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269 People Joined An Age Discrimination Class Action Suit Against Google (bizjournals.com)
Slashdot reader #9,119 BrookHarty writes:
"269 people have joined a class-action lawsuit against Google claiming they were discriminated against in the workplace based on their age..." reports BizJournals. "The lawsuit originated in 2015 with plaintiff Robert Heath and was certified as a class-action in 2016." Google has stated it has implemented policies to stop age discrimination but still has an average employee age of 29.
In 2004 Larry Page fired Brian Reid nine days before IPO costing Reid 45 million in unvested stock options. Reid was fired for lack of "cultural fit". Reid has settled for an undisclosed amount.
In 2004 Larry Page fired Brian Reid nine days before IPO costing Reid 45 million in unvested stock options. Reid was fired for lack of "cultural fit". Reid has settled for an undisclosed amount.
Is that really the average age of all employees or an "Engineer" positions age? In other words does it include all ranks of employees or a specific one based on the title which seems to be more junior/mid-career.
I thought Google was all about the diversity. Are you telling me they don't believe older workers can accomplish the same as younger workers?
Certainly that can't be because of biological differences. It therefore must be about ageism and bean counting.
That would make Google....Evil.
It's your buddy Jesus Christ here just checking to see if you mortals have started the rapture yet. Repent and be saved!
Age discrimination, sexism, monopolies, censorship, spying... I wish we had the old google back.
having the word 'goat' in the URL was the giveaway... mod parent down
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
In 2004 Larry Page fired Brian Reid nine days before IPO costing Reid 45 million in unvested stock options. Reid was fired for lack of "cultural fit". Reid has settled for an undisclosed amount.
Wow. That's quite something. I had no idea that Hölzle was such a little piece of shit:
'He was fired by Larry Page (who was 30 at the time) in February 2004, after being told he was not a "cultural fit" by Rosing, and that his ideas were "too old to matter" by Hölzle, according to Reid.'
Ezekiel 23:20
We encourage open debate on matters of equality, but you're all fired.
As a 45 year old, white, straight male I am slightly more desirable than nuclear waste when it comes to being employed in tech nowadays. I hope they prevail and some sort of precedent is established. I guess the only purpose of having a VP O' Diversity is to ensure sufficient hues of dermis and the correct ratio of penises/vaginas, fuck all else.
"It's fun to obey the machine" - Ralph Wiggum
In a private company, one should be able to hire and fire whoever they want
Agreed.
You cannot be an anti-SJW libertarian only when the group complaining isn't the one you belong to.
Agreed.
But.
You can be opposed to a government law while still taking advantage of it. For instance, I can complain that high income earners get to take the mortgage deduction, and I'd be a fool to not take my mortgage deduction. You play the game by the rules as they are, and you can be a Libertarian and still use the existing rules to sue for compensation when you are discriminated against. To not do so puts you at a disadvantage to everyone else, and that is foolish. Idealistic, but foolish.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
True that.
These stale, pale males tend to be older, so any attempt to increase the vibrant diversity of Google's workforce will necessarily impact older workers.
I mean, if all that isn't enough to get you to convert to Judaism, I don't really know what would do the job.
Google isn't a private company. It's a publicly traded company. It would have nowhere near the capitalization and market control it does without that. The reason that happens is because of laws allowing it to. We as a society have decided, as much as I disagree with it, that granting corporations special privileges, exemptions, capabilities, etc. is good for the economy as a whole. That should not come without a price--the price being corporations have to behave themselves according to the wishes of the society that allows (key word there) them to exist.
Let's be very, very clear about what we're talking about here. In the case of SJW bullshit we're talking about people claiming discrimination absent actual proof of it, the issue in STEM fields very much being a lack of females who have chosen to apply across the fields in question. The reasons they choose not to apply are complicated, demonstrably outlined by an unfortunate employee at Google recently, and I would argue not really the fault of any one company.
