Vice Agrees To $1.9M Gender Bias Class Action Settlement

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Vice has reached a $1.9 million settlement with its female employees who claim they were paid less than their male counterparts.

The media company and 675 current and former female employees have asked a California State Court to grant approval to their proposed settlement deal.

They have also asked the court to certify two Classes of employees for the settlement — employees who worked in New York for the company since February 2012 or in California since February 2014.

According to the Vice class action lawsuit, expert analysis showed that women were paid less than their male counterparts by $7 million to $9.7 million.

This analysis was reportedly based on Vice’s information about employee job level, length of time spent at the company, location of work, and type of work performed.

According to the Vice employees, “when the age of the employee is factored in to account for differences in years of experience in the labor market, however, the potential disparities plummeted to well below $1 million.”

The employees note that the proposed $1.9 million Vice class action settlement would give affected workers from around 19 to 200 percent of the wages they are owed.

Under the proposed deal, around $1.2 million will be dispersed among affected employees, and Class representatives would each receive an award of $15,000 on top of class benefits.

Attorneys will receive $625,000 on top of the $22,000 in litigation fees.

Several employees have been added as named plaintiffs to the Vice pay disparity class action lawsuit during amendments to their Vice class action lawsuit.

Plaintiff Elizabeth Rose filed the Vice gender pay gap class action lawsuit in February 2018. She says that she worked as a channel manager and project manager for Vice between April 2014 and February 2016.

Rose claims that she and other female employees were underpaid compared to their male counterparts, saying that men who had similar or lower experience levels were paid more to do the same work than women with higher experience levels.

According to Vice gender bias class action, this discrimination against women when it came to wages was systematic throughout the company.

Rose argued that Vice discriminates “against women by allowing their predominantly male leadership to favor men overtly in pay, promotions, and other opportunities regardless of their qualifications.”

The Vice class action lawsuit went on to claim that leadership at Vice “fosters or condones a company culture that marginalizes, demeans, and undervalues women.”

Rose offered examples from her own career at Vice when she claims that she was underpaid, and that a man in a position below her made more for the work he did.

She also cites an example from another female Vice employee, who alleges that when she was promoted and offered a raise, it was $15,000 less than the salary of her male predecessor, and was told that there was no more that the company could offer her.

The women employees are represented by Michael Morrison of Alexander Krakow & Glick LLP.

The Vice Gender Pay Gap Class Action Lawsuit is Elizabeth Rose v. Vice Media Inc., et al., Case No. BC693688, in the Superior Court of the State of California, County of Los Angeles.