Google agrees to pay $118M in gender discrimination settlement
A sign on the Google campus in Mountain View.
By Cromwell Schubarth – TechFlash Editor, Silicon Valley Business Journal
Jun 13, 2022
Alphabet Inc.'s Google unit has agreed to pay $118 million to settle a lawsuit that claimed it had discriminated against women in pay and promotions.
The settlement in San Francisco Superior Court ends a lawuit brought in 2017 by three female former employees. It covers about 15,500 female employees in California who worked in 236 job titles after September 2013, according to plaintiffs’ lawyers in the case.
The three women who brought the suit said the Mountain View tech giant gave them lower-jobs than similarly qualified males and paid them less. They also said they had been denied the promotions or transitions to teams that would have better advanced their careers.
Google didn’t admit wrongdoing in the settlement, which needs to be approved by a judge.
"While we strongly believe in the equity of our policies and practices, after nearly five years of litigation, both sides agreed that resolution of the matter, without any admission or findings, was in the best interest of everyone, and we’re very pleased to reach this agreement," Google spokesman Chris Pappas told the Wall Street Journal.
As part of the settlement, the law firms representing the women said that Google has agreed to let third-party experts assess how it could improve its pay equity process and be fairer when establishing rank and pay for new hires. They said that the company will also let an external monitor assess whether it is following the experts’ recommendations.
The law firms representing the women are Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP and Altshuler Berzon LLP. "I'm optimistic that the actions Google has agreed to take as part of this settlement will ensure more equity for women," Holly Pease, one of the plaintiffs in the case, said in the announcement of the agreement. She worked for more than 10 years at Google in a number of management roles.
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