Google Class Action Alleges Gender Discrimination in Employment

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A discriminatory culture at Google has resulted in women being paid less than men for similar work, according to three Google employees.

Plaintiffs Kelly Ellis, Holly Pease and Kelli Wisuri claim that their employer, defendant Google Inc., has been systematically discriminating against its female employees in matters of compensation and promotion.

The alleged discrimination results in female Google employees being paid less than male employees performing comparable work, according to the plaintiffs.

“Throughout the Class Period and throughout California, Google has paid women less than men for substantially equal or similar work, when viewed as a composite of skill, effort, and responsibility, and performed under similar working conditions,” according to this Google class action lawsuit.

Ellis worked for Google as a software engineer between 2010 and 2014. She says that at the time she was hired, Google placed her at the level of its software engineering track where it normally places new college graduates, even though she already had four years’ experience under her belt.

Google then hired and promoted male software engineers with comparable qualifications over Ellis, she alleges, denying her access to similar compensation and career opportunities. She says the entire time she worked at Google, she was paid less than men with similar qualifications who did similar work.

Pease worked as a manager for Google for more than 10 years. Despite her long track record in software engineering and management of software engineers, Google kept her on a “non-technical” Business Systems career ladder, with less compensation and opportunity.

Google promoted male engineers, some of whom Pease coached for their technical interviews, into more technical and more lucrative career tracks. Yet Pease herself was denied entry into that career track, she claims. After an interview in which she was not asked any technical questions, and despite her years of technical experience, Google claimed she did not have the required technical ability.

Wisuri, a sales specialist, joined Google in 2012. Google started her one career level below where it frequently starts male representative with comparable backgrounds, she claims.

Instead of placing Wisuri on the commission-based Sales career ladder, she says, Google placed her on the salary-based Sales Enablement ladder, where she would earn much less compensation. Almost all employees in Sales are male, she claims, while about 50 percent of those in Sales Enablement are women.

All three plaintiffs say they ultimately left Google due to a lack of adequate career advancement opportunities for women.

The plaintiffs cite the results of a September 2015 compliance review of Google’s headquarters conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs. The OFCCP ran a statistical analysis of compensation data for Google’s nearly 21,000 employees and concluded that there were “systemic compensation disparities against women pretty much across the entire workforce.”

In 2015 and again this past month, internal Google spreadsheets leaked to the press allegedly show that women at Google make on average less compensation than their male counterparts in the same job levels.

The plaintiffs are proposing to represent a Class of all women employed by Google in California at any time between four years prior to the filing of this Google class action lawsuit through the date of trial.

Among other remedies, the plaintiffs are seeking an award of outstanding wages, liquidated damages, and statutory and civil penalties as provided by California employment law. They also seek an injunction barring Google from continuing the practices complained of here.

The plaintiffs are represented by attorneys James M. Finberg, Eve H. Cervantez and Corinne F. Johnson of Altshuler Berzon LLP, and by Kelly M. Dermody, Anne B. Shaver and Michelle Lamy of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP.

The Google Gender Discrimination Class Action Lawsuit is Ellis, et al. v. Google Inc., Case No. CGC-17-561299, in the Superior Court of the State of California, County of San Francisco.

UPDATE: On Dec. 4, 2017, Google escaped a class action lawsuit that alleges the company systematically discriminates against women, but the plaintiffs were given a second chance to amend their complaint.

UPDATE 2: On March 26, 2018, a California state judge has rejected a bid by Google Inc. to shut down claims in a class action lawsuit accusing the company of gender-based discrimination, finding the plaintiffs sufficiently alleged a common hiring practice that affected the thousands of putative Class Members they seek to represent.