
U.S. Labor department sues Google for compensation data - aaronyy
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-alphabet-lawsuit-idUSKBN14O2D9
======
polishTar
The OFCCP is now demanding Google provide names and private contact
information of tens of thousands of employees and ex-employees (some of which
haven't been been associated with Google for years)[1]. Unless the OFCCP can
give a _really_ compelling reason why this sensitive info is suddenly now
required for their "compliance evaluations", Google has a very real obligation
to fight overbroad data requests in ALL cases.

[1]
[https://www.dol.gov/sites/default/files/newsroom/newsrelease...](https://www.dol.gov/sites/default/files/newsroom/newsreleases/OFCCP20162406_0.pdf)

~~~
IslaDeEncanta
If Google didn't want to reveal this information, they shouldn't have taken
federal contracts.

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jeffdavis
Do you know that they are in breach, or are you just assuming?

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hudibras
That's the whole reason the government is taking them to court: Google and the
Labor Department have a disagreement and a judge will figure it out.

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codeonfire
This is the same office that is shaking down Palantir for not hiring more than
44% of Asian engineer applicants. Asians only make up 4.4% of the population.
Looks like they're trying to find out who's got money at Google.

~~~
jahewson
Google already publishes diversity statistics. So the purpose of this audit
has to be something else - such as making sure that e.g. women are not being
systematically paid less than men in the same position.

~~~
forgottenpass
_Google already publishes diversity statistics._

Oh, of course! It seems so obvious. I see why so many people say the
government is dumb and inefficient now. Why didn't they just check Google's
marketing materials, take them at face value, and not want to know anything
else in the first place?

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nrjdhsbsid
Any other perspectives on this? Racial and gender diversity is clearly lacking
in tech and I have a feeling that's even more concentrated at the "top"
employers.

Not sure if we can do much about it though. Anyone that's been to school can
see it's clearly something happening before college level. Seems like 5% or
less of CS program students are women or minorities besides Asians, that
doesn't give tech companies much to choose from.

The lack of diversity is being driven by something at highschool level or
below, it's stupid to blame tech companies for something so obvious.

~~~
jahewson
It's actually more like 20% women in CS programs now, and it was 30% a decade
ago. It would be stupid to attribute that 50% decline to changes at high
school or below though, wouldn't it?

And what does any of this have to do with equal compensation? If 0.01% of CS
graduates were women they should still receive the same pay as men do.

~~~
gvd
I always use plumbing as an example. You never hear about that being not
diverse enough. Look, I'm all for equal pay, but I didn't see those ladies in
my classroom 10-15 years ago. Only after it became "cool" to be a nerd, seeing
that there is money to be made being a nerd, and realizing that living in a
major city can't be subsidized by whatever they chose to study, did they start
hammering on about this.

Equal pay will be very difficult to enforce unless you make salaries public. I
can assure you that among your peers there are plenty of differences in
compensation.

~~~
jbob2000
It's not fair to compare them, plumbing requires physical strength, whereas
tech jobs don't. Women have anywhere from 40-60% of the strength men do, and
men have especially greater hand strength than women
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_human_physi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_human_physiology#Muscle_mass_and_strength)
Given that you need really good hand strength to do plumbing, it's never
something that will see sex diversity.

~~~
choko
I worked in remodeling before and during college, including plumbing. It
requires less physical strength than what you are implying.

The parent comment makes a good point. There are few (if any) calls for
diversity in regards to "dirty" jobs.

~~~
jbob2000
Are you a male? You think it takes less physical strength because what's
physically easy for a male would be harder for a female. Ever been asked to
open a jar for your wife?

~~~
choko
Yes, I'm male. No, I've never opened a jar for my wife. My wife actually has
as much physical strength as I, perhaps more.

For what it's worth, there were 3 female crew members with which I worked at
the remodeling company. None of them had issues turning a pipe wrench. It's
seriously not as strenuous as you seem to think. Have you tried it?

Edit: I also feel like you are missing the point, which is that there is
relatively little call for diversity outside of "more women in STEM".

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asher_
This whole topic is very bothersome, as many of the comments in the thread so
far have pointed out.

For anyone who is generally for these kinds of policies (equality, diversity,
whatever), can you please explain your position from the ground up? I am
genuinely asking, because from my point of view there are huge assumptions
made that seem to me, on the surface, to be unjustified.

~~~
ubernostrum
One version is: we're still crawling out from under the _very_ long shadow of
centuries (in the US, arguably millennia in many other places) of codified
society-wide discrimination, enforced by law and by custom, to ensure that
people of a certain gender or a certain race aren't allowed to pursue
particular career paths or do particular things with their lives.

