Hari C

After images of white nationalists rallying in Charlottesville, Virginia circulated on social media, the internet went to work to identify the participants.

Efforts to expose the white nationalists had immediate effects — online posts revealing their identities led to employers finding out that some of their workers had marched in Charlottesville.

As mentioned in Time, depending on the kind of job, a person can get fired for espousing racist beliefs if the employer feels it reflects poorly upon them. While those who work in the public sector or in a state that has protective laws for workers cannot be fired for expressing political opinions, non-union workers in the private sector exist at the whim of their employers.

Samuel Estreicher, director of the Center for Labor and Employment Law at New York University, stated “employers have the right to fire workers if they feel implicated in an employee’s actions.”

The Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund (TLDEF) has filed a lawsuit against Amazon.com Inc on behalf of two former employees. The couple Allegra Schawe-Lane and Dane Lane allege the company harassed them and threatened them physically.

According to Tech Crunch, after Schawe-Lane was outed as transgender, she began experiencing “discrimination and harassment by Amazon employees, supervisors, and managers,” the lawsuit alleges. The discrimination and harassment, according to the lawsuit, entailed being intentionally referred to by male pronouns and titles “with the purpose and effect of humiliating” her, sexual harassment, threats of physical violence, “hostility” that made it hard for her to use the women’s bathroom, pay deductions and a lot of other really messed up stuff.

In addition to what Schawe-Lane was subjected to, her partner faced retaliation, sexual harassment, disparaging comments from co-workers and a hostile work environment, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit, among other things, seeks for the court to order that Amazon implement policies, programs and training that ensure equal employment opportunities for people who are transgender, have transitioned genders or are undergoing a gender transition.

More than 60 women, current and former Google employees are considering legal action against the tech giant over alleged sexism and pay disparities with their male colleagues.

According to The Legal Guardian, James Finberg, the civil rights attorney working on the possible legal action on behalf of the female employees, told the Guardian they contend they have earned less than men at Google despite equal qualifications and comparable positions.

A class-action gender discrimination suit would build on a case brought by the US Department of Labor (DoL), which is arguing that Google systematically underpays women and recently convinced a judge to force the company to hand over a portion of the company’s salary records.

Google is vehemently denying that its salaries are discriminatory. However, Finberg, who said he had interviewed about half of the 60 women who may be part of his lawsuit, said their testimony indicated there were clear disparities and prejudices that hurt women at the Mountain View company.

The internet giant Google has fired a computer engineer for “perpetuating gender stereotypes.” Google employee James Damore distributed a 10-page “manifesto” condemning Google’s diversity efforts and claiming men are biologically more predisposed to working in the tech industry than women.

According to The Telegraph, James Damore, a Harvard university graduate had worked at Google for four years. Damore was fired after releasing a manifesto that accused the company of “political bias” against conservatives and said initiatives to encourage female programmers were “unfair”.

Damore revealed he had been dismissed by Google for “perpetuating gender stereotypes” and said he was exploring all possible legal remedies against the company.

The controversy has come at a sensitive time for Google, which is under investigation by the US government after accusations of gender pay inequality, and has been forced to hand over pay records.

** Note: Shallow depth of field

When speaking of technology, we often refer to the latest gadget, the latest app, latest features and everything in between that is shiny and new. In fact, the technology world develops rapidly that companies often look for young minds and fresh perspectives. But what about the older workers—those with experience and mature minds?

Backchannel’s Worklife columnist, Karen Wickre points out that “most people who might be affected by age discrimination often don’t want to bring it up.”

Wickre was hired by Google at the age of 52, putting her in the run for the “oldest employee.” She recalls “being thrilled to be there” but “worked hard to become known as a good colleague, reliable, energetic, and a quick study.”

“If workers do come forward [about age discrimination, it] is very hard to prove, since it’s often hidden by internal reorganizations, budget cuts, and employee “at-will” agreements. The subject of “older workers” can be a legal minefield for companies—to even acknowledge it is to open a Pandora’s box of issues,” states Wickre.

As an older worker, how do you survive and thrive in a career that is mostly designed for younger workers? Read Wickre’s personal experience and suggestions for Surviving as an Old in the Tech World.

