Google faces legal action over gender pay gap

Google could be the subject of a class action lawsuit from dozens of current and former female employees against sexism and pay discrepancies.

James Finberg, a civil rights lawyer working on the possible action, told The Guardian he was talking to more than 60 women, around half of whom still work at the search engine giant.

"They contend they have earned less than men at Google despite equal qualifications and comparable positions," the paper says.

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Finberg said others had struggled to advance their careers at the company due to a "culture that is hostile to women".

The prospective lawsuit comes as Google is fighting against claims from the US Department of Labor, which claims to have uncovered hard evidence of gender discrimination in pay rates.

"Its regional solicitor recently said that the agency’s initial audit has founded six to seven standard deviations between pay for men and women across the company," says the Guardian.

"What that means is that there is a one in 100 million chance that the observed disparity is occurring randomly or by chance, said Janice Madden, a University of Pennsylvania sociology professor."

Google's attitude to women hit the news this week after a software engineer at the firm said the overrepresentation of men in tech and top jobs was due to "biological causes".

James Damore also said Google was discriminating against men in an effort to close the gender gaps. He confirmed yesterday that he has since been sacked from the company.

However, that move has prompted a backlash from conservatives in Silicon Valley.

Andrew Torba, chief executive of social network Gab, on Tuesday offered Damore a job. He told the Guardian: "The message to conservatives is: if you dare step out of line and say something that is outside of the status quo of liberalism you can expect to be fired."

Google 'anti-diversity memo' author: 'I've been fired'

8 August

Google has attempted to draw a line under the "anti-diversity memo" row that blew up over the weekend by firing the employee who wrote the note.

Software engineer James Damore told Bloomberg he had been fired for "perpetuating gender stereotypes" and that he is "currently exploring all possible legal remedies".

Bosses at Google hinted at a hardline response to the internal memo yesterday, after it went viral.

Danielle Brown, head of diversity, said dialogue within the company had to adhere to "the principles of equal employment found in our code of conduct, policies, and anti-discrimination laws".

Chief executive Sundar Pichai sent a note to employees saying portions of the memo "violate our code of conduct and cross the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace".

"A Google representative, asked about the dismissal, referred to Pichai's memo," adds Bloomberg.

The company is already battling a lawsuit brought by the US Department of Labor alleging discriminatory pay practices, a charge it denies.

Like the rest of Silicon Valley, Google has a gender representation problem: despite making up half of the wider US workforce, women are only 31 per cent of its staff and account for 20 per cent of top jobs.

Damore's memo claimed that was in part because of biological differences between the sexes, saying women are prone to "neuroticism" and less interested in "systemising".

He did acknowledge that overt sexism exists and suggested remedies to improve representation, including making "software engineering more people-oriented" and encouraging part-time work.

Most of the response was highly critical with some staff saying they would refuse to work with the engineer.

In a widely shared blog post, former Google employee Yonatan Zunger said Damore had "just created a textbook hostile workplace environment" and that he would "not in good conscience" have assigned employees to work with him.

However, Damore's claims that the company has a "left-wing bias" that shames "dissenters into silence" has led "some right-wing websites" to "lionise" him - and firing him could "galvanize any backlash" against Google's diversity efforts, adds Bloomberg.

Google tries to dampen 'anti-diversity memo' row

7 August

Google has been forced on to the back foot over its workplace culture and lack of diversity after an internal memo from a "senior software engineer" claimed the under-representation for women in the tech sector in general is the result of "biological causes".

The ten-page message, written by an unnamed worker at the internet giant's Mountain View campus, went viral and was leaked to the press, says the Daily Mail.

Google is already under investigation by the US Department of Labor, "which has found that Google routinely pays women less than men in comparable roles", says Gizmodo.

In the memo, the employee says women:

• are more interested in "feelings and aesthetics", or "emphasising", while men are more interested in "things" and "systemising";
• display more "agreeableness" and so have "a harder time negotiating salary, asking for raises, speaking up, and leading", and
• are prone to "neuroticism", that is "higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance", and so are less drawn to and represented in "higher-stress jobs".

"I hope it's clear that I’m not saying that diversity is bad, that Google or society is 100% fair, that we shouldn't try to correct for existing biases, or that minorities have the same experience of those in the majority," adds the writer.

Instead, he is simply trying to correct for a "left-leaning bias" at Google and across the industry that is "shaming dissenters into silence".

He also suggests ways to improve diversity by addressing biological differences directly, such as making "software engineering more people-oriented", "allowing and truly endorsing part-time work" and addressing a fixed idea of the "male gender role".

However, his claim that it is biological differences that make men better suited to well-paid top jobs has drawn complaints of a stubborn discriminatory culture art Google and across Silicon Valley.

Time magazine reported in June that while women make up half of the workforce in the US, they account for only a third of jobs in the tech sector and "typically hold much smaller proportions of leadership positions".

Danielle Brown, Google's head of diversity, who said she had joined the company "a couple of weeks ago", issued her own memo to emphasise the company's commitment to diversity, emphasising its "unequivocal… belief that diversity and inclusion are critical to our success as a company".

Brown also hinted that while it favours open discourse on most issues, the memo and its poster might have breached "the principles of equal employment found in our Code of Conduct, policies, and anti-discrimination laws".