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Microsoft Accused Of Gender Discrimination
A former employee says female technical workers often receive lower evaluation scores than their male colleagues.
15:49, UK, Thursday 17 September 2015
Microsoft is best-known for its desktop operating systems
Microsoft is the latest technology firm to be accused of gender discrimination.
The company has been hit with a lawsuit in Washington State claiming it unfairly discriminated against female workers because of their gender.
The case has been brought by former employee Katie Moussouris who was hired as a security program manager in 2007, and she wants it to be given class-action status.
Ms Moussouris says she was passed over for several promotions in favour of male colleagues who were less qualified.
She partly blames Microsoft's "stack ranking" system which is used to evaluate employees.
She says female technical workers often receive lower scores than their male colleagues.
Her lawyer, Kelly Dermody, said: "It is an artificial system that requires winners and losers. There's no performance-based need to do that."
Microsoft's workforce is 76% male, while its management tier is 88% male.
Ms Moussouris says she made internal complains about a boss sexually harassing her female colleagues.
Microsoft reassigned him, and Ms Moussouris says he retaliated by giving her a low bonus.
Microsoft denies any discrimination, saying: "We've previously reviewed the plaintiff's allegations about her specific experience and did not find anything to substantiate those claims, and we will carefully review this new complaint."
