A group of former women employees of Google have mounted a law suit against the tech giant for ‘segregating’ female staff into lower-paying jobs as part of rampant discriminating practice.
The lawsuit, according to Forbes, was filed by ex-Googlers Kelly Ellis, Holly Pease, and Kelli Wisuri in San Francisco Superior Court on Thursday.
This also follows a suit against Google filed earlier this year by the United States Department of Labour, which said it found evidence of an “extreme” gender pay gap at the company.
Google said it ‘disagreed’ with the claims made in the lawsuit. The company’s spokesperson, Gina Scigliano, said, “In relation to this particular lawsuit, we’ll review it in detail, but we disagree with the central allegations. Job levels and promotions are determined through rigorous hiring and promotion committees, and must pass multiple levels of review, including checks to make sure there is no gender bias in these decisions. And we have extensive systems in place to ensure that we pay fairly.”
The lawsuit details examples of when the female employees were placed in job classifications below their level of experience and denied promotions.
The suit also alleges that Ellis was “occupationally-segregated” into a front-end role because of a “false and gendered perception at Google that back-end software engineering is more technically rigorous, and therefore more prestigious.”
Ellis said, “I have come forward to correct a pervasive problem of gender bias at Google. It is time to stop ignoring these issues in tech.”
