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Yahoo! Inc. was accused in a lawsuit of manipulating employee performance evaluations to justify firing hundreds of workers in order to meet its financial targets.
Gregory Anderson, who was an editor for some of Yahoo's online news content, claims he and about 600 others at the company were unfairly fired in 2014 after managers retooled a numerical ranking system to downgrade their performance.
The mass terminations occurred without appropriate notice in violation of state and federal laws, according to the complaint filed Monday in federal court in San Jose, California. Anderson also accused the company of gender discrimination under the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964, citing internal promotions he said were limited to female candidates.
"The employees were never told their actual metric numeric ranking or how it had been determined," according to the complaint. The quarterly performance rating process "therefore permitted and encouraged discrimination based on gender and any other personal bias held by management."
California law requires that the termination of 50 or more employees within a month occur with a 60-day notice period. Anderson was told by Yahoo that he was fired while attending a journalism fellowship at the University of Michigan granted with the support of the company, according to the complaint. He said he was informed the decision was effective immediately.
Earlier Coverage: Yahoo! Turnaround Plan: Proxy War and Fire Mayer?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Francis on Saturday February 06 2016, @10:17PM
No you don't, there are other ways of doing it.
The matter of who got the promotions is not going to be hard to determine and if it turns out that they were going primarily to women, that's going to be sufficient to put Yahoo on the defensive here. The standards involved are fairly low for civil cases, so they just have to show that the preponderance of the evidence shows that it was discriminatory. And if most of the candidates promoted were female, then they're basically fucked. Either they were discriminating against women prior to the spate of promotions or they were discriminating against men with the promotions. I'm not even sure how a lawyer can spin it so that neither of those cases is accepted.
And if they were keeping the metrics secret, that's going to be rather problematic as well. You can fire an employee for just about any reason in much of the US, however, when you start to use secret scores and combine that with results that favor one group or another, you're taking a huge risk that you're not firing anybody in a protected class.
As far as the layoffs go, this is a pretty clear violation of the law if they were using a formula to determine who was being retained or fired. This doesn't sound like a case where there were a lot of people being fired independently of each other, so the normal rules about layoffs are almost certainly going to apply here.
IANAL, take this for what it's worth, but if the evidence that the attorney is referencing exists, then they have a pretty good shot at winning here. Anti-discrimination laws exist to protect men just as much as women. If they were just for the purposes of protecting women they wouldn't be constitutional.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2016, @10:37PM
The matter of who got the promotions is not going to be hard to determine and if it turns out that they were going primarily to women ... The standards involved are fairly low for civil cases, so they just have to show that the preponderance of the evidence shows that it was discriminatory
Where are all the red pillars to shout you down? Don't you know it's equality of opportunity, not equality of outcomes! Or does that sophistry only apply to other groups?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 07 2016, @02:25AM
The last few courses about gender (and other protected classes) discrimination I was forced to take at my employers said that I have to report the discrimination (to HR, or whatever - there was a long tree). If I don't they say I loose the right to go after the company. Is it true? And if it is not, can I use the courses as an evidence of the discrimination or at least as an attempt to cover?
Sorry for anonymous..
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Dunbal on Sunday February 07 2016, @04:04AM
If I don't they say I loose the right to go after the company. Is it true?
IANAL but I don't think companies get the right to tack on their own bits of policy to a country's laws. It is up to them to obey the law of the land, period. Them telling you that there is some sort of exception to the law where you have to take steps is pure BS, unless the law specifically states that is the case. Now since it's civil not criminal law it is possible if you signed a contract with your employer that they shoved in some sort of arbitration/mediation clause in there - in which case it's up to you to get legal advice. Notwithstanding, courts usually take a dim view of companies that try to pull fast ones like that in order to get around laws that were, after all, designed to protect you the employee.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Francis on Sunday February 07 2016, @05:15AM
There's no legal requirement to do that here. But failing to do so may affect any final judgment as you're typically required to minimise the harm done.
That being said you may not know that it's, for example, sexual harassment until after you've been fired or denied a promotion as teasing isn't usually enough to count.
But, Ianal, consult with a competent professional in your area I'd you want legal advice. Or the government body in charge of enforcement at the state or federal level.