Female Employees Allege Pay Discrimination

Slpy3270

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
In what could be the beginning of a major pay gap scandal within Disney, a California judge denied Disney's request to dismiss a potential class action lawsuit from at least 10 women alleging pay discrimination within various Disney units.

By allowing the class-action suit to go forward, the ruling may also lead to potentially thousands of other women currently working for or formerly working at Disney claiming pay discrimination as well, potentially exposing systemic misogyny in the corporation.
 
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DCBaker

Premium Member
"Last November, a group of suing Disney employees demanded the opportunity to conduct a statistical analysis of pay data to prove gender disparities that they allege occur throughout the studio's workforce. It turns out that Disney had already hired consultants in 2017 to study the issue. On Friday, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled that as part of the ongoing lawsuit, Disney would have to disclose more information on the communications and documents related to this pay equity study.

According to the judge's decision, the decision to hire the outside consulting firm of Willis Towers Watson was made by Shawna Swanson, an associate general counsel at Disney. The consultant's study then kicked off a discussion among 33 Disney employees, most of whom worked in the Human Resources and Compensation departments.

The plaintiffs in the case — a range of women who say they are paid less than men who perform similar work — have been attempting to compel documents related to the study. In a motion, they asserted that these documents "would tend to show that Disney systematically discriminates against female employees, and that the discrimination is knowing and willful."

Disney responded that it wasn't trying to keep "secret" any information and that the underlying pay data was discoverable, but that the analysis was covered by attorney-client privilege. Disney added that there was no evidence that any of this was disseminated widely or prepared for any purpose other than legal advice. For example, the defendant said the consultants weren't engaged to advise on an internal investigation, PR strategy, business product or day-to-day operations.

In an order, L.A. Superior Court Judge Daniel Buckley appears to be skeptical of Disney's arguments."


 

thomas998

Well-Known Member
"Last November, a group of suing Disney employees demanded the opportunity to conduct a statistical analysis of pay data to prove gender disparities that they allege occur throughout the studio's workforce. It turns out that Disney had already hired consultants in 2017 to study the issue. On Friday, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled that as part of the ongoing lawsuit, Disney would have to disclose more information on the communications and documents related to this pay equity study.

According to the judge's decision, the decision to hire the outside consulting firm of Willis Towers Watson was made by Shawna Swanson, an associate general counsel at Disney. The consultant's study then kicked off a discussion among 33 Disney employees, most of whom worked in the Human Resources and Compensation departments.

The plaintiffs in the case — a range of women who say they are paid less than men who perform similar work — have been attempting to compel documents related to the study. In a motion, they asserted that these documents "would tend to show that Disney systematically discriminates against female employees, and that the discrimination is knowing and willful."

Disney responded that it wasn't trying to keep "secret" any information and that the underlying pay data was discoverable, but that the analysis was covered by attorney-client privilege. Disney added that there was no evidence that any of this was disseminated widely or prepared for any purpose other than legal advice. For example, the defendant said the consultants weren't engaged to advise on an internal investigation, PR strategy, business product or day-to-day operations.

In an order, L.A. Superior Court Judge Daniel Buckley appears to be skeptical of Disney's arguments."



Regardless of how skeptical the judge may be, making a ruling that a study requested by a company's lawyer was not protected would be appealed and unlikely to be decided for several years. I've worked in companies where it was common practice for the legal departments to conduct lots of studies that might end up showing problems in the company and in every case the entire reason it was done from within the legal department was to insure that it was going to be covered by attorney client privilege, of course I've also know some managers that didn't understand what attorney client privilege was and would ask people to stamp anything they thought might be bad for the company with "attorney client privilege" as if it was magically going to protect a document that was produced outside of the legal group as if it was some form of magic ward.

In this instance I'm already seeing some issues with the case, where they claim a pay difference because of gender for "similar" jobs. If they want to win a case like this they would need to show a difference for "identical" jobs. Similar isn't going to be worth nearly as much as showing identical employees that differ only be gender are paid more or less. This is probably going to slog around in the courts for several more years before anything concrete comes of it.
 

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