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An important thing to note is that for the executives in question, this is a compliance and PR issue, NOT an ethical issue! These laws don't exist in the USA a

An important thing to note is that for the executives in question, this is a compliance and PR issue, NOT an ethical issue! These laws don't exist in the USA and from the perspective of the executives (and the wider American public) there's nothing wrong with paying permanent and temporary staff different wages. The actual monetary amounts are also pretty small (up to 100 million liability) which Google can easily afford, they just really didn't want to have to try and figure out department budget adjustments.

luffapi 5y ago
This is absolutely an ethical issue (yes I’m American). Google knowingly violated labor laws to underpay workers. Hopefully the PR from this causes Google to lose billions (and for ethical people to stop working/applying at Google, which honestly probably happened about 10 years ago).
josefx 5y ago
> These laws don't exist in the USA One would think that they would have lawyers to figure that out and they probably have, otherwise they would be sinking in lawsuits from they own European employees. > NOT an ethical issue! They spend at least two years intentionally underpaying people. Of course you can reclassify everything as a PR issue, for example poison in baby food is a PR issue, hiding the fact that a bad ignition switch was a cost saving measure was a PR issue, fucking Auschwitz was a PR issue.