Judge OKs class action over alleged Google gender pay gap

Firm says it runs rigorous analysis to ensure fair pay

A state court judge has approved class-action status for a long-running lawsuit accusing Google of paying certain female employees less than men.

The decision this week by

San Francisco County Superior Court Judge Andrew Cheng opens the way for more than 10,000 women who have worked at Google after 2012 to join the suit first filed in 2017 by several former employees.

Named 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.

Ellis, a former Google software engineer, welcomed the Thursday ruling. “Being involved with this lawsuit has shown just how systemic the problem is, and I think the judge agreeing that we can sue as a class shows that our allegations really are widespread and have a widespread effect on women at Google,” Ellis said by phone

Friday. “I really hope this will have a positive outcome and this will bring change across the tech industry.”

Lamar, a former preschool teacher for Google employees’ children, said she believes the Mountain View company’s long court battle against the claims of gender discrimination shows that “Google is fearful of being seen as a company that has practices that discriminate based on gender.”

Google said in an emailed statement Friday that it believes strongly in the equity of its practices and policies. “For the past eight years, we have run a rigorous pay equity analysis to make sure salaries, bonuses and equity awards are fair,” the company said. “If we find any differences in proposed pay, including between men and women, we make upward adjustments to remove them before new compensation goes into effect.

“In 2020 alone, we made upward adjustments for 2,352 employees, across nearly every demographic category, totaling $4.4 million.” The digital advertising giant added that it undertakes rigorous analysis to ensure it employs people in appropriate job levels and that workers’ performance ratings are fair.

Job types that fall under the class certification include engineers, program managers, salespeople and educators.