Chelsey Glasson files suit against Google for pregnancy discrimination
Alphabet workers news
Former Google employee Chelsey Glasson, who experienced pregnancy discrimination while at Google, has now filed suit against Google in the state of Washington, where she's represented by Connelly Law Offices. The litigation supplements, but doesn't displace, a separate Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) complaint that she filed in 2019. Chelsey previously wrote about her experience in April of this year, with "Learnings From My Pregnancy Discrimination Experience" published on Medium.
Fast Company published a story on Thursday about the new litigation - some extracts below.
- Bruce
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Exclusive: Ex-Google employee Chelsey Glasson sues over alleged pregnancy discrimination
The state lawsuit against Google will unfold alongside an ongoing investigation by the EEOC into Glasson’s allegations of discrimination and retaliation.
[On July 23], Glasson officially filed a state lawsuit against Google. “Google has chosen to ignore the warning signs of a discriminatory culture,” the complaint reads...
The lawsuit comes after attempting to work with Google toward a resolution, according to Glasson...
When the EEOC launched its investigation in February, Glasson broached Google with a settlement offer... She proposed that the tech giant partner with the Center for Parental Leave Leadership introduce training for managers and coaching to better support pregnant employees and new parents; she also requested emotional damages and reimbursement for her legal expenses. Google declined to settle.
For Glasson—who has now spent more than two years navigating the alleged discrimination and fallout from it—filing a lawsuit felt like the only way to command Google’s attention. The EEOC investigation will continue alongside the lawsuit, but Glasson’s team expects that it won’t come to a conclusion for many months or even a year.
“I needed my story to have some positive impact,” Glasson says. “There needed to be a reason for what happened to me. And second to that, I needed some recognition from Google that what happened wasn’t right—some acknowledgement in some form, whether it be a jury ruling in my favor in a lawsuit or the EEOC coming out with a finding...
“I think it’s important for people to understand just how incredibly hard it is to fight workplace harassment, discrimination, and retaliation, as the person who has experienced it,” she says. “A lot of these bigger law firms want to represent corporations—there’s a guaranteed paycheck there. A company like Google can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a lawsuit without blinking an eye.”