Google Pays $11 Million to Settle 227 Age Discrimination Claims
upstart writes:
Submitted via IRC for AnonymousLuser
Google pays $11 million to settle 227 age discrimination claims
Google will pay $11 million to settle the claims of 227 people who say they were unfairly denied jobs because of their age, according to Friday court filings. The settlement must still be approved by the judge in the case.
The original lead plaintiff in the case, first filed in 2015, was a 60-something man named Robert Heath who says he was deemed a "great candidate" by a Google recruiter. The lawsuit said that in 2013, the median age of Google employees was 29, whereas the typical computer programmer in the US is over 40, according to several different measures.
During the interview process, Heath received a technical phone interview with a Google engineer. Heath alleged that the engineer had a heavy accent, a problem made worse by the engineer's insistence on using a speakerphone. When Heath was working through a technical problem, he asked if he could share his code using a Google Doc. The interviewer refused, Heath alleged. Instead, Heath had to read code snippets over the phone-an inherently error-prone process. Heath argued that the interview process "reflected a complete disregard for older workers who are undeniably more susceptible to hearing loss."
[... Cheryl Fillekes] says she interviewed for engineering jobs at Google four times but was never offered a position. During one interview process, Fillekes says, a recruiter requested that she submit an updated ri(C)sumi(C) that showed her graduation dates for college and graduate degrees. When Fillekes asked why this was required, she says the recruiter responded that it was "so the interviewers can see how old you are."
Of the $11 million payout in the settlement, $2.75 million will go to lawyers representing the class, Bloomberg reports. Fillekes will get an extra $10,000 as the lead plaintiff. The remaining cash works out to around $35,000 per plaintiff.
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.