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Former Female Oracle Employees Sue Company For Alleged Pay Discrimination (techcrunch.com)
Three female, former Oracle employees are suing Oracle for allegedly paying women less than men in similar jobs. Rong Jewett, Sophy Wang and Xian Murray filed a lawsuit August 28, seeking a class-action status to represent all other women who have worked at the company. TechCrunch reports: The lawsuit, first reported by The Information, alleges that Oracle discriminated against women by "systematically paying them lower wage rates than Oracle pays to male employees performing substantially equal or similar work under similar working conditions," the filing states. The time period the lawsuit references is four years prior to the filing and through the date of the trial in California. Referencing how the U.S. Department of Labor sued Oracle in January based on its compliance review that found "systemic discrimination against women" and "gross disparities in pay," the lawsuit states Oracle had known or should have known about the pay disparity between its male and female employees. The plaintiffs are seeking wages due, interest and liquidated damages plus interest. They also want Oracle to guarantee they won't pay women less than men for similar work in the future.
Hiring women can be dangerous to your company's health!
"Former Female Oracle Employees Sue Company"
Former Female? What were they before? Perhaps you might mean "Female Former Oracle Employees Sue Company."
So basically, if a man goes to boss and says 'My value to this company is under-recognized and I want a raise', the boss must either deny it or then give everyone the same raise?
No, not "everyone". Only members of legally protected classes. You can't pay men and women systematically differently for the same work. You can't pay blacks and whites systematically differently for the same work.
If men are more likely to do that (and evidence suggests they are; facts don't stop being facts because they offend social justice), it would become systemic eventually.
Indeed, and that is illegal.
If women of equal merit asked for the same amounts at the same rate but were more likely to be denied, that would be discrimination, but that's a different scenario.
It is discrimination whether they "ask for it" or not. YOU CAN NOT PAY MEN AND WOMEN SYSTEMATICALLY DIFFERENTLY FOR THE SAME WORK. If you pay men more because they "ask for it" then you are breaking the law and you are going to get sued.
HR needs to periodically review average salaries for every legally protected class. If there is a systematic difference in pay, then they need to fix that. They can give raises to the underpaid, or withhold raises from the overpaid, offset the differences in bonuses, or whatever. But what they can't do is PAY MEN AND WOMEN SYSTEMATICALLY DIFFERENTLY FOR THE SAME WORK. That is illegal.