Gender, race, and pay discrimination allegations against Dell EMC were just settled for more than $2.9 after the U.S. Department of Labor accused the computing giant of “allegedly paying female workers in Santa Clara, Pleasanton and North Carolina less than men.” When detailing out what happened in a press release, the department said:“Beginning in 2014, Dell EMC systemically discriminated against females in engineering, marketing, and sales roles at its Pleasanton, California, facility, and females in engineering and manufacturing roles at its Santa Clara, California, facility.”Dell chimed in on the settlement involving its cloud-computing subsidiary and said “the $2.9 million settlement resolved longstanding audits of data-storage firm EMC from before the time when Dell agreed in October 2015 to buy the company, forming Dell EMC.” However, Dell claims there “was no evidence of pay discrimination” and issued the following statement:“Dell has a long-held commitment to pay equity and nondiscrimination in all our employment practices...The Labor Department’s claims have no relation to current Dell pay practices and policies.”

Richard Egan, co-founder of EMC Corporation; image courtesy of United States Department of State via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org

Despite the company's statement, the “unequal pay was discovered during routine evaluations by the labor department branch responsible for monitoring federal contractors.” For starters, federal investigators in North Carolina “found that Dell paid female and black engineers at a Durham facility less than white men and that it paid black women in manufacturing jobs in Apex less than white men,” according to department officials.According to the department, the blatant discrimination displayed by Dell EMC was in direct violation of employment laws, and Ondray Harris, the head of the Labor Department's contractor-compliance unit, said, “Together, we will ensure that the company complies with equal employment opportunity laws in its compensation practices.”In addition to having to pay a fine of $2.9 million “in back pay and interest,” the company also has to “make pay adjustments and to move to ensure its pay practices are legal.” The company agreed to the conditions even though it continues to deny liability.This isn't the first time a tech company has been investigated by the Labor Department, though. It turns out that when it comes to pay discrepancies between men and women, the department is quick to investigate. For example, it's currently battling Google over 'extreme' pay discrimination against women. Like Dell, Google has denied the allegations. Additionally, last year the Department went after Oracle, accusing it of having a “systemic practice of paying Caucasian male workers more than their counterparts in the same job title, which led to pay discrimination against female, African American, and Asian employees.” Again, Oracle denied the claims.

Sources:

Dell fined $2.9M in gender pay disputeDell EMC to pay $2.9M to settle gender, race pay discrimination charges