Unlawful gender and racial bias against women and Asians in the hiring process at Google will cost the company $2.6 million. Additionally, the U.S. Department of Labor is requiring the tech giant to review its practices for hiring and pay, fund an independent study on is own gender pay equity and provide the government routine updates on its efforts to reduce gender pay equity.
The lawsuit came about as part of a federal government contractor audit of numerous Google sites in California, Washington state and New York. That analysis revealed numerous indicators that the company was not in compliance with an executive order that prohibits discrimination in federal contractor hiring and wages.
The analysis indicated that over a three-year span starting in 2014, the company paid female engineers in numerous offices (including in California) substantially less than male engineers for the same jobs. Further, evidence indicated the company discriminated against women and Asian applicants applying to be engineers at several California sites.
A spokeswoman for the company released a statement saying the company is committed to fair pay and hiring practices, and has run its own internal pay equity research each year. Nearly 2,600 female engineers are eligible to collect back pay for the settlement, as are nearly 3,000 women and Asian applicants who were illegally denied a fair chance at a job.
In exchange for agreeing to the settlement terms for early resolution, the tech company is shielded from another government audit of is nearly 40 facilities nationwide for the next five years. The government can, however, file another lawsuit if the company violates any part 0f the agreement.
This is far from the first time Google has been accused of bias against its female employees. In fact, a class-action lawsuit pending since 2017 alleges women across the board at the company are cheated out of thousands of dollars annually ($2,000 on average) because they aren’t paid as much as their male counterparts. Further, plaintiffs say women are funneled into lower-paying career tracks. In some cases, women may be losing out on as much as $17,000 a year due to discriminatory job classifications and If the plaintiff employees win that case, it could mean back pay for nearly 11,000 women who have been employed by the company since 2013.
Los Angeles Employment Discrimination Lawyers Fight for You
It’s not just multi-billion-dollar tech companies that have issues with racial discrimination and gender discrimination in pay and hiring. The reality is, American workplaces have long been rife with discrimination and harassment, especially for those who are not white, light-skinned, male, straight, single, young and able-bodied.
Since 2000, nearly every single Fortune 500 company has paid a settlement or lost a lawsuit in at least one discrimination or sexual harassment lawsuit. Keep in mind: Those are only the cases we know about because they were reported and pursued through the legal system. The actual number of workers who have been discriminated against or harassed is undoubtedly much higher.
Despite the fact that there are both state and federal laws against discrimination, companies in the U.S. still on average pay women 18 cents less on the dollar than they do men. For women of color, the disparity is even greater. The shrinking of the pay equity gap effectively ground o a halt in the early 2000s.
Our Los Angeles gender discrimination and racial discrimination employment lawyers are committed to fighting for the rights of workers who are unlawfully denied fair pay – or even a chance.
Contact the employment attorneys at Nassiri Law Group, practicing in Orange County, Riverside and Los Angeles. Call 949-375-4734.
Additional Resources:
Google will pay $2.6 million to workers over claims its hiring and pay practices were biased against women and Asians, Feb. 1, 2020, By Tyler Sonnemaker, Business Insider