellis was "occupationally-segregated" into a
front-end role because of a "false and gendered perception at Google
that back-end software engineering is more technically rigorous, and
therefore more prestigious." Ellis observed that "almost all back-end
software engineers were men."
"I have come forward to correct a pervasive problem of gender bias at
Google," said Ellis in a statement on Thursday. "It is time to stop
ignoring these issues in tech."
Ellis and her two fellow plaintiffs claim to represent all women employed by Google and are seeking a jury trial. The class action case will draw on the Department of Labor's recent analysis,
which found between six and seven standard deviations between wage
rates of men and women based on a snapshot of the salaries of 21,000
workers at Google's Mountain View headquarters.
Google disputes Thursday's allegations, adding that they have "systems in place to ensure that [they] pay fairly."
"We work really hard to create a great workplace for everyone, and to
give everyone the chance to thrive here," said spokesperson Gina
Scigliano. "In relation to this particular lawsuit, we’ll review it in
detail, but we disagree with the central allegations."
"Job levels and promotions are determined through rigorous hiring and
promotion committees, and must pass multiple levels of review,
including checks to make sure there is no gender bias in these
decisions. And we have extensive systems in place to ensure that we pay
fairly. But on all these topics, if we ever see individual discrepancies
or problems, we work to fix them, because Google has always sought to
be a great employer, for every one of our employees."
Google found itself the subject of scrutiny from the alt-right and its allies in August after firing male engineer James Damore,
who wrote a manifesto of sorts, claiming there are biological reasons
women aren't equally represented in tech leadership, including
"neuroticism."
At the time, Google CEO Sundar Pichai issued a memo
of his own making it clear that while the company "strongly support[s]
the right of Googlers to express themselves," some of the content of the
viral document crossed the line by "advancing harmful gender
stereotypes," counter to the company's code of conduct.
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