U.S. Dept. of Labor Accuses Google of Systemic Pay Discrimination

The U.S. Department of Labor has found that Google systemically and severely underpays its female employees compared to their male counterparts, The Guardian reports. Last Friday, during a hearing at the Department of Labor’s Office of Administrative Law Judges in San Francisco, its regional director Janette Wipper testified that government regulators had found “systemic compensation disparities against women pretty much across the entire workforce.”

The accusations come at a sensitive time for Silicon Valley, an overwhelmingly male industry which has come under renewed public pressure and scrutiny over its treatment of women. Uber has faced withering criticism over allegations of discrimination and sexual harassment in the workplace, as well as for its treatment of its drivers. What makes the allegations of gender discrimination even more embarrassing for Google is that they came just days after the company announced in a celebratory tweet that it had “closed the gender pay gap globally”.

In response to the news, Google issued a statement strongly denying the DoL’s allegations against it. “We vehemently disagree with Ms Wipper’s claim. Every year, we do a comprehensive and robust analysis of pay across genders and we have found no gender pay gap. Other than making an unfounded statement which we heard for the first time in court, the DOL hasn’t provided any data, or shared its methodology,” a Google spokesperson said.

The Department of Labor states that evidence of rampant pay discrimination emerged during its ongoing investigation into Google’s labor and compensation practices.

“The investigation is not complete, but at this point the department has received compelling evidence of very significant discrimination against women in the most common positions at Google headquarters,” said Janet Herold, a DoL regional solicitor, according to The Guardian. “The government’s analysis at this point indicates that discrimination against women in Google is quite extreme, even in this industry”, Herold added.

Earlier this year, the DoL filed a lawsuit against the internet search giant, one of Silicon Valley’s most valuable and prominent companies, over its refusal to hand its employee and compensation records over to the government. Google was selected to undergo a random DoL audit to evaluate whether it complies with federal equal opportunity laws. As a government contractor that provides online advertising and cloud computing services to several federal agencies, Google is legally required to disclose compliance data to the government.

Google does not deny this. However, it noted through a company spokesperson that it has already released “hundreds of thousands of records over the past year”. The government lawsuit argues that the disclosures don’t go far enough and asks an administrative law judge to compel the company to release more of its records. If it persists in its refusal, Google stands to lose its current federal contracts and be prohibited from receiving new ones in the future.

Google, on the other hand, argues that the scope of the requested data is too broad and includes confidential employee information. It also contends for good measure that compiling the information on 54,000 interviewees constitutes a burden that would cost the company $1 million, The Atlantic reports.

Last month, the DoL administrative law judge issued a preliminary ruling in favor of Google, finding that it didn’t have to provide all of the data that the government had demanded. The department seems to forge on despite the ruling and obtain the data it seeks. While the original lawsuit did not explicitly accuse Google of engaging in discriminatory practices, last Friday’s hearing gave the department a chance to make the case for broader disclosures and a comprehensive investigation of the company to ascertain the underlying causes of the pay disparities. Wipper said that evidence of unequal payment was found in a 2015 snapshot of Google salaries, and argued that investigators needed to scrutinize more data to identify causes of the issue, according to The Guardian.

Moreover, the department argues that it is Google’s own internal affirmative action plan and avowed commitment to diversity that has led to this situation. In 2015, Google pledged $150 million to a far-reaching diversity initiative to address Silicon Valley’s well-documented gender pay gap. “Google created much of the burden about which it now complains,” the DoL noted. According to a diversity report released by Google, women make up 31 percent of its overall workforce, whereas just 19 percent of Google technology jobs are held by women. While Google and other technology companies have been proactive in revealing gender and racial imbalances in their workforces, they have been less forthcoming when it comes to compensation practices, The Associated Press notes.

Google claims that the request for more records amounts to a “fishing expedition that has absolutely no relevance” Slate reports. In the past, similar DoL investigations have led to lawsuits specifically alleging discrimination. Earlier this year, the department sued Oracle for pay discrimination against employees who are not white men. Last year, it filed a lawsuit against Palantir, arguing that the data analytics company had discriminated against Asian job applicants.

Apple CEO, Tim Cook, recently addressed the diversity gap warning “The U.S. will lose its leadership in technology if this doesn’t change.”