On the other hand, with age discrimination, you're talking about companies actively not hiring or getting rid of people who DO choose to apply or choose to work in a particular place. That's very different, just as if anybody ever actually proves that women in identical jobs to men for identical amounts of time (without elective time off for childbearing, etc) get paid differently or don't advance at the same rate then that is very much a problem.
Sure, you can take any level of regulation to extremes, and the corporatist crowd around here is willing to do that all the time to try to prove their points, but part of the deal here is that anybody who goes too far on either side needs to be reeled in.
I'm fairly well along in my career now, to the point where I can toss stereotypes all over the place: as an experienced tech person I can't tell you the number of times bad ideas keep circling back around because some young person with a lot of guts and not a lot of thinking something through has an idea that's frankly obvious and hasn't been done because other people know why said idea is stupid. I've also seen older people who refuse to keep up with things and who seem to act as caretakers. Guess what? I've also seen young people with very good ideas on how to do things, and older people who are responsive, well informed, and frankly can do the work of 2 or 3 people simply by knowing what not to go do before they do the right thing. Ideally you'll have a mix in any organization. Where you don't, that's suggestive of but not proof of age discrimination.
I would never go apply at Google. Most people with more than a couple of years experience who I know would not, young or old. The culture there is toxic to anybody with any sense of individuality. So (my opinion) Google has discriminated on the basis of age given certain evidence that's been made public, but also a lot of people not in their 20s simply choose not to apply to an organization they don't like. How do you sort that out? Hard to say, but "let the corporation do whatever it wants to with no oversight" is hardly ever a good idea.
but their worst crime is the whopping piece of shit known as android.
You're HIRED!!!
If you're white and 32, you're FIRED!!!!
Here is the full text of the lawsuit being brought against Google. It's definitely worth reading if you want to get a feel for why the plaintiffs believe they've been discriminated against, and whether they actually have a strong case against Google.
I don't know, it looks pretty open-ended to me, and the litigants seem to be rather exposed in that brief.
It bugs me that the second parenthesis is never closed.
Problem is when the more experienced workforce tries to provide guidance to the younger workforce. I'm seeing this in my company: the old guys tell the young guys "That's a good idea, but we tried that before and it didn't work." This doesn't go over well with the young folks and they become passive aggressive, productivity slides and the senior guys are seen as poor leaders. I'm in that younger workforce and while I respect the experience (they've gotten me this far), those old guys have an unwillingness to even consider new ideas - if it hasn't been tried before, they're reluctant to.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
Well that's because discrimination based on nationality or culture is bad!
Discrimination against the exact same people because they are old has-beens or never-weres? Perfectly fine! Just more hypocrisy from one of the largest companies on earth that supposedly "does no evil"
Yeah except that if the company's perception of applicants' value is systematically proven to be devalued due to illegal discrimination. Age is a protected class under discrimination law. It's on the plaintiffs to prove that is the case, and apparently there is enough merit that a judge hasn't tossed the case in several hearings where there was opportunity to do so.
You can deride it as SJW blablabla if you want - but why do you give a shit if these people get their day in court?
I've dated a few Jewish women. They were nice.
Your enormous post looks like a bunch of delusional conspiracy theory drivel. I didn't bother to read it.
Can someone mod him down? It takes too much effort to scroll through it's sheer length.... he should post as an article on a separate thread if he want to bitch about stuff so much.
wait, what? they discriminate by penis size too?
I appreciate the sentiment, but, you know...
Try giving us the TL;DR version next time. Someone might actually read it.
Google's employees are managers and engineers. Everyone else are contractors. I worked at Google in my late 30's (2007-08) and early 40's (2011-12) on various contract assignments. No one cared about my age when I worked on the IT help desk, swept the floor in the inventory warehouse, or rearranged the cables for the sixth time in the data center because the 20-something network engineer had a bug up his ass.
May I interject this is a silicon valley thing more than it is an everywhere thing. There's certainly some point at which younger bosses start to disregard older opinions, but especially if you've put in many of those years in the company, I found GenX and Millenials quite willing to listen to me and learn from me. (And I'm one of those jerks that will get his back up about an issue and sends around multi-page e-mail rants; people didn't read those, mostly, but they didn't stop listening when I had short, relevant comments to make.)
