Former employees claim harassment of pregnant women
A San Francisco-based software firm is facing lawsuits over its alleged discrimination against its female employees. The lawsuit alleges that the company “systemically pays” women less than men, adding claims of harassment.
Zendesk, which sells software for relationship management with business customers, has also been accused of favouring male staff and giving lesser opportunities and promotions to women. The lawsuit claims that women have been offered “overwhelmingly” lower job levels.
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The plaintiffs withheld their identities, but they claim that they had to resign due to the company’s discriminatory acts. According to a SiliconValley.com report, one of the employees’ lawsuits alleged that discrimination starts during the hiring process and continues throughout employment. Filed in San Francisco Superior Court, the lawsuit seeks class-action status to open “hundreds of current and former employees victimized over the past four years.”
From the same report, another employee said “that she developed a stomach abscess her doctor suspected was related to job stress.” Her male supervisor allegedly threatened to terminate her employment if “she did not ‘promptly return’ to work” while she was on medical leave. As she believed that the company was “targeting her,” the woman said she “felt she had no choice but to return to work, against her doctor’s advice,” the lawsuit said.
When she returned to work, the supervisor allegedly “badgered her about when she [would] be fully recovered and operating at full capacity,” which caused her distress, the report said. She also alleged that the HR department did not act on her complaint, so she was “forced to resign.”
The other employee was an account executive who said that when she had a high-risk pregnancy, she noticed “a sharp decline in the opportunities available to her” after telling her manager, SiliconValley.com reported.
“The company passed her over for promotion in favor of a less-experienced male employee who had not been with the company as long,” the lawsuit said. It also alleged that when pregnancy-related issues delayed her from accomplishing a task, her manager allegedly responded with, “no excuses.”
“Despite working on her days off, when she took time for a doctor’s appointment, her manager told her she was falling short on her tasks, the lawsuit claimed. The report said that the manager was “punishing her for being a pregnant woman who planned to go on maternity leave.”
The anonymous plaintiffs seek damages, restitution of money, and an order prohibiting the company from discriminatory practices and harassment. Meanwhile, Zendesk declined to comment on the lawsuits, raising the matters are pending litigation.
