Deja Vu: Google Settles Age Discrimination Lawsuit For $11 Million

[steven36]

Almost a decade ago, courts sounded a clear warning bell that Google’s culture was tainted by illegal and pervasive age discrimination.

Inexplicably, Google didn’t listen.

 

And so the Los Angeles Times recently reported that Google has agreed to pay $11 million to settle a federal lawsuit alleging Google engaged in a systemic practice of discriminating on the basis of age in hiring. Some 227 plaintiffs will collect an average of $35,000 each.

 

Google actually agreed to settle the case in December but the final settlement agreement was presented to a federal judge on Friday.

 

The lawsuit was filed by Cheryl Fillekes, a software engineer who was interviewed by Google four times from 2007 to 2014, starting when she was 47, but was never hired.

 

 

The lawsuit alleged Google hired younger workers based on “cultural fit.”

 

According to the latest statistics, the median age of Google employees in 2017 was 30, a decade younger than the median age of U.S. workers.

 

Google claimed Fillekes didn’t demonstrate the technical aptitude required for the job but its defense took a major hit when a federal judge granted the plaintiff’s motion to make the case a collective action, which is similar to a class action. This broadened the litigation and substantially raised the stakes.

 

Cultural fit

 

This isn’t the first time that Google's “culture” has become an issue in the federal courts or Google's first high profile settlement of an age discrimination lawsuit.

 

In 2010, Google settled a lawsuit filed by a one-time Silicon Valley superstar, Brian Reid, then 52, who was hired by Google in 2002 to serve as director of operations and director of engineering. Reid was transferred two years later to head up what was supposed to be new program to retain engineers. He was given no budget or staff and the program was quickly disbanded. Reid left Google in 2004 with a two-month severance package.

 

According to court documents, Reid received an excellent performance rating for his technical skills but was faulted for failing to fit into Google’s culture. His supervisor, Wayne Rosing, wrote, “Right or wrong, Google is simply different: Younger contributors, inexperienced first line managers, and the super fast pace are just a few examples of the environment."

 

Rosing subsequently replaced Reid with two employees who were 15 and 20 years younger than Reid, respectively. Reid said he was given no reason for Rosing's action other than lack of “cultural fit.”

 

The court documents quote one of Reid’s successor’s, Urs Hölzle, 38, a Swiss software engineer, as telling Reid his opinions were “obsolete” and “too old to matter” and that he was “slow,” “fuzzy,” “sluggish” and “lethargic.”  Other coworkers called him an “old man,” “old fuddy duddy” and joked that Reid’s compact disc jewel case office placard should be an “LP” (long-playing record).

 

The amount of Reid's settlement was never disclosed.

 

Reluctance to Act

 

On its web page, Google says its mission is to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” But for some reason Google has failed as a company to organize and use the information that age discrimination is illegal.

 

Google in 2014 began publishing diversity statistics and vowed to hire more women, minorities, and LGBTQ workers. But Google didn’t include diversity statistics for age in its diversity report, or even reference age.  Incredibly, age remains invisible in Google’s 2019 diversity report.

 

In the settlement of the Fillekes case, Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, agreed to train employees and managers about age bias, to create a committee focused on age diversity in recruiting and to ensure that complaints are adequately investigated.

 

Source

[Infinite_Vision]

How ironic is it that a company that just came out with anti-bullying campaign recently maybe in the last two week or so.  Look, no one is perfect and I'm not perfect myself.  But I don't go out there thumping my chest saying the opposite.   I have gave Google the benefit of the doubt for a long time because I was a big fan of Android but after some personal experiences, I can no longer say that I can.  Everyone of us is biased to a certain point but don't let that biased flow into the business itself.  It is the culture itself inside Google that is so persuasive.  All the anti-trust lawsuits from US government, EU government, etc.  All the shadow banning of conservative and demonetizing of creators that they don't agree with on YouTube, and the push to de-list various creators.  In addition, there were undercover videos of these practices from Project Veritas which they completely remove the video from YouTube.  I'm not a conservative nor am I a liberal.  I'm just in the middle.  Until then, I will be using alternatives just on principle.  I don't hate Google itself but I just can't do it anymore.  😥😞 A once humble company that have turned into something...😩😥 

 

We need someone in the tech industry that is not afraid of competition.  Competition creates innovation and changes that benefit the end user.  I think that is what we have been missing for ten plus years because all of the big guys have in some way block and slowly drained out the small guys.  For example, the GAB app which Apple and Google have banned on their app store for various reasons.  They should let the end user decide if it is a good app.   But they themselves have decided that it was too threatening to their platform and their friend Twitter.  There was a time when end user were the one deciding which platform was better.  I.E  Myspace and FB.  But what we have now is the big guys squeezing the small guys out especially the ones that does not want to be bought by the big guys.  That is why I find it ironic of the chest thumping on Google's part.  They tried to lecture us on anti-bullying but the biggest bully on the block is Google themselves and their friends in Silicon valley.