Granted, I worked at the opposite end of some kind of job-type spectrum: municipal utilities, where knowing what was different about how we put water pipes in the ground 20 years back is useful information. And most new ideas are suspicious. But, you know, a third of our economy is in things like government and basic services that are NOT dynamically changing with consumer fashions every year; there's a lot of good jobs with that "dull" part of the economy.
One funny thing is that I was teaching latest-thing high-tech to those people 20 and 30 years my junior, some of them were my bosses. I'm a civil engineer, but also had a CompSci degree, and kept up with many new things even if not the very latest. So they would be coming to me for help just doing Excel VBA macros or basic cgi-bin web solutions when the corporate apps were very clumsy. And I lost count of the people I taught basic SQL skills to, because "Report Applications" like Crystal Reports or Business Objects are a huge pain to learn when you just want a simple answer to a basic query.
I left at 57 to a lot of backpats and almost-tearful cries that they couldn't manage without me. They have, of course, though I've answered a lot of phone calls about How I Did That One Thing for them.
If Silicon Valley is indeed a dysfunctional family of overwork and discrimination and backstabbing competition, maybe you should stop picking your career based on Hollywood imagery of superhackers, not to mention dreams of millions before you're 30. Your odds are about the same as that high-school star quarterback who imagines a life starring in the NFL. Your odds suck, the place is a toxic-waste bin, so the game's not worth the candle.
Once enough people say, "screw silicon valley, I want to work with sane people", maybe silicon valley will have to start treating employees a little better.
Just wait until all the straight people start suing. Google just about exclusively hires transsexuals and homosexuals. It's ridiculous. It's liberalism gone completely crazy.
I was so down for getting into jew hating today, but the manual is too freaking long!
Look buddy, Im down for inflicting violence and discrimintary practices on someone, but you have to give me the 411 in like a paragraph!
The rich are too rich, companies are paying way too much at the top and not enough at the bottom. It's corruption, pure and simple. So long as we mostly all work for unethical multi-national or private corporations, there can be no real freedom or justice.
I left Silicon Valley when I was 38, seeing the writing on the wall - having started to get worse and worse performance reviews (along with my late 30's peers). I could see the setup coming.
So, I bailed, and moved back east, where I thought I might escape the discrimination. Hah. Wishful thinking.
I managed to get a new job with a somewhat large company that makes utility measurement equipment. About a year after I was hired, the CEO came to our office for a global townhall, during which he actually said that "we have to become a younger company," and to that end, there would be quotas on hiring fresh graduates and limits on hiring people over 40. He actually said there would be limits on over-40 hiring.
Apparently, this is not against the law if it is implemented by positional limits - i.e. eliminating "senior positions" and opening more "junior positions." They just say "well we don't need any more senior engineers but we need a boatload of junior engineers," and that's perfectly okay - or so an employment lawyer told me.
This really just solidified it with me that all laws do the opposite of what their title says. A law that says it is "anti-discrimination" is really just a manual for how to discriminate.
So, new company comes along, does things differently, the old style programmer does not work in the new dynamic... just sue? I build houses. My entire crew are all techie nerd guys. We communicate alot, 'thats not how its traditionally done' means squat, we are always looking for new methods, materials, and tools to build faster and stronger. If I do or dont hire some old stiff carpenter who wont change with the times and is a drag on the team... he can just sue cause I didnt hire him or sue because he didnt work well with the crew and we let him go... wow
May I interject this is a silicon valley thing more than it is an everywhere thing
It's not a Silicon Valley thing either, it's just a whiner thing. There are plenty of jobs available in Silicon Valley for people who have the skills.
There are not quite so many jobs available for people who still use tables to lay out their HTML, or who only know COBOL. (There are jobs for people who only know COBOL, but not in Silicon Valley).
