A pair of recent lawsuits allege Bay Area software company Zendesk consistently pays women less than men and discriminates and harasses women on the basis of pregnancy and gender.
Three of the complainants are former employees who say they had to leave the company due to discrimination and harassment. One is a current employee who has worked at Zendesk since 2014. All filed the complaint anonymously. A lawyer for the women said complainants could conceal their identities to avoid harassment or jeopardize their future employment.
Zendesk declined to respond to the allegations in the lawsuits, saying it does not comment on ongoing litigation.
In a lawsuit, the four women – current employee “Jane Roe” and former employees identified as “Jane Does” – allege that the San Francisco company, which sells software to manage companies’ relationships with customers, is starting to discriminate against women when they are hired, and continues to discriminate throughout their employment. The lawsuit, filed late last month in San Francisco Superior Court, seeks class-action status to involve what it alleges are hundreds of current and former employees who have been victimized over the past four years.
Zendesk paid female workers “significantly less” on hire than their male counterparts, offered women less inventory and fewer incentive compensation opportunities, and placed women “overwhelmingly” in job tiers. inferior jobs, according to the lawsuit. The San Francisco company, valued on the stock market at $10.5 billion, also discriminated against female workers in promotions, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages, restitution of money allegedly owed to the plaintiffs, and an order barring Zendesk from discriminating in pay based on gender.
The other lawsuit, also filed in San Francisco Superior Court by the same law firm, involves the three former employees, Jane Does 1, 2 and 3.
Doe 1, hired in June 2019 as an accountant, developed a stomach abscess that her doctor suspected was related to work stress, according to the lawsuit. While she was on sick leave after surgery to treat the abscess, her male supervisor threatened to fire her if she did not “return promptly” to work, according to the suit. Knowing that the company and her supervisor were “targeting” her, the woman “felt that she had no choice but to return to work, against the advice of her doctor,” according to the suit.
Once back, the supervisor “harassed her to find out when she was going to be fully recovered and functioning at full capacity,” causing distress and endangering the woman’s health, according to the lawsuit. Her complaint to Zendesk’s human relations department was not pursued, and she was “forced to resign” in January 2021 “due to the discrimination and harassment she faced,” according to the suit.
Doe 2 was hired in August 2018 as a sales development representative and then became an account executive in May 2019, according to the suit. After learning she was pregnant with a high-risk pregnancy in April 2021, she told her manager, and then “noticed a sharp drop in opportunities available to her,” according to the suit. The company fired her for a promotion in favor of a less experienced male employee who hadn’t been with the company that long, the lawsuit alleges. Once, when pregnancy-related issues prevented her from completing a minor task on time, her manager told her “no apologies,” according to the lawsuit.
Her manager continued to “isolate and criticize her for minor issues” and accused her of not making enough phone calls and performing other tasks, even though she had reached her sales quota. according to the lawsuit. Although she was working on her days off, when she took time off for a doctor’s appointment, her manager told her she was not completing her duties, according to the suit. The director was punishing her “for being a pregnant woman who planned to go on maternity leave,” according to the lawsuit.
Although Zendesk’s employee policies describe bias against women in the workplace, its two complaints to its manager were “unsuccessful,” according to the suit. She complained to human resources, but never received the results of any investigation, according to the lawsuit. When she returned from maternity leave, she was told that the manager who allegedly harassed her had acted “within the scope of his rights and duties”, according to the lawsuit. When she was offered a job placement with another manager, but nothing else could be done, she reached her “breaking point” and left the company in April this year, according to the suit.
Jane Doe 3, hired in October 2016 as a sales manager, took maternity leave in 2019 and returned to find the position she and her manager had agreed she would move into had gone to a man, according to the pursuit. She was then verbally offered a job as a sales manager, but the offer was rescinded after an executive said she was “disliked” by some people in sales, according to the suit. Instead, the position was awarded to a man unqualified for the job, according to the suit. His numerous complaints to HR went nowhere, according to the lawsuit. She resigned in April 2021 “due to relentless discrimination and retaliation related to gender and pregnancy,” according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages, restitution of money allegedly owed to plaintiffs, and an order restraining Zendesk from discrimination and harassment.
Roe, the fourth plaintiff in the proposed compensation class action lawsuit, sued Zendesk in August, alleging discrimination based on gender and pregnancy.
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