Google is already under a Department of Labor investigation for an “extreme” gender pay gap.
Now, another former Google employee has added her name to an ongoing class action suit brought by women who allege the company discriminated against them because of their gender, The Guardian reports.
Heidi Lamar, a former preschool teacher at Google, claims that a less qualified male colleague was paid more for the same job.
She claims that in a pool of 146 employees there were only three men, but two of those three men earned more than all of the female employees.
Lamar, who has a master’s degree in education, started teaching preschool in Google’s child-care center in 2013 for $18.51 an hour. But it wasn’t until 2017 that she discovered a male colleague, without a master’s degree, who had been hired at the same time, was making $21 an hour.
Lamar said she brought this to the attention of her supervisors but was dismissed and left the company as a result.
Lamar’s lawyer, Jim Finberg, claims this pay gap happened because Google based the men’s compensation on their previous salaries.
“That policy and practice caused women to be paid less than men who are doing the same work and had the same qualifications,” Finberg told The Guardian.
In a statement to The Guardian, Google said:
We work really hard to create a great workplace for everyone, and to give everyone the chance to thrive here. Job levels and promotions are determined through rigorous hiring and promotion committees, and must pass multiple levels of review, including checks to make sure there is no bias in these decisions.
Read the full story here.