There are certainly companies that discriminate on age (and Google might be one of them, I don't know), but there are also companies that discriminate based on what you wear. The proper thing to do is move on, and find a company that doesn't. There are plenty.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Jews are a higher percentage of funny people. There's an above average number of gays in Hollywood and media. There's an above average number of left handed people in Hollywood, media and creative industries. If you're gay, Jewish and left handed, you've hit the trifecta.
Fuck you Google. Your phony virtue signaling is about to explode in your face. Schadenfreude, baby, schadenfreude.
Yeah, made that up, but whatever happened to the gates-borg meme on /. ... maybe need a new Google-borg meme...
Years ago when they still sent tech people to staff booths at job fairs I would hand over a resume, the tech person would look at it. We would talk for a bit about what the team did and in some cases I would have a novel solution to the current problem that would save the company money. Everything seemed to be a fit and they promise to call me in a week or similar. Everything goes wonderfully till the formal application goes to the HR department. Then everyone just stops returning my phone calls/emails.
Currently working a contract position. Everyone comes to me for help. Was told I would become direct soon. Told to go on the corporate website to apply and then they will process me. Once it got to HR, everyone stalled and started telling inconsistent stories. I have been stalled out for over 9 months now.
I look about 15 years younger than I am. I do not look like I have grandchildren in school. I once had an HR person hand back my application within a minute saying I had messed up my date of birth. It was not wrong.
As a contractor, at this place I have to pass multiple background checks that most people do not pass and I have never failed one so that is not the issue.
Either I am on some sort of hidden black list or they do not want to pay for my health insurance. They take contractors here who are old enough to be on Social Security or close but new hire directs are all in their early 30's
Without additional context, I can't judge whether an average age of 29 is "bad" or not. Is that for the whole company, or just technical staff? How do other tech companies compare? i.e. is Google much worse than its peers?
...for Google Asshole Shawn Willden to tell us that age discrimination is a Good Thing!!
Sorry, I can't see how that can be a contradiction in any way at all. Isn't one interpretation of "libertarianism" summed up as "I've got mine"? If there is advantage to take or people to exploit how can it contradict the "philosophy"?
Maybe you should try a different label to the one Koch applies to himself.
Mass exodus already underway on all aspects of the alphabet
Fuck 'em.
That's all I got to say about that.
That sounds like the Ayn Rand, objectivist sort of "libertarian". The whole philosophy, such as it is, seems to be unabashedly centered around selfishness. In fact, the only thing all libertarians agree on is the principle of innate (inalienable) rights. Even there, many add "property" as an innate right to the traditional life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. "Pursuit of happiness" leaves a lot of wiggle room. The main thrust is to leave people alone unless their behavior infringes one of your innate rights. It is very much a contradiction for a libertarian to use government power to enrich themselves, as their ideals are antithetic to such "abuses". But you'd be an idiot not to play by the existing rules, even as you try to change them.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Yes. You'll get people throwing you into the same category as people you despise since they apply the same label to themselves.
Google: "Be creepy, but don't get caught." is their new moto.
They gave up the "don't be evil" moto a long time ago. (5 yrs?)
Smart people block all google websites at the network layer. That makes it hard to cheap just this 1 time.
That's fine, people like to classify. Makes sense evolutionary, but it's the source of a lot of our tribalism and bias. If blacks can live day-to-day with society biased against them the way it is, then I can certainly clarify my political leanings a bit on Slashdot from time to time :)
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
"The proper thing to do ..."
... shudder ...
Shudder
My ancestors moved to America so they could make their own choices instead of hearing disguised opinions about what is proper.
"you are paid and you are hired for what you are worth, not for your age or title"
... there are a lot of other factors: what hiring managers think their superiors will let them get away with, appearances, etc. There is a TON of itch scratching in the hiring process that have nada to do with what the job listing says companies are looking for. I have a recruiter friend (who I have never worked with to get a SW dev job), and he told me out of all the decades he's spent recruiting there is a TON more shenanigans in the hiring company than the candidates. I got a couple certifications and my pay went up 30%. Does that mean I became 30% more capable? No, I just looked different. My contribution capability did not change.
No, no, no