Hired in June 2013, Delia Kennedy worked as a grants administrator for the City of Opa-locka. However, after City Attorney Vincent Brown revealed in a citywide email that Kennedy was cooperating with the FBI in an ongoing corruption probe, city leaders eliminated her position.

According to the Miami New Times, Kennedy helped bring in nearly $60 million in governmental grants. City leaders claimed they simply needed to balance the budget. But Kennedy is sure the timing was no coincidence — they actually wanted to fire her for her helping uncover the corruption.

Kennedy’s suit claims that Opa-locka and City Manager Yvette Harrell terminated her for protected whistleblower activities. Her attorney, Michael Pizzi, tells New Times he can think of no logical explanation for the firing.

Former NBC employee, Stephanie Belanger claims a recruiter who first contacted her for a job as an audio-visual coordinator told her NBC “specifically asked for good-looking employees”— and asked her “to show her Facebook/Instagram profile to NBC before she could be interviewed.”

As mentioned in the NY Post, Belanger, 25, made the claim in a lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court which also alleges disability discrimination, sexual harassment, and termination in retaliation after she complained.

Belanger’s supervisor, John Carleo, called her “a whore,” bragged that he had “the hottest coordinator in the office,” and referred to himself as “the boyfriend with no benefits,” the suit said.

At the same time, Belanger, who has epilepsy, suffered two seizures at work, one last year and one this year. She was briefly hospitalized for the disorder and treated with medication that caused “emotional outbursts.”

After the second seizure, her bosses demoted her and slashed her salary, she claimed in court papers.

Former BetterWorks Systems Inc. employee Beatrice Kim is suing the company and three executives for sexual harassment, physical assault and a work environment that’s hostile to women.

According to Bloomberg, Kim’s complaint describes BetterWorks Chief Executive Officer Kris Duggan making inappropriate motions toward her on a bed during a company retreat in October and said an internal investigation concluded that he hadn’t violated the company’s harassment policies. The allegations echo those lobbed against other startups and venture capital firms recently as Silicon Valley grapples with pervasive cultural problems, particularly rampant sexism.

The suit follows a wave of allegations about the technology industry’s hostility toward women. Investigations into past human-resources complaints at Uber Technologies Inc. resulted in the firings of more than 20 employees this year and the ouster last month of Travis Kalanick, who was running the company during those scandals. Sexual harassment allegations against venture capitalists, including 500 Startups’ Dave McClure, Binary Capital’s Justin Caldbeck and Ignition Partners’ Frank Artale, led to their departures in recent weeks.

A U.S. District Court has given the final approval to a $32.5 million settlement of a racial discrimination case against MetLife filed by African-American former MetLife financial services representatives.

As mentioned in Insurance Business, the former employees filed the case against the insurer in 2015. They accused the firm of maintaining “a racially biased corporate culture and stereotypical views about the skills, abilities, and potential of African Americans that affect personnel,” a court docket said.

Marcus Creighton, the chief plaintiff, said MetLife denied him advancement opportunities, even though he was a “successful, experienced FSR and well-qualified to join management,” the document added.

The terms order that $7.15 million of the settlement will be paid to class counsel Stowell & Friedman, while the remaining $25.35 million will go to the class members.

MetLife denied and continues to deny all of the allegations and claims asserted, according to the settlement agreement.

Two employees have filed a lawsuit  this week in U.S. District Court against Roswell Park Cancer Institute alleging racial discrimination. One of the employees alleges the cancer center retaliated against her for reporting events she claimed posed a danger to a patient.

According to Buffalo News, officials at Roswell Park said they had not been served a formal summons and complaint from the two employees as of Friday. But they said their cases had been investigated by the cancer center’s director of diversity and inclusion, and no evidence of racial discrimination by the institute or its staff was found.

“Roswell Park treats its employees fairly and respectfully and our diversity and inclusion record is strong,” the cancer center responded in a statement.

Xantipple Conerly, a call center specialist, who is black, alleges that her supervisor discouraged her from writing up white employees she supervised but routinely directed her to issue written discipline to black employees. Conerly also alleges that she was more frequently instructed to monitor black employees for time and attendance issues and to listen to black employee’s calls to ensure that they were “using the correct verbiage.”