It is ludicrous to think that this has been completely toppled and undone with
no lingering sequelae whatsoever, entirely within living memory (large,
organized nationwide movements in the US for sexual and racial equality have
only reached the point of realistically being able to even start fighting for
equal access to industries and jobs in the last 50-60 years or so), and that
now we just somehow know that the distributions of people in industries we
happen to see right now are the "natural" distributions, produced free of
bias, prejudice or discrimination. _Especially_ when high-paying/high-prestige
industries still disproportionately are made up of (relative to the general
population) the gender and race which historically rigged things to their
benefit. Any claim that bias has been removed and we still got this result is
incredibly suspicious in the face of historical evidence.

Thus, explicit, active measures should be employed to watch for and counteract
the bias which is highly likely to still exist and be in operation.

Another version is: because every time an industry has claimed to be
meritocratic in its hiring process, that low diversity is because "that group
just _isn 't interested_ in our field", etc., it's turned out -- on actual
inspection -- to be false. The classic example is orchestra blind auditions:
once reviewers were unable to know the gender of a candidate, suddenly a lot
more women were discovered to be qualified to play in orchestras!

Given how often this type of thing has happened in other fields, there is no
reason to presume that tech is some sort of special exception. Think of it
like the principle of mediocrity in cosmology, where constantly-recentered
claims of "well, where _we_ are is special and unique" continually got blown
out of the water until people learned to assume that where we are is average.
Attempts to label tech as the one industry that really _is_ somehow a unique
outlier in being free of bias and that a majority of the human race just
"naturally isn't interested in" or "naturally aren't as good at" are
overwhelmingly likely to be blown out of the water sooner or later. Where we
are now is not some special ordained natural law engraved into our DNA.

And yet people consistently argue that tech is that one unique special outlier
where it really _is_ the case that women/black people/etc. "just aren't
interested" or "naturally aren't as good".

Thus, explicit, active measures should be employed to watch for and counteract
the bias which is highly likely to still exist and be in operation.

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forrestthewoods
Labor department can't access IRS filings?

~~~
notyourwork
Everything has a process, it is not surprising government entity X cannot
access government entity Y stuff automatically. Would you assume the CIA can
access the FBI documents? Its not always so obviously simple.

~~~
btown
> Would you assume the CIA can access the FBI documents?

Legally, or realistically?

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yuhong
I dislike employment anti-discrimination laws. They were originally designed
for manual labor jobs and the like. I would be willing to compromise by
limiting them to these kinds of jobs.

~~~
sdenton4
You're seriously suggesting legalizing racial and gender discrimination for
all jobs except digging ditches?

Please consider any group that you were born into, and imagine being denied
entry to an industry based solely on your inclusion in that group. Or perhaps
being admitted, but at a fraction of the pay off someone bit in your group.

Anti discrimination laws exist because historically dominant groups in the US
have treated people from protected classes very, very poorly in matters of
employment, housing, and access to services. Removal of these laws could very
easily lead to reinstatment of segregation or other kinds of severe abuses
that we as a society have decided are odious. We can see this directly with
the pretty blatant anti black voting laws being enacted in many of the
southern states after the supreme Court gutted the voting Rights act recently.

~~~
yuhong
Manual labor was just an example. The key is that the job performance for
example is easily measurable.

~~~
sdenton4
Are you arguing that discrimination should be illegal only when it's difficult
to cover up? Not sure I see where you're coming from here.

~~~
yuhong
Well, you need evidence to prove discrimination, and not all discrimination
leave evidence. This is unlike things like theft or injury.

~~~
sdenton4
Luckily, the courts require evidence to make a decision. With a large company,
systematic pay discrimination can certainly be observed (or not, if no pay
discrimination is taking place). If, for example, all women at a large enough
company were being parted a fraction of what men in comparable positions were
making, we would have strong statistical evidence of discrimination, and the
courts could make a decision against that company.

Requesting data from Google is presumably for this kind of a statistical
investigation into whether systematic discrimination has taken place. Google,
for its part, is arguing that the particular kinds of data being requested are
beyond what is needed for this kind of analysis.

~~~
yuhong
But there are things like "PIPs" that have problems, just to name one example.
Of course, it is probably a good idea to mention that some of this stuff
varies by state. I think California is one of the most strict in this area,
making it even worse (a lot of posters mentioned this when Yishan, a former
Reddit CEO, posted against an employee).

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hudibras
As the filing says, Google signed a contract which included a clause agreeing
to "permit the Government to inspect and copy any books, accounts, records
(including computerized records), and other material that may be relevant"
etc.

What did they expect would happen?

~~~
polishTar
They're only required to provide information that is "pertinent to
compliance...". The question is whether or not the private contact details of
tens of thousands of employees and ex-employees is pertinent. Google thinks
not.

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ocdtrekkie
I'd argue the CNN article contains more info:
[http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/04/technology/google-labor-
depa...](http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/04/technology/google-labor-department-
lawsuit/index.html)

And links to the actual lawsuit:
[https://www.dol.gov/sites/default/files/newsroom/newsrelease...](https://www.dol.gov/sites/default/files/newsroom/newsreleases/OFCCP20162406_0.pdf)

"Google has repeatedly refused to provide names, contact information, job
history and salary history details that the government has requested for its
employees."

