Yahoo Sued Over Employee Rankings, Alleged Anti-Male Discrimination
A new lawsuit (PDF) filed against flailing tech giant Yahoo claims that company managers governing the "Media Org" were biased against men. It also claims that the company's Quarterly Performance Review (QPR) process favored female employees and that the company engaged in mass layoffs without proper warnings.
Gregory Anderson was editorial director of Yahoo's Autos, Homes, Shopping, Small Business, and Travel sections until he was terminated in 2014.
In his complaint, Anderson says that between 2012 and 2015, Yahoo reduced its work force by more than 30 percent to fewer than 11,000 employees. That constitutes a mass-layoff, which requires 60-day notice under state and federal law, he says.
In May 2014, Anderson was selected for a Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellowship at the University of Michigan. Two Yahoo executives signed off on his attending the fellowship, where he was "working on a documentary for Yahoo Autos about the toxic effects of leaded gasoline on children," according to the complaint.
In November 2014, Anderson was told he was being terminated during the middle of the fellowship. His review performance placed him among the lowest five percent of Yahoo's employees, all of whom were being fired, his supervisor told him.
Anderson also says his supervisors, in particular Chief Marketing Officer Kathy Savitt, favored female workers. When Savitt began at Yahoo, top managers in the "Media Org" were less than 20 percent female, the complaint states. Three years later, they were more than 80 percent female.
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http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/02/yahoo-sued-over-employee-rankings-anti-male-discrimination/