Department of Labor Accuses Oracle of Rampant Discrimination—$400 Million Worth

The US Department of Labor has accused Oracle of discriminating against women and people of color, building on a gender discrimination class action case filed last week. The federal complaint alleges that discrimination and unequal pay at the computer tech firm have led to $400 million in lost wages, and that over 5,000 women have been underpaid as a result of gender discrimination with pay gaps reaching 20 percent. The Department of Labor has also stated that over four years, only 11 out of 500 new employees hired into technical positions were black and/or Hispanic. The complaint says that Oracle’s “suppression of pay for its non-White, non-male employees is so extreme that it persists and gets worse over long careers,” meaning that women and employees of color who’ve been with the company for several years are paid up to 25 percent less than their white and/or male colleagues. This isn’t the first time the company has been in trouble either—the DoL sued the firm in 2017 for the same discriminatory practices, and, unfortunately, it appears the company has yet to right its wrongs.