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Google Accused of 'Extreme' Gender Pay Discrimination By US Labor Department (theguardian.com)
The U.S. Department of Labor is accusing Google of discriminating against its female employees and violating federal employment laws with its salaries for women. "We found systemic compensation disparities against women pretty much across the entire workforce," Janette Wipper, a Department of Labor regional director, testified in court in San Francisco on Friday. The Guardian reports: Google strongly denied the accusations of inequities, claiming it did not have a gender pay gap. The allegations emerged at a hearing in federal court as part of a lawsuit the DoL filed against Google in January, seeking to compel the company to provide salary data and documents to the government. Google is a federal contractor, which means it is required to allow the DoL to inspect and copy records and information about its its compliance with equal opportunity laws. Last year, the department's office of federal contract compliance programs requested job and salary history for Google employees, along with names and contact information, as part of the compliance review. Google, however, repeatedly refused to hand over the data, which was a violation of its contractual obligations with the federal government, according to the DoL's lawsuit. Labor officials detailed the government's discrimination claims against Google at the Friday hearing while making the case for why the company should be forced to comply with the DoL's requests for documents. Wipper said the department found pay disparities in a 2015 snapshot of salaries and said officials needed earlier compensation data to evaluate the root of the problem and needed to be able to confidentially interview employees.
You don't get raises if you don't ask, and the men seemed to be more headstrong about asking.
Its not just asking, its being willing to leave. I worked at a company part time as a software developer while in school working on a computer science degree. It was a great job, flexible hours to accommodate my class schedule, etc. When I graduated I brought up the topic of my salary, expecting at least the industry average of the region. Management said that would be too large a percentage increase and offered me something below the industry average. I pointed out that I have been with them for over two, am fully trained for their specialties, and have received very good reviews. My manager said his hands were tied, too big a percentage increase. I started a job search that night.
Six weeks later I was back in front of my manager submitting my resignation after accepting a new job elsewhere. He instantly offered to match my current job offer, which was a little above what I had originally asked of him. I asked what happened to the percentage increase problem. He said that in light of the new circumstances that could be waived. I told him I was sorry (I lied) but that I had already accepted the other offer and would not be breaking my word (the truth).
I was happy, liked the work, liked my coworkers, but I was young, aggressive and not going to take that sort of BS.
You want similar pay, you have to actually ask for it.
No you don't. If Google's hiring process results in equally qualified men and women being paid significantly and systematically differently, then it is illegal. They can't use the lame excuse that the qualified women "deserve" to be paid less because they are bad negotiators. Being a "good negotiator" is not relevant to being a qualified engineer. For large companies, the DOJ does not need to prove the hiring process is "unfair", they only need to show that the results of the process are unequal.
But if you're a woman and you ask, you get a reputation for being bitchy. Both of my sisters have fought this problem repeatedly. One of my sisters and I work in similar fields, an we have compared notes on similar approaches to problems at our respective jobs, and it amazes me just how little room she has to negotiate on ANY topic before e-mails from co-workers get pretty negative about her attitude. When negotiating for salary up front the wiggle room is even smaller because the chances go up of not getting the job at all. How does a woman solve that Catch-22?
one of them turns out to be 10 times as productive as the other, and wants a bonus and a raise. What are you going to do ?
Pay differentials based on qualifications for the job are legal.
But Google is NOT claiming that women employees are less qualified, or less productive, so that is irrelevant.
The name for this phenomenon is "Simpson's paradox". Wikipedia has a great article.