Google alleges discrimination against black workers in the United States – 03/20/2022 – Mercado

A former Google employee filed a lawsuit against black workers on Friday, alleging that they discriminated against black workers, employed them in low-paying, low-paying jobs, and denied them career advancement.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Jose, seeks to become a class action lawsuit. Plaintiff April Curley, who worked at Google from 2014 until her dismissal in 2020.

While at the company, Curley helped bring black employees to Google, traditionally creating recruitment programs at black colleges and universities.

“Google is involved in a national standard or deliberate practice of racial discrimination and retaliation, and maintains employment policies and practices that have a different impact on black workers in the United States,” the complaint said.

A Google spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The lawsuit was probably funded by a number of complaints filed by black employees over the years about working at Google. Despite growing into one of the largest private employers in the United States, the company has struggled to increase racial and gender disparities among its employees, especially within its well-paid board of engineers.

According to its 2021 Diversity Report, 4.4% of Google’s U.S. employees are “black +”, with workers identifying more than one species.

According to the Office for Labor Statistics, this is well below the national average of 9.1% for digital publishing and research firms.

The lawsuit alleges that Google hired black employees to a less professional level than their experience. This allowed the company to pay black employees less than their counterparts, as pay was tied to work conditions.

Qualified black candidates are often not considered “googly” enough – according to the complaint, an arbitrary position that is a kind of flag for racial profiling.

He says the company often deliberately confuses black job seekers with tough questions and so they perform poorly in interviews, and accuses Google of hiring black workers for low-paying, low-paying jobs.

Curley also said he was subjected to a hostile work environment. During his six years at the company, he said managers often confused himself with two black colleagues.

He said he and these colleagues were not allowed to speak or perform during important meetings and that he felt humiliated and sexually abused when a manager asked him which co-workers he would like to sleep with.

A year after Curley’s salary was slashed and he was reprimanded for speaking at staff meetings in 2019 and for challenging internal procedures, the lawsuit alleges that the company included Curley in the performance improvement program and terminated his contract in September 2020.

Luis Roberto M. Translated by Gonsalves