Familiar Silicon Valley Saga: Women File Class-Action Lawsuit Against Google

Three former employees have filed a class-action discrimination lawsuit against Alphabet Inc GOOGL, which is already under an intense federal probe into allegations it pays women less than men and hinders their upward mobility at the company.

In another blow against the frat-boy culture that purportedly pervades Silicon Valley, the lawsuit is a direct outgrowth of the ongoing U.S. Department of Labor probe of the giant search-engine and tech behemoth and cites preliminary findings that women are systematically paid less for equal work.

Google has refused thus far to provide the detailed wage records that the Labor Department Is demanding, saying it's too expensive to compile.

3 Plaintiffs Quit Over Sexist Policies

The latest lawsuit by Kelly Ellis, Holly Pease, and Kelli Wisuri was filed Thursday in San Francisco Superior Court on behalf of all women who have worked for the company in California over the last four years.

It comes a week after the New York Times published a spreadsheet showing sharp gender disparities in pay at the Mountain View, Calif.-based corporation. Google has said the newspaper’s information is flawed.

Google spokesperson Gina Scigliano told Gizmodo that its own data shows, when you take “location, tenure, job role, level and performance” into account, that “women are paid 99.7% of what men are paid at Google.”

She said the company disagrees with the allegations in the new class action-lawsuit.

“We work really hard to create a great workplace for everyone, and to give everyone the chance to thrive here,” said Scigliano. “In relation to this particular lawsuit, we’ll review it in detail, but we disagree with the central allegations."

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.

Related Link:

Rant Against Diversity By Google Software Engineer Goes Viral