On the heels of a lawsuit brought by the Department of Labor, three of Google’s former female employees filed a class action suit claiming that the company is violating labor laws by paying women less than men for “substantially similar work” and “segregated” them into lower-paying jobs, according to a report in the Guardian.
The report details the experiences of Kelly Ellis, Holly Pease, and Kelli Wisuri, who all left Google when they were given employee grades that put them on track to earn less than their male counterparts. The suit aims to represent more Google employees in California–as many as 90 more women who used to work there have contacted the lead attorney on the case. According to the suit,
“Google has channeled and segregated, and continues to channel and segregate, women on the basis of their sex into lower compensation levels and into less-compensated and less-favorable job ladders and levels than men with equal or lesser qualifications and/or men performing substantially similar work.”
Google hasn’t commented on the suit yet, but has maintained that there is no gender pay gap at the company. However, the San Francisco Chronicle reports that the initial review of pay data from the federal labor investigation found systemic pay discrimination in nearly every job classification at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, California. The tech giant has lately been at the center of a firestorm of discussion about gender issues in the tech industry, and has also struggled to bring more racial and ethnic diversity to its workforce.
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