Google told to hand over salary details in gender equality court battle | Technology

Google told to hand over salary details in gender equality court battle | Technology

A judge has ordered Google to hand over salary records to the government in an ongoing investigation by the US Department of Labor (DoL), which has accused the technology corporation of systematically discriminating against women.

Google must provide the federal government with a 2014 snapshot of the data, along with contact information for thousands of employees for possible interviews, according to a ruling made public on Sunday.

Judge Steve Berlin also denied part of the government’s request for records and partially sided with Google, which had argued the department’s demands were overly broad and could violate employee privacy.

The limited records Google must release could help the DoL build a formal pay discrimination case against the company, which has repeatedly refused to disclose key data in what has become one of the most high-profile court battles to date regarding wage inequality in Silicon Valley. The department argued that additional records would help explain the “extreme” gender pay gap it uncovered in an initial audit.

“This decision finally secures the information necessary from Google for the government to continue its investigation,” Janet Herold, DoL regional solicitor, said in an interview on Monday.

“The department’s preliminary findings are very worrying here. It is incredibly important not just to the department but to taxpayers and to the women at Google that the investigation proceed immediately.”

The provisional order, written on Friday, comes at a time of growing scrutiny of gender discrimination and sexual harassment across the tech industry, including a major scandal at Uber and a string of recent controversies involving prominent venture capitalists.

The DoL first publicly accused Google of “systemic compensation disparities” in April, testifying in a hearing that its preliminary investigation found that women across a wide range of positions at the Mountain View campus were paid less than men.

Berlin’s decision resolves a more narrow court battle stemming from a DoL lawsuit filed against Google in January, which accused the corporation of violating federal laws in its refusal to turn over salary history and employee contact information. Google has contracts with the federal government, which means it is obliged to comply with equal opportunity laws and has to allow the DoL to review certain internal records.

Google provided a 2015 snapshot of salaries. The DoL subsequently requested compensation history and contact information for employees so it could conduct confidential interviews, but Google argued the demands violated fourth amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure.

Berlin’s ruling, which is a recommended order that still has to be finalized, said Google must provide the comparable 2014 snapshot, though he said the DoL’s demands for contact information for more than 25,000 workers was “over-broad, intrusive on employee privacy, unduly burdensome, and insufficiently focused”.

Instead, Google has to provide personal information for up to 8,000 employees the DoL selects, the ruling said. Berlin also denied the department’s broader request for salary and job history data, saying the demands “create an unreasonable burden on Google and its employees”.

Herold praised the ruling, saying the judge has ordered Google to produce the vast majority of the records the DoL has long been fighting to access.

“We are looking forward in this next phase of the investigation,” she said, “to speaking with and listening to the men and women at Google to learn about their experiences and their perspectives on why there are such disparities in pay.”

She added: “Google enjoys hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money in federal contracts. It’s very important that money not be used to support any discriminatory pay practices.”

Google has vehemently denied that it discriminates against women, publicly claiming it has closed its gender pay gap globally. In a Sunday blogpost, Google said it was “pleased” with the decision and would comply with the order, providing the “much more limited data set of information”.

Google’s own analysis has shown that there is no pay inequity at the company, Eileen Naughton, vice-president of people operations, wrote in the post, adding: “We invest a lot in our efforts to create a fair and inclusive environment for all our employees.”

Herold noted that the DoL’s initial findings of a “sweeping pay disparity” contradict Google’s public claims and that it is the government’s obligation to ensure the company is complying with equal pay laws.

“It’s not enough for Google to say it’s committed to gender pay equity or other diversity initiatives,” she said. “It is our job to see whether what they say they are doing is what they are actually doing.”

In a final hearing last month, Google argued it was financially burdensome and logistically challenging to compile and hand over the salary records the DoL had requested, saying it would have to spend up to 500 hours and $100,000 to comply with the ongoing demands. The defense earned a strong rebuke from the DoL and others in the industry who noted Google has touted its $150m “diversity” efforts and has a nearly $28bn annual income as one of the world’s wealthiest companies, building some of the most advanced technology.

“Google would be able to absorb the cost as easy as a dry kitchen sponge could absorb a single drop of water,” DoL attorney Ian Eliasoph said in his closing arguments.

Google has faced repeated criticism for its lack of transparency in the dispute. The company’s lawyers unsuccessfully lobbied to get the case thrown out last month, arguing that a DoL official may have violated ethics rules by talking to the Guardian about the federal investigation.

In that interview, Herold said the data suggested that “discrimination against women in Google is quite extreme, even in this industry”. Google also tried to restrict press access during one hearing.

Google is one of many tech companies that has battled allegations of discrimination and sexism in recent months, including Tesla, Palantir, Oracle and smaller startups across Silicon Valley.

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