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back to article Dell hit with $500m discrimination suit

Four former senior Dell HR executives, all women, have filed a $500m class action that accuses the company of systemic gender and age discrimination. The lawsuit, filed last week in U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California, alleges Dell unfairly targeted women and employees over 40 in the big round of recent …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Them Damn Sexiest ....

    I am 100% for the female representation at all levels, but...

    Not all jobs have girlies as candidates. I have been advertising for a competent computer professional for a while now, and have had maybe 60 male candidates, and a fat 0 women or disabled apply. In the end we gave the job to the fat mixed origin disabled girl from Poland from the next door coffee shop, she worked on the till (its electric so she must know computers yeah). I have legal quotas to reach you know, and we get heavily punished for employing the right people rather than the Politically Correct people. So now we have a checkout chick running the "Data Encryption and Security whilst Mobile Team" for public Health Records, these are frequently taken to the pub, on trains etc. Dont worry, if she cocks up the job and public data gets left on the train, she wont get fired, it will be her boss who is a bloke, clearly old and must be white.

    ... my point is ...

    Just because a bloke got the job, doesn't make sexism, ageism, racism rampant, it may mean no other candidates were suitable! Heaven forbid, but these oddities occur every now and again. I know in the UK, the odd white guy gets the job, which is clearly odd in a country that is predominantly white.

    ... rant over,

    but I am sure you get my point, not everything is racism, sexism, or whatever else'ism. Sometimes there simply is not enough candidates that are suitably qualified who apply at the right time.

    Anyway, who would really want to work at Dell?

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  2. Adam Peters

    Well....

    Well, if it is all underhand shenanigans then hopefully something will be done, but no-one ever seems to consider its possible they kept the people who were best at their jobs.

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hold On one cotton picking minute

    "Old boys network" but targeted layoff's for ye olde people. Surely a contridiction Mr Watson?

    So which is it?

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    I hate this crap

    I hate all this race and sexism crap. Sure, it must happen sometimes, but are these women so closed minded that they can't think that maybe the 14 strong male executive team happen to be the best 14 people for the job who also just happen to be male? So we should let women in, even if they aren't the best candidate for the job just so they don't feel jealous and leftout? Get a grip and accept that you're not always the best at everything. if you didn't get a job or were fired, maybe it's because there are better people in the company or maybe you're just a moron. Maybe it's got nothing to do with your gender at all. Consider that in the future.

    /rant

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  5. Ash

    There's no reason to doubt her

    She may be right.

    Three people (at time of posting) have already attacked this suit as unjust, as it bows under the pressure of Political Correctness. Is it not possible that these women have a point? That they ARE being treated unfairly?

    I say let the suit proceed. If they have evidence to back it up, great. We can see a more open and fair workplace at Dell (because all they want is a fair workplace, isn't it? Not preferential treatment for women?). If they have no evidence, let it stand again. Then fire them for gross misconduct (Bringing the standing of the company into disrepute).

    Either way, Dell wins; Prove policy is correct and lose the whingebags, or prove that people are actually taking an interest. Bear in mind that HR will decide who goes by padding figures provided by Finance; The head honcho may not know a thing about it.

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  6. Greg Kerr

    Clue - HR

    In my multinational experience (AOL, Google, Delll), HR tends to be a department where women are significantly over-represented. I am not offering theories as to why this is the case, I am just saying it seems to be so. I see all these execs were in HR. Is it not possible that their department was targeted for cuts, hence the gender skew in the figures?

    If you are cutting senior execs you can't just cut a marketing or tech or strategy person and expect a HR person to take their place. And I know which department would get the axe if I was cutting costs.

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  7. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    I started a company once

    But then I had to sue myself because 100% of me was male which is clearly discrimination.

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  8. Cormie

    Sexism?

    The only thing IMHO that is worse then sexism and racism is tokenism. Also if I recall correctly the CIO for Dell was a woman until she retired last year.

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  9. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    easy for you to say

    But the over records for large companies pretty well paint them into a corner when it comes to promoting women and minorities into positions of power / authority in corporate america. Maybe not where you are; but pretty much a given there. Get over your whinging white males - you won't be in power forever and you're NOT the only qualified candidate on the block. Systematic discrimination has pretty well made sure that there AREN'T qualified candidates available for a lot of positions.

    Reverse discrimination and quotas? Sure they exist in places. I've seen it myself over the years (and I'm 60+). I've also seen a lot of the other so just stuff it up.

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  10. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    HR Employees

    In big companies are usually female, and incapable of assessing much more

    than which guy most likely to come in his pants if he gets the job.

    Hard competence and imagination are _very_ low on the list, which accounts

    for the calibre of execs who have dominated American corps .over the last 40 years.

    Fubar the Hak.

    Paris, cuz she makes a virtue of knowing bugger all ;-)

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  11. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    I suspect a large number of AC posts on this thread...

    ...and here's mine...

    Ok. Hands up, all of you guys who've worked in IT... Now, lower your hand if you've NEVER worked for a female middle-managment type, project manager, team leader, service centre manager etc.....

    I see most hands are still up...

    ...now, lower your hands if that person was a competant, technical person....

    ..still most hands up....

    ...lower them if they were friendly, approachable and a valuable team-player....

    ...still mostly up....ah yes...

    ...lower them if they appeared to be in their job purely to provide a 'corporate-speak' buffer between you, the worker, and the Old Boys at the top of the company...

    ...Suddenly, all the hands go down I am willing to bet!

    So, when a big company decides to make redundancies, they normally make them at the 'workforce' level, but occasionally, just occasionally, such as in this case, they cut them in the middle management layer. And 8/10 of them appear to be female.

    Well, suprise, suprise!

    I shall leave you to draw your own conclusions.

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  12. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Shut up boys

    ...how long do you expect to keep getting your own way for? Stop whining.

    Paris cos she knows what you can do with your sack.

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  13. Charles Manning

    Equal opportunity and affirmative action

    One wonders how employers can make statements like: "

    Carnegie Mellon University is committed to equal employment opportunity for all, and to affirmative action.

    "

    http://www.cmu.edu/policies/documents/EEOAA.html

    Google will find many such examples.

    Either you practice Affirmative Action or equal opportunity. HTF can you practice both?

    Sounds like a Palinism.

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  14. Tim Spence
    Thumb Up

    Nothing more to be said

    I think the first few posts here just about cover anything I wanted to say. Good show.

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