Out of the former employees of Alphabet Inc.’s Google, four women have won class-action status over their gender biased pay system on Google. This happens shortly after the firm faced class-action lawsuits for tracking browsing activity in incognito mode, an existing gender pay disruption suit against the searching giant Google has won class-action status.
Class section means the appellants can represent over 10,000 women employees
The class-action status means the four appellants would be able to represent around 10,000 women who employed at Google since 2013. A San Francisco state judge approved class-action status to a lawsuit filed by four women who sued Google for $600 million in damages caused.
The lawsuit includes women who were or are employed as engineers, program managers, sales executives, and at least one preschool teacher.
What was the allegation, and what is it for?
The Women who filed the lawsuit alleged that Google paid women less and even promoted them slowly and less frequently then the other male employees and also have violated the California Equal Pay Act.
According to a recent report, the filing cited an analysis by UC Irvine economist David Neumark. The economist stated that female Google employees earn approximately $16,800 less than a “similarly situated man”. According to the lawsuit, Google has now-discontinued use of previous salary information which didn’t help address wage gaps.
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The original lawsuit and why was it rejected back then?
The original lawsuit was filed back 2017 by Kelly Ellis, Holly Pease, and Kelli Wisuri was denied by a judge for being “too vague”. The following year, the lawsuit was re-submitted with an additional appellant Heidi Lamar. Ellis took to twitter to call the suit’s class-action status a huge and amazing decision.
Here’s the tweet by Ellis to celebrate the acceptance and class-win, the tweet said, “This means the judge agreed we can sue as a class, rather than each individual woman needing to sue for relief. This is HUGE.”
OUR CLASS WAS CERTIFIED IN ELLIS V. GOOGLE!
This means the judge agreed we can sue as a class, rather than each individual woman needing to sue for relief. This is HUGE.
The class includes over 10,800 women affected by Google's gender bias.
— Kelly Ellis (@justkelly_ok) May 27, 2021
By the appellant’s lawyer
Kelly Dermody, the lawyer representing the women stated in a mail that-
“This is a significant day for women at Google and in the technology sector, and we are so proud of our brave clients for leading the way. This order shows that it is critical that companies prioritize paying women equitably over spending money fighting them in litigation.”
According to Dermody the next move is to get the case to trial, which she expects could start in 2022.
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