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Google to pay $28M to settle claims it favoured white and Asian employees

theguardian.com

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Re: Google to pay $28M to settle claims it favoured white and Asian employees

#101

Post by pixl97 »

reissbaker wrote: post #48
rchaud wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got any evidence for that? Is Google in the habit of paying out giant HR-related settlements for something other than protecting good ol' boys like Andy Rubin? https://www.cbsnews.com/news/andy-rubin-google-settlement-se... Google has enough money to hire the best law firms too. Why would any law firm engage in frivolous litigation against a potential future client? The linked settlement is 10X that of this one, whic…

As another commenter pointed out elsewhere, Google recently paid out a settlement claiming that it discriminated against Asians. https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/ofccp/ofccp20210201 This settlement claims they favored Asians, but Google paid it out too! So, yes, it appears Google is in the habit of paying out contradictory settlements rather than litigating them.

For example if you could discriminate positively towards Chinese and negatively towards Indians and meet the claims in question.

Re: Google to pay $28M to settle claims it favoured white and Asian employees

#102

Post by unclebucknasty »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #93
unclebucknasty wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There was a ERG for literally every single race except White people. "Just join one of the others" was what they told me. Imagine moving to say, Switzerland, to work for a massive corporation. 90% of the employees are Swiss. The other 10% come from a smattering of other countries from around the world. To help those employees acclimate to a new culture and find support, the company sponsors country-based ERGs. Of c…

> Of course, there is no Swiss ERG, as it's the "default" Switzerland is a country of three dominant languages. When I worked for a Swiss bank, they had internal groups for, essentially, domestic expats.

Not surprising. There are different ways to view identity, and none of us are any one thing. Your observation underscores my point that providing support along the lines of identity can be completely benign sans a political context.

That said, feel free to substitute a more homogenous country if that helps to clarify my point.

Re: Google to pay $28M to settle claims it favoured white and Asian employees

#103

Post by ben_w »

dietr1ch wrote: post #84
ben_w wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the one hand, this is linguistically correct… if we were speaking Spanish. As we're not actually using real Spanish, such criticisms feel to me like objecting to the way Star Trek dares to boldly split infinitives that have never been split before on the basis that Latin (the language) didn't split them — Latin couldn't split infinitives because infinitives in Latin are single words, just as the -x suffix to denot…

> On the one hand, this is linguistically correct… if we were speaking Spanish. I don't see many English words ending in X, so I doubt it's linguistically correct in English either. Normally you just borrow the word as closely as possible, maybe trying to make it easier to pronounce (see any word the Japanese borrow from English), but here people that didn't speak Spanish, but apparently knew a little bit took over.

Box.

English corrupts a lot of stuff it borrows, the examples which come to mind are when people try to be fancy. See also "chai tea", the difference between beef and cow. Also corrupts itself spontaneously, what with all the "u"s in British English or how many "i"s there are in aluminium.

Slient letters. Queue. Ptarmigan.

Re: Google to pay $28M to settle claims it favoured white and Asian employees

#104

Post by ty6853 »

everybodyknows wrote: post #98
ty6853 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works, but court cases are public record. Good luck getting anyone to touch you with a ten foot pole afterwards, not like the candidate can prove why they weren't selected.

So HR pays to check this for every candidate? No wonder it's hard to get hired.

Lol in my state I can see every (unsealed) civil case with a simple online query. My landlords have pretty much all done it, I don't know if the background checks show it but it's an extra 15 seconds to hedge a 10k+ potential liability.

Re: Google to pay $28M to settle claims it favoured white and Asian employees

#105

Post by unclebucknasty »

BurningFrog wrote: post #92
unclebucknasty wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There was a ERG for literally every single race except White people. "Just join one of the others" was what they told me. Imagine moving to say, Switzerland, to work for a massive corporation. 90% of the employees are Swiss. The other 10% come from a smattering of other countries from around the world. To help those employees acclimate to a new culture and find support, the company sponsors country-based ERGs. Of c…

Straight white men, or even just white people, is in no way the "default" at Google, and very far from the 90% in your allegory.

>Straight white men, or even just white people, is in no way the "default" at Google, and very far from the 90% in your allegory.

It's not supposed to map statistically on to Google. It's an analogy, intended to remove the problematic political context.

That said, Asian+White does make up 90%+ of Google's workforce, split roughly in half. Interestingly, there's an Asian ERG.

