That is one reason employee-related class action lawsuits appear to be on the increase. In 2019, there have been several examples, including some that involve very big firms.
A recent pregnancy-related class-action lawsuit
In June 2019, Walmart agreed to pay out$14 million to settle a class-action lawsuit that two of their workers brought against them in Illinois. They did so to settle a case related to the firm’s pregnancy accommodation policies.
The company’s practices and policies that were in place between 19th March 2013 and March 2014 lead to the women bringing their case. During that period, the plaintiffs said that despite being pregnant they were still being asked to regularly lift heavy objects and climb steps. As well as carry out other tasks that are potentially dangerous for a pregnant woman to do.
The Pregnancy Discrimination Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 were both used to prove the case. Laws that make it clear that pregnant workers needs should be accommodated in the same way those of disabled employees are.
How class actions are changing the workplace
There is no doubt that class actions are having a significant impact on the workplace. Workers are increasingly aware that if they work together they can prove that things are not as they should be and get them changed.
Interestingly, sometimes the action has a knock-on effect. It ends up helping more than just the type of employees that were involved in the action.
The cases that female workers bought against Google over pay equality are a good example of this. This litigation led to the firm actively seeking to address wage inequality amongst the women who were working for them. They also decided to look carefully at how minority groups were being paid.
Their initial review revealed that there were indeed issues. As a direct result of what they found Google ended up compensating 10,677 of their employees. That cost them $9.7 million. They also set up annual reviews of this issue. In 2017, they ended up having to compensate 228 employees. But, that only cost them $270,000.
However, when they repeated the process in 2018, it was men who were mainly compensated. The issue seemed to be confined to a single group of lower-level software engineers. In particular, new hires who “received less discretionary funds than women”.
So, the class actions that the women from Google started, eventually, led to men who worked for the company being helped too. Their action uncovered the fact that despite their best efforts, over time, disparities in pay can still develop within the organization.
Understandably, firms do not welcome being taken to court. But, those who take a proactive approach to the problems highlighted do, in the end, benefit.
As do other employers who watch what is happening and ask themselves are we vulnerable to this type of class actions? The more proactive firms are about creating and maintaining a fair workplace, the easier it is to recruit and retain good people.