Oracle slams ‘doomed’ inequity charges

Oracle has responded to claims of workplace discrimination, saying the U.S. Department of Labor is tacking new allegations onto a complaint it filed against the tech company two years ago to bolster a “doomed” case.

Labor officials began investigating the Redwood City company several years ago for allegedly discriminatory pay practices that the department said cost Oracle’s female and minority employees more than $400 million in lost wages.

The department is seeking to amend its complaint with new claims that Oracle showed preference to job candidates whom it could underpay. Once on the job, labor officials say, black, Asian and female employees were paid as much as 25 percent less than their peers doing similar work. Oracle denies the claim, saying it is based on the “inaccurate premise that employees at Oracle who share the same job title or job code perform similar work.”

Oracle said in a notice of opposition filed in California administrative court that labor officials have two possible reasons for amending its complaint, and that neither justifies the pending motion.

Labor officials added these claims, Oracle said in the new court papers, because the department “realizes its existing claims against Oracle are doomed to fail, and it therefore

wants some alternative theories.” Second, regulators want the media to spread unflattering claims about Oracle to apply pressure on the company, its lawyers told the administrative court Wednesday.

“This meritless lawsuit is based on false allegations and a seriously flawed process” within a branch of the Labor Department overseeing employers doing business with the federal government “that relies on cherry-picked statistics rather than reality,” Oracle general counsel Dorian Daley said in a statement.

At the same time Oracle tussles with the Labor Department, it faces a similar complaint from former employees who say Oracle paid women less than men who perfomed similar work.

Female workers earned on average more than $13,000 less per year than similarly employed men, according to a complaint the plaintiffs filed in San Mateo Superior Court in 2017. Attorneys representing those former Oracle employees filed a motion for certification as a class action in January, just days before federal labor officials lodged new claims against Oracle.

The tech company raised concern about the Labor Department and private counsel for the former Oracle employees working together to “bolster their respective claims.”

The two parties entered into a common interest agreement in 2017, which lets them share information without fear of waiving attorney-client privilege. It’s a routine legal practice, said Adam Pulver, a former Labor Department litigator who is now a public interest attorney at Public Citizen Litigation Group in Washington and is not involved in the case.

“People who share a common interest should be able to communicate with each other to more effectively prosecute claims,” Pulver said. “It’s not nefarious; it’s just more efficient.”

An attorney representing the former Oracle employees did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.