Re: Google to pay $28M to settle claims it favoured white and Asian employees

#106

Post by jlawson »

wijwp wrote: post #76
footlose_3815 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people who are running the diversity stuff at Google when I was there were very "Eye-for-an-eye". Some dumb stuff that happened while I was at Google: * There was a ERG for literally every single race except White people. "Just join one of the others" was what they told me. * During an onboarding learning exercise because I was merely showing initiative before the rest of the group. "Ok everyone here's my idea".…

As a white man who used to work for G: > There was a ERG for literally every single race except White people. "Just join one of the others" was what they told me. What would an ERG for white people even do? What would you want from it? > Nonwhite employees in my org also got a special mentor who helped them get a leg-up in the company. There are general mentorship programs, too. Usually focused on career development.…

>What would an ERG for white people even do? What would you want from it?

The exact same thing as anyone of any other group of course.

To be clear, Whites are a minority at Google. They are also not even the largest group. (Not that this should matter - all groups have the right to exist).

Re: Google to pay $28M to settle claims it favoured white and Asian employees

#107

Post by footlose_3815 »

wijwp wrote: post #76
footlose_3815 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people who are running the diversity stuff at Google when I was there were very "Eye-for-an-eye". Some dumb stuff that happened while I was at Google: * There was a ERG for literally every single race except White people. "Just join one of the others" was what they told me. * During an onboarding learning exercise because I was merely showing initiative before the rest of the group. "Ok everyone here's my idea".…

As a white man who used to work for G: > There was a ERG for literally every single race except White people. "Just join one of the others" was what they told me. What would an ERG for white people even do? What would you want from it? > Nonwhite employees in my org also got a special mentor who helped them get a leg-up in the company. There are general mentorship programs, too. Usually focused on career development.…

I would have been happy if it was called "White Allies" and it just focused on being a good sensitive person.

Re: Google to pay $28M to settle claims it favoured white and Asian employees

#108

Post by jlawson »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #73
footlose_3815 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people who are running the diversity stuff at Google when I was there were very "Eye-for-an-eye". Some dumb stuff that happened while I was at Google: * There was a ERG for literally every single race except White people. "Just join one of the others" was what they told me. * During an onboarding learning exercise because I was merely showing initiative before the rest of the group. "Ok everyone here's my idea".…

> There was a ERG for literally every single race except White people. "Just join one of the others" was what they told me. Imagine moving to say, Switzerland, to work for a massive corporation. 90% of the employees are Swiss. The other 10% come from a smattering of other countries from around the world. To help those employees acclimate to a new culture and find support, the company sponsors country-based ERGs. Of c…

Google is like 45% white, 45% Asian.

Asians have an ERG.

If Whites want to make an ERG, why can't they? What is special about Whites that they must be prevented from doing the thing that literally all others have done?

Re: Google to pay $28M to settle claims it favoured white and Asian employees

#109

Post by unclebucknasty »

rqtwteye wrote: post #87
unclebucknasty wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There was a ERG for literally every single race except White people. "Just join one of the others" was what they told me. Imagine moving to say, Switzerland, to work for a massive corporation. 90% of the employees are Swiss. The other 10% come from a smattering of other countries from around the world. To help those employees acclimate to a new culture and find support, the company sponsors country-based ERGs. Of c…

ERG groups provide mentorship and support. The assumption that all white people, males or in this case Swiss don’t need support or get it automatically is plain wrong.

>ERG groups provide mentorship and support.

Yes, and Google offers a wide range of mentorship/support programs, from those for community college students to upskilling to new hires to tailored programs and more.

>The assumption that all white people, males or in this case Swiss don’t need support

I don't think anyone assumes that. I certainly don't. I'm sure Google provides other means of support to its employees, and ERGs represent just one approach, which address specific needs for specific employees.

What you have to understand is that people are tribal and that can have effects on "outgroups" in any given context. If we're out at lunch and all but one of us is in the same frat, we may unintentionally exclude that person. It's not necessarily intentional or malicious. That's obviously a simplification, but you can extrapolate.

So, ERGs aren't meant to be punitive or exclusionary. In fact, according to OP, Google encouraged all employees to join whichever groups interested them.

Re: Google to pay $28M to settle claims it favoured white and Asian employees

#110

Post by skyyler »

jlawson wrote: post #106
wijwp wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a white man who used to work for G: > There was a ERG for literally every single race except White people. "Just join one of the others" was what they told me. What would an ERG for white people even do? What would you want from it? > Nonwhite employees in my org also got a special mentor who helped them get a leg-up in the company. There are general mentorship programs, too. Usually focused on career development.…

>What would an ERG for white people even do? What would you want from it? The exact same thing as anyone of any other group of course. To be clear, Whites are a minority at Google. They are also not even the largest group. (Not that this should matter - all groups have the right to exist).

>Whites are a minority at Google

Is that true? Do white men at google face systemic oppression?

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