Uber Faces Engineers' Lawsuit Alleging Gender, Race Bias (bloomberg.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Uber was sued by three Latina engineers who claim the company pays women and people of color less than their peers and doesn't promote them as frequently as males, whites and Asians. The three women from the ride-hailing company, one of whom still works there, accused Uber of violating California's Equal Pay Act in a complaint filed Tuesday in San Francisco state court on behalf of all engineers similarly held back. The women filed the complaint under a state statute that gives employees the right to step into the shoes of the state labor secretary to bring enforcement actions. That law also may give them a way around a provision in Uber's contracts requiring workplace disputes to go through one-on-one arbitration instead of as group actions in court. "Female employees and employees of color are systematically undervalued compared to their male and white or Asian American peers because female employees and employees of color receive, on average, lower rankings despite equal or better performance," according to the complaint against Uber. In July, Uber said that it adjusted salaries to ensure equity in pay for women and minorities.

Comments

Re:"Adjusted salaries" - WTF?

[jellomizer]

Why Yes, there is a problem in the United States where Minority groups will often get less pay, be denied promotions and raises...
So by Adjusting salaries, they pay them what their actually work and title deserves.

They are a lot of crazy things that cause this and it isn't always direct discrimination.
1. It is common for a new employer to Ask for your previous salary. So the disadvantaged groups will often report that they had made less at the previous job, if the get the job, they will have a raise, but it may be 10% more then their previous job. So if they are already making less the new job will pay less too.

2. Being that a person is different then the management, it makes it harder for them to buddy up, and make a connection with them, so they are often overlooked.

3. They are representing a whole group of people. One failure of a member of a minority group will affect everyone else in that group. While good actions, are normally just ignored.

These Adjustments and Affirmative action rules are not giving minorities preference at the expense of the majority, but making sure that they are playing on a fair playing field.