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Google pays $11 million to settle 227 age discrimination claims
Google will pay $11 million to settle the claims of 227 people who say they were unfairly denied jobs because of their age, according to Friday court filings. The settlement must still be approved by the judge in the case.
The original lead plaintiff in the case, first filed in 2015, was a 60-something man named Robert Heath who says he was deemed a "great candidate" by a Google recruiter. The lawsuit said that in 2013, the median age of Google employees was 29, whereas the typical computer programmer in the US is over 40, according to several different measures.
During the interview process, Heath received a technical phone interview with a Google engineer. Heath alleged that the engineer had a heavy accent, a problem made worse by the engineer's insistence on using a speakerphone. When Heath was working through a technical problem, he asked if he could share his code using a Google Doc. The interviewer refused, Heath alleged. Instead, Heath had to read code snippets over the phone—an inherently error-prone process. Heath argued that the interview process "reflected a complete disregard for older workers who are undeniably more susceptible to hearing loss."
[... Cheryl Fillekes] says she interviewed for engineering jobs at Google four times but was never offered a position. During one interview process, Fillekes says, a recruiter requested that she submit an updated résumé that showed her graduation dates for college and graduate degrees. When Fillekes asked why this was required, she says the recruiter responded that it was "so the interviewers can see how old you are."
Of the $11 million payout in the settlement, $2.75 million will go to lawyers representing the class, Bloomberg reports. Fillekes will get an extra $10,000 as the lead plaintiff. The remaining cash works out to around $35,000 per plaintiff.
(Score: 3, Informative) by darkfeline on Tuesday July 23 2019, @10:41PM (2 children)
Sounds like people just trying to get money or people woefully ignorant of the hiring process (which also explains why they weren't hired).
>a 60-something man named Robert Heath who says he was deemed a "great candidate" by a Google recruiter
Recruiters are not technically skilled. A "great candidate" means their resume matches a few keyword searches. It means jack shit.
>Heath argued that the interview process "reflected a complete disregard for older workers who are undeniably more susceptible to hearing loss."
He should have requested hearing assistance when scheduling the interview then. What he's asking for is legally risky; if Google assumed that all older applicants had hearing loss, that makes it way easier to build a case that Google was discriminating based on age. Had he explicitly told Google that he required hearing assistance, then that gets marked internally as a disability and Google's HR/legal will take great care not to leave room for a discrimination lawsuit.
1. Companies can't assume anything about applicant, because then you enter the gray area of "I claim that Google assumed I was X and discriminated against me".
2. Companies are legally required to not discriminate and also provide assistance/building access based on disability (that doesn't materially affect ability to perform job), but you need to explicitly inform the company.
2a. Of course this disincentivizes companies from wanting to hire people with disabilities because they are more work/cost more/greater legal liability. That's life, what are you going to do? Force companies to have a disability quota?
>the recruiter responded that it was "so the interviewers can see how old you are."
There's a lot of context you need to know.
1. A large company would under no circumstance promote making such a statement, since it's almost a free "win a class action lawsuit" card (which indeed happened here).
2. Recruiters are generally not "regular employees". They're more like independent headhunters or contracted from a separate organization. (This is also partly why recruiters are not technical.)
3. Therefore, there's usually a training policy written by the company that is then passed to the recruiters/contractors. This document has a protect your ass section specifically about making statements that make the company legally vulnerable.
4. Recruiters are also, if I may be blunt, stupider (they're much cheaper than a software engineer), and passing a policy document across organizations and down company hierarchies doesn't help clarity. Often the message that recruiters receive doesn't accurately reflect the original policy. Getting the right policy down usually requires repeating it and enforcing it over and over again over a long period of time, during which violations happen; if you've ever worked with a troublesome vendor, you know the feeling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_whispers [wikipedia.org]
4. The recruiter in question violated policy and probably will get/has already gotten fired by the contracted company.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 24 2019, @12:42AM (1 child)
All google engineers are expected to do interviews with possible employees. It is part of their job. Usually at least 1-2 per week.
Source: when I interviewed the interviewers....
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Wednesday July 24 2019, @02:06AM
Interviewers are not recruiters. Part of the reason for interviewers is because the recruiters aren't qualified to evaluate applicants, except in the barest superficial sense.
(and the "at least 1-2 per week" is incorrect. I'm not providing a source, take it as you will)
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