Google agrees to pay USD 118 million to settle gender disparity lawsuit

Google LLC will reportedly pay USD 118 million to resolve a gender discrimination class-action lawsuit that includes 15,500 women. Based on the verdict, the Alphabet-own tech giant will also hire an independent labor economist to review its hiring practices and conduct a pay equity analysis.

For those unaware, three women registered a complaint in 2017 reporting that the company was underpaying female employees in violation of California's Equal Pay Act, sharing a salary disparity of about USD 17,000. According to the complaint, Google pressures women into lesser-paying jobs, resulting in lesser pay benefits than their male colleagues.

Google's handling of employees has come under the spotlight as well. However, the company has agreed to pay USD 2.5 million to resolve a complaint alleging that it underpaid female engineers and neglected Asian job applications last year.

The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) is also looking into allegations of possible prejudice and bullying against colored female employees at the organization. In this context, Holly Pease, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, is optimistic that the changes Google has promised to do as part of this resolution will ensure more parity for women.

The settlement agreement must still be approved by a court at a hearing scheduled for the 21st of June. The firm stated that it is committed to paying, employing, and leveling all employees fairly and equally and that if it discovers a pay gap between male and female employees, it will make upward changes.

Several more lawsuits aimed at closing salary discrepancies have appeared in the previous decade, but interestingly, class-action gender discrimination litigation against Microsoft and Twitter has been stalled.

Cloud major Oracle is also undergoing a class-action case involving unequal pay. As per external sources, the group of women filing a lawsuit will probably lose class-action judgment owing a class of 3,000 employees with 125 jobs in demand would be unmanageable to go forward with the trial.

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https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/12/23164678/google-pay-118-million-settle-gender-discrimination-lawsuit