Washington - For the second year in a row, shareholders of Alphabet, the
parent company of Google, voted down a proposal asking the tech giant to
publish a report on possible pay disparities between its male and female
employees.
The vote comes at a time when the company is grappling with
a federal lawsuit tied to this very issue and as the tech industry faces
heightened scrutiny over gender pay, a lack of diversity, and dysfunctional
work environments.
Under the proposal, the company would measure and disclose
how much its female employees make as a percentage of their male counterparts.
The plan, put forward by Arjuna Capital, an investment firm, and other
co-filers also called for the company to design a policy to tackle any gender
pay disparity.
Read also: What's the cause of the gender wage gap?
"Gender pay disparity is not only one of the biggest
social justice issues of our time, it poses a risk to companies' performance,
brand, and investor returns," said Natasha Lamb, Arjuna's director of
shareholder engagement, at the shareholder meeting. "This issue is
particularly salient to the technology industry, which struggles to attract,
retain, and move women into positions of leadership," she said.
The board of directors told shareholders that approving the
proposal would not be in the best interest of the company or its investors,
according to Alphabet's 2017 statement to stockholders. Management pointed to
Google's existing diversity reports and internal evaluations as sufficient
measures to ensure pay equity among its staff.
"Our board of directors does not believe that the
proposal would enhance Alphabet's existing commitment to fostering a fair and
inclusive culture," read the statement.
Like many of its peers in the tech industry, Google produces
an annual report outlining the gender and ethnic makeup of its employees.
A vast majority of Alphabet's employees work for Google. But
the report doesn't outline gender pay disparities. Sixty-nine percent of the
company's global employees are male and 31 percent are female, according to
Google' 2016 diversity report, which captured data from the year prior. But
it's unclear how much women employees are paid relative to men.
Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft have each reported on their
gender pay disparity, with each company claiming a discrepancy near zero. Lamb
described Alphabet as a laggard, compared to its peers, when it comes to
transparency over gender pay.
Alphabet declined to comment.
Arjuna Capital's push for Alphabet to release its gender pay
information is part of a broader campaign to address enduring gender
discrimination in the American workplace. Within Silicon
Valley, which generally views itself as a meritocracy, calls for
improving diversity have only grown louder as yearly employment reports
continue to show leadership teams being dominated by men.
The calls also come as accounts of workplace harassment
continue to surface. In February, former Uber employee Susan Fowler published a
blog post alleging episodes of sexual harassment that she said took place while
she worked as an engineer at the company. Since her writing, Uber initiated
several internal investigations to examine what Fowler and others described as
a toxic work culture. But Uber's sexual harassment controversy is viewed by
some not as an outlier, but just the latest, prominent example of women facing
discrimination at work in Silicon Valley.
The Mountain View,
California, company is currently
facing a lawsuit from the Labour Department related to unfair gender pay. The Labour
Department filed the lawsuit against Google in January after the company
refused to turn over compensation data as part of a "routine compliance
evaluation," according to a Labour Department statement released in the
same month.
Labour Department lawyers have accused Alphabet of
underpaying women, finding evidence of "extreme" gender pay
discrimination. Google has denied those accusations. In a hearing last month,
Alphabet said that it couldn't turn over internal wage data that the department
requested because that would cost too much - $100 000 and require hundreds of
hours of work, according to the Guardian.
Alphabet is the third major tech company since 2016 to fall
under Labour Department scrutiny. Palantir was accused of discriminating
against Asian job applicants, and Oracle was sued for engaging in pay
discrimination against women employees, as well as Asian and black workers,
according to the Guardian.
At the -shareholder meeting, Lamb also presented a
shareholder proposal for Google to analyze its role in the spread of misleading
and fabricated news stories, so-called fake news. With management's blessing,
that proposal failed.
Another plan presented by NorthStars Asset Management would
have given stockholders equal voting power.That was defeated as well.
WASHINGTON POST