Company Culture
Beginning in June, Target (2.9 stars) will raise its U.S. minimum wage to $13/hour. The retailer announced in 2017 that it plans to reach a $15/hour minimum wage by 2020. Reuters
In its 2019 diversity report , Alphabet Inc. reported that in 2018 Google (3.8 stars) reported employing fewer white men and a greater number of Asians. The tech giant also reported gains in the number of women, black, and Latinx employees in its new hires. Even better—the company saw lower rates of attrition among minority employees. Bloomberg
This just in—Disney actually might not be the most magical place on Earth! Andrus Anderson, a San Francisco-based law firm has filed a lawsuit on behalf of Disney (3.1 stars) employees LaRonda Rasmussen and Karen Moore, who claim the company pays women workers less than their male counterparts. The lawsuit, which seeks to be certified as a class action, asks for back pay, lost benefits, and other compensation for its plaintiffs and to establish an internal program within Disney to investigate and remedy pay inequity. NY Times
In other lawsuit news, law firm Jones Day is being sued by six former women associates who allege the company engaged in both gender and pregnancy discrimination. The suit claims the company underpays and undervalues its women employees from the start, and when women disclose pregnancies and take maternity leave, they are punished with salary freeze and negative performance reviews and are eventually forced out. NY Times
Quick Hits
Asking your boss for an extension on a project can be nerve-wracking for anyone, but especially so for women, who worry that asking for extra time will make them seem incompetent or unmotivated. The good news is that a survey of 800 managers conducted by Harvard Business Review revealed that supervisors don’t view women’s requests for extensions more negatively than men’s. On the flip side, HBR also found that there is a risk of managers interpreting repeated requests for extensions as evidence that women employees are more devoted to family than work. That said, HBR says there are many benefits to asking for extensions on projects when you need them, and potential risks to your performance when you don’t. Harvard Business Review
About 25 percent of jobs in the U.S. are subject to being replaced by machines in the near future. That’s a scary prospect for about 36 million Americans who work as cashiers, financial clerks, and drivers, among countless other jobs. But it’s women who will be hit hardest—it’s estimated that women hold about 58 percent of the jobs at risk of automation. Quartz
How do you solve a problem like Joe Biden’s inappropriate embraces? It’s a bit complicated (maybe?), but the first step is definitely to listen to and validate the experiences of those he made uncomfortable. This Vox article gives a pretty good rundown of Biden’s history of this kind of behavior, and why it was excused for so long. Vox
Around the World
Slovakia: Zuzana Caputova, anti-corruption lawyer (and single mom of two!) has become the first woman in Slovakia to be elected president after a landslide victory wherein she won 58 percent of the country’s vote. Bloomberg
Nigeria: Before March’s elections, Nigeria was ranked 181st out of 191 countries for representation of women in government, with only 6 percent of its lawmakers being female. After last month’s elections, the numbers have dipped even further. Bloomberg
Sweden: At least one gender gap has shrunk, but unfortunately it's not one that we’d particularly like to. About 45,000 people in Sweden can be categorized as having a severe addiction to gambling. Typically, gambling addiction has hit men harder than women, but 64 percent of gambling addicts in Sweden are now women. BBC
