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Judge Dismisses Lawsuit That Claims Google Paid Female Employees Less Than Male Colleagues (cnn.com)

A California judge has rejected a class action claim against Google for alleged gender inequity. In September, three female Google employees filed a lawsuit against Google, claiming the search giant "engaged in systemic and pervasive pay and promotion discrimination." They sought class action status on behalf of women who have worked at Google in California for the past four years. CNN reports: This week, a judge rejected their request to make the suit a class action. A judge ruled that the class was "overbroad," stating that it "does not purport to distinguish between female employees who may have valid claims against Google based upon its alleged conduct from those who do not." Jim Finberg, the lawyer representing the plaintiffs, said his clients plan to file an amended complaint seeking class action certification. He said it will address the court's ruling and make "clear that Google violates the California Equal Pay Act throughout California and throughout the class period by paying women less than men for substantially equal work in nearly every job classification."

8 of 257 comments (clear)

  1. #MeeToo Crowd will appeal until by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    it find a liberal judge.

    It's been said before, companies do not systematically pay women less, if they did, they would only hire women.

    1. Re: #MeeToo Crowd will appeal until by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That depends on what aspect you're talking about. With sexual harassment, yes, definite problem. And interestingly enough, it turns out that those who often shame it are purveyors of it.

      With regard to pay discrimination, sorry, but there's no merit to it. Yes, there is an earnings gap, but no, there isn't some giant man conspiracy or corporate culture that makes it so. The research has been done extensively on this, and in the vast majority of cases, the earnings difference comes down to good ol' fashioned biology, especially when it comes to maternity. This is one of those things in life that cannot be helped.

    2. Re: #MeeToo Crowd will appeal until by The+Cynical+Critic · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I've seen people post that article as proof that Damore was wrong, but all it really does is try to belittle the effect of all the scientifically proven gender differences Damore brought up in his memo. It doesn't disprove anything Damore actually brought up in the the memo, the author merely belittles every single fact Damore uses to explain why the status quo is what it is and why trying to change it will come with numerous ill effects for the organisation and the people working for it.

      Seriously, when all you can do is try belittle someone else's points rather than actually disprove any of them it goes to show that you don't actually have a leg to stand on. You're merely reflexively disagreeing with someone, refusing to admit you're wrong when you know you are.

      --
      "Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it."
  2. Re:Next step by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'd like to see the phrase "sexual assault" go away and be replaced with a description of what *actually happened*. It's too easy to fit a multitude of different behaviours into a neat little box like "sexual assault" and defame somebody with it.

    Also, you can tell by the fact that only men are being "outed" that there's an agenda at play in the media. Just like how you only ever see "black lives matter" but not "Chinese lives matter" or "white lives matter" or "immigrants lives matter" or anything else that doesn't fit into their flavour of the week agenda based reporting.

  3. Re:Next step by djinn6 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...the five members of the team are not all of equal value, because the one woman brings something that none of her colleagues have, a woman's perspective.

    You're saying there are innate differences due to gender. One gender could do something the other couldn't. Then wouldn't those differences mean women and men are not necessarily equally effective? And if that's the case, then wouldn't different pay could be justified by different productivity?

    Or to put it simply, if you accept there are innate differences between the genders, then you must necessarily accept different pay, hiring ratio and other such metrics can be a natural outcome due to those differences.

  4. Don't Make The Mistake... by ytene · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... of reading the OP and concluding that the presiding Judge is in any way biased against the plaintiffs (the three female Google employees).

    If anything, the exact opposite could be true.

    The Judge will know that this case is going to be ferociously defended by Google, that it will garner a very great deal of public interest and scrutiny and that, if it gets as far as substantive rulings, could very well set a precedent and become case law that is cited in future disputes. In other words, the Judge simply can't afford to allow even a small chink or gap or flaw in the prosecution's argument, because to do so would be to invite the defendants to demand that the case be tossed.

    Nor should you read the above statement and conclude that I believe the Judge to be inclined towards the plaintiffs in this case. The Judge will equally demand that the defendants are thorough and reasoned in their arguments.

    This case has all the hallmarks of something that will be super-significant. The Court is simply making sure that both parties put their best legal foot forward.

  5. Re:Next step by cerberusss · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm no social justice warrior at all, but this is incredibly generalizing. It just completely depends on the people involved. It sounds like you had a bad experience once, and then assumed it's the same everywhere.

    It's not. I've worked with women in teams that resulted in an unpleasant work environment. And I've worked with women in teams that resulted in a great project.

    --
    8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
  6. divide & conquer by Reverend+Green · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If they scream loudly enough and often enough about a non-existent problem - remember in almost all US megacorps, there is codified systemic employment bias against men - then we will forget about the real problems in the workplace.

    Workers upset that wages are stagnant while cost of living is skyrocketing? "He looked at me the wrong way! Reeeeeeeeeee!"

    Workers angry that their jobs are being offshored while executives sit back and collect handsome bonuses? "He said 'hi' to me, I feel harassed. Burn the witch! Reeeeeeeeeee!"

    Workers demoralized because the entire management of the company went to the same three elitist private schools, and public school grads don't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting promoted? "Misogyny! Microaggressions! Literally Hitler! Reeeeeeeeeee!"