Human Instrumentation Project
There should be fascinating data here about the underlying reasons for pay discrepancies in the tech industry.
But I have a nagging feeling this isn't really about that.
Google has been ordered to hand over personal details of 8,000 employees as part of an ongoing US Labor Department investigation into equal pay. A judge provisionally ruled Friday that Google must provide names, personal addresses, telephone numbers and email addresses to the Labor Department's Office of Federal Contract …
"Together, this should give OFCCP ability to contact – confidentially and without Google's knowledge – all employees whom OFCCP believes are likely to have information relevant to the investigation..."
Is it still without Google's knowledge if the employee's contact info is a gmail address?
I already know my firm pays non-white men less than white men, all women here less than the non-white men, and non-white women less than their white sisters. Why? Because they can, and they can get away with it. For now.
Do I think non-white men and all women will be paid more fairly in the future? No. The rules will be jigged, somehow.
Thank you for linking to the order.
It actually says ...
The Executive Order prohibits federal contractors and federally–assisted construction contractors and subcontractors, who do over $10,000 in Government business in one year from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or national origin.
You missed sexual orientation and gender identity from the article (You could have just copy / pasted the paragraph). They are completely separate from sex. I was wondering if the order was that badly written, it was nice to be surprised for once by the order, the judge and
Google's VP of People Operations.
Much as you might like to crow about this sort of thing, these arbitrary ukases from the White House have the effect of discouraging smaller players from accepting Federal contracts, thus making sure that the deep pocket companies with armies of lawyers get all the pork. How would you like to be faced with a retroactive demand for information based on work you did in the past when the order was not even in force?
In the provisional ruling, the judge decided the OFCCP should get some but not all of the data it requested, citing undue burden on the tech giant and employees (such as the security of data), the fact that some of the data it was seeking fell outside the period when Google was a federal contractor, and further questioning the theories on potential causes of pay disparity.
Didn't realize the government could only view the data from a period when it was doing direct business. I would have thought once you opened that door, the government could see what it wanted to see.
And "undue burden"? How can a company that spends millions of dollars arguing these decisions really complain about the "undue burden" of dumping contact information? I'm sure if I was a Google partner, I could pull millions of people's personal information for advertising purposes no sweat.
And "undue burden"? How can a company that spends millions of dollars arguing these decisions really complain about the "undue burden" of dumping contact information?
Good point. Maybe it takes some time and money to select the employees who's data will be turned over? Or maybe just massage it a bit? Someone else pointed out the G-mail addy problem.
While government wants to be Big Brother, methinks Google is already there and could teach government a few things....
Why not take 5000 random men and 5000 random women, compare them head to head in a skills test of boolean logic and programming. Then pick the top 0.1 percent as candidates. Double blind. If women come out equal, then let this case proceed. Otherwise I call discriminatory gender bias against the govt.