On Friday, The Guardian reported that during a hearing at the U.S. Department of Labor Office of Administrative Law Judges, the U.S. government accused Google of violating federal employment laws by allowing pay discrepancies between men and women in the company. According to the publication, Janette Wipper, the DOL’s regional director for the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, claims that Google’s labor practices include “systemic compensation disparities against women pretty much across the entire workforce.”
The Department of Labor initially filed a lawsuit against Google back in January, over the release of records related to the company’s compliance with the equal opportunity laws required of federal contractors. Google was selected randomly for an audit, and the lawsuit alleges that Google refused to hand over the requested data.
This news comes just days after Google announced that the company has closed its gender pay-gap globally—a problem for companies throughout Silicon Valley—in a tweet celebrating Equal Pay Day*:
Let’s make every day #EqualPayDay. All employers can take steps to eliminate the gender and race pay gaps, today → https://t.co/KTuGTJMV16 pic.twitter.com/rBciSK21uF
— Google (@Google) April 4, 2017
“We vehemently disagree with Ms Wipper’s claim. Every year, we do a comprehensive and robust analysis of pay across genders and we have found no gender pay gap. Other than making an unfounded statement which we heard for the first time in court, the DOL hasn’t provided any data, or shared its methodology,” a spokesperson for Google said in a statement. As for their refusal to hand over the records, the company has said that the government’s requests were too broad and would have required divulging confidential employee information.