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Google has discriminated against its female employees, according to the US Department of Labor (DoL), which said it had evidence of "systemic compensation disparities".
As part of an ongoing DoL investigation, the government has collected information that suggests the internet search giant is violating federal employment laws with its salaries for women, agency officials said.
"We found systemic compensation disparities against women pretty much across the entire workforce," Janette Wipper, a DoL regional director, testified in court in San Francisco on Friday.
Reached for comment Friday afternoon, Janet Herold, regional solicitor for the DoL, said: "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."
Herold added: "The government's analysis at this point indicates that discrimination against women in Google is quite extreme, even in this industry."
Google strongly denied the accusations of inequities, claiming it did not have a gender pay gap.
Source: The Guardian
(Score: 4, Insightful) by shanen on Monday April 10 2017, @07:43PM (15 children)
Mostly based on the book Work Rules! (though I've read a bunch of google-related books recently, most recently Dogfight about the smartphone war), I think this may actually reflect the extreme pay differentials based on results, where the best results are biased in favor of aggressive males (driven by all that testosterone). There could be at least four possible mechanisms: (1) Pure aggressive competitiveness producing the results, (2) Greater aggressiveness in claiming credit for the results, (3) Better work-life balance by the women, or (4) More willingness to join risky projects.
In conclusion, the entire google topic always saddens me. So much potential to make the world better and now completely undone by corporate cancerism, the American business philosophy that buried capitalism. The way it works now, freedom is the problem, so the most cheaply bribed politicians are paid to write the worse possible laws to benefit the biggest and most cancerous corporations. As the second referenced book puts it, the winner gets around 75% of the market and almost all of the profits and the losers struggle to stay in business at all. Real capitalism (especially in the fantasy world of the libertarians) would involve rewarding the winners by requiring them to reproduce (by cellular division) creating MORE choice and MORE freedom.
As it applies specifically to the google, the old corporate motto about EVIL has been replaced with "All your attention are belong to us." The mission statement has also mutated. There was too much information, so it got prioritized. The new mission statement is to make the advertising information available and the metric of utility is the profits of the corporations that are paying the google corporation. Any benefit to human beings has become rather incidental to the gawd-given mission of shareholder value.
#1 Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice{5} ≠ (Beer^4 | Speech) and your negative mods prove you are a narrow prick.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 10 2017, @07:49PM (2 children)
Obviously, you cannot have capitalism when your society is built around an anti-capitalism organization.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 10 2017, @08:07PM
The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. Here, as so often in this world, persistence is the first and most important requirement for success. -- Adolf Hitler
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday April 10 2017, @08:08PM
Turns out there's too little profit in enforcing human dignity.
Feeding human parts (dead or alive) to carnivores could raise profit margins nicely...
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 10 2017, @10:04PM (9 children)
Young males definitely have more social pressure to "move up the ladder". For the most part, men are judged on their wallets and women on looks. It may not be "fair", but that's how society currently works. Thus, young men bust their asses to get promotions in order to be the family bread-winner. If you don't factor this into the equation, you will skew the results.
If you give promotions to females just because they are females in order for the org to balance the genders, then frustrated males will leave the company for better opportunities.
I'm all for equal pay for equal work, but societal norms gum up the measuring.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday April 10 2017, @11:00PM
And women can get payed for their looks.
I think it's called marriage, alimony, gifts or something like that ;-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @01:39AM (7 children)
If you give promotions to females just because they are females in order for the org to balance the genders, then frustrated males will leave the company for better opportunities.
And if you give promotions to males just because men are judged on their wallets, then frustrated females will seek enough political power to stop you from pulling that shit in the future.
I guess that's the difference between men and women, the men just give up and run away while the women do something about the problem.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday April 11 2017, @03:02AM (2 children)
You're high, right?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @05:20PM (1 child)
I guess that's the difference between men and women, the men just give up and run away while the women do something about the problem.
You're high, right?
Username checks out!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @11:12PM
Serious question: what point are you trying to make by attempting to mock someone's username in relation to their post? Usernames are chosen by the poster, so they're highly likely to be comfortable with the name they chose.
Without your answer, all I can divine from your attempt is a "your dumb!" retort.
(Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Tuesday April 11 2017, @10:36AM (2 children)
Wait, isn't there a gender pay gap specifically because women have not done something about the problem?
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Tuesday April 11 2017, @01:57PM
Why would women want to do anything about this “problem?”
They certainly would not want the deal given to men: figure it out or starve to death in a gutter, I don't care how, and fuck you.
Nobody has a problem with men starving to death. Men are accountable for their own actions. If a man doesn't like his station in life, we tell him he can either STFU or work “harder.”
Everybody wants to coddle women. Women are not accountable for their own actions. If a woman doesn't like her station in life, it's everybody's fault except for hers, and it's everybody's responsibility to do something about it except hers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @05:18PM
Wait, isn't there a gender pay gap specifically because women have not done something about the problem?
I don't know if you are joking or actually think that's an even remotely serious counter-argument.
But the gender pay gap has been massively reduced over the last 35 years. [pay-equity.org]
In 1980 women made 60% of what men made, today its nearly 80%.
That is the result of women working to fix the problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @06:02PM
What? Where did I say "just because"? I do believe the average male will work harder on getting a promotion because society pressures them to get a promotion and earn more. It's not about one gender being better than another.
The flip side is that on average females work much harder on their appearance than males because that's how society judges them. I'm just the messenger; I didn't make society.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday April 11 2017, @02:56AM (1 child)
(3) Better work-life balance by the women
That is the biggest factor working against "women". It has been noted by a number of people that wages aren't gender biased, so much as they are mother-biased. Women who take maternity leave and/or longer absences to care for family are "left behind" by both male and female counterparts.
Forget about females for a moment. Let's look at males only. A young worker who takes his job casually will never be promoted. His class mate from high school who has become a workaholic, is going to get the raises and promotions. Joe the Workaholic dedicates himself to the job, while Bill Casual takes days off at random, and may or may not put forth extra effort to meet deadlines.
Bring the women back in. If I can expect the lady to give me 8 years of service over the next decade, why would I ensure that she earns the *same wages* over that decade, as Joe? She happens to be a pretty good worker, and she's obviously worth more than Bill Casual - but she's not worth a Joe.
Bring in another woman who has no desire to raise her own family, she may be Joe's equal. But - as you've already pointed out, women ARE more likely to "balance" their personal lives against their professional lives.
Bottom line, for me, is that women shouldn't expect to earn the same money that men earn, UNLESS they are willing to beat men out in all respects.
But, hey - let's remember that women live longer than men. They WILL get their revenge when they are tossing clods of dirt on our caskets.
(Score: 2) by shanen on Wednesday April 12 2017, @08:39AM
I think I disagree with your conclusion, but I have thought that women (and men) should be allowed to postpone their careers without penalty for the sake of their children. Of course, that would sort of be predicated on companies having jobs that people want to keep working at beyond the fixed age of retirement, whereas today's reality, especially in technical companies, is to get rid of old people as quickly as possible, without anything resembling mercy or regret.
Value of wisdom? Veneration for experience? Silly old notions.
#1 Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice{5} ≠ (Beer^4 | Speech) and your negative mods prove you are a narrow prick.