Google sexism lawsuit resurfaces

U.S. Department of Labor has accused company of ‘extreme’ pay difference

MOUNTAIN VIEW >> Accusations that Google pays women less than men have resurfaced in a new version of a lawsuit, which now makes specific claims that the female employees affected include engineers, program managers, salespeople and at least one preschool teacher.

A judge had tossed out an earlier version of the suit — which seeks class-action status — but had invited the plaintiffs to resubmit a new version narrowing down the purported affected class.

The amended lawsuit adds more pressure to the cultural upheaval taking place in Silicon Valley over treatment of women in the technology industry. High-level heads have rolled at a number of high-profile firms, including Uber and financial technology startup SoFi, in the wake of allegations of sexual misconduct.

Google is under federal investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor, which has accused it of “extreme” pay discrimination against women. Google has denied that allegation.

In the amended lawsuit, plaintiffs Kelly Ellis, Holly Pease, Kelli Wisuri and Heidi Lamar claim Google discriminates against women and breaks California law by slotting women into lower salary levels than men, giving women lower-paying jobs, promoting women more slowly and less frequently, and generally paying female employees less than men for similar work.

Lamar, a former preschool teacher at Google, was not named in the original complaint but was added to the amended version, which was filed Wednesday in California Superior Court in San Francisco.

“Her story, and the additional detail added in this complaint, highlight how

Google’s use of prior salary is a mechanism that causes women to be underpaid at Google for the same work performed by men with similar or lesser qualifications,” the women’s lawyer Jim Finberg said in an email Wednesday.

Google said it disagreed with the “central allegations” of the amended legal action.

“We work really hard to create a great workplace for everyone, and to give everyone the chance to thrive here,” said spokeswoman Gina Scigliano. “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 bias in these decisions.”

The lawsuit claims that Google’s use of previous salary information was a key factor behind unequal pay for women. State lawmakers have already concluded that asking potential hires about their previous compensation could perpetuate pay differences between men and women.

It’s now illegal, as of Jan. 1, for California employers to ask prospective employees about previous salaries, after Gov. Jerry Brown in October signed into law a bill designed to help close the gender gap in pay by outlawing such inquiries.

The women’s lawsuit, first filed in September, was dismissed in December by a California state court judge who said it cast too wide a net by defining the affected class as all women

employed at Google during the previous four years.

San Francisco Superior Court Judge Mary Wiss gave the plaintiffs 30 days to file a new complaint limiting the scope to women who faced pay discrimination at Google.

The new version of the complaint specifies particular job classes and positions allegedly affected by unequal pay between women and men.

Google’s alleged “segregation” of women into lower-paying jobs saw it “channel” Pease into the job of managing businesssystems integration, where she supervised software engineers, instead of giving her the better-paying software-engineer management position for which she was qualified, and in which men with equal or lesser qualifications were serving, according to the amended complaint.

Wisuri was paid the same amount as her prior salary, at the compensation level for people without experience, despite having 2 ½ years of experience, and similarly qualified men were hired at a better-paying salary level, the complaint alleged.

Ellis, too, was asked about her prior salary and received the same amount, the suit alleged. Google hired her as a software engineer at the entry-level salary, when she had four years of relevant experience as a software engineer. But a man who graduated from college the same year, and had less experience, was brought on at a higher salary level, the complaint said.