2023 has been a really unhealthy yr for Niantic. The corporate has been beneath hearth for his or her adjustments to distant raids in Pokemon GO, they lately laid off 230 staff, and the cellular recreation has been coping with all kinds of bugs and points. That mentioned, their woes are removed from over, as a result of there’s now a lawsuit filed towards them.
The lawsuit, which is looking for a class-action standing, was filed by an nameless Asian feminine that used to work for Niantic for just a few years earlier than they grew to become one of many staff that had been lately laid off. The worker is accusing the corporate of devaluing the work of its feminine staff and ladies of colour. Not solely that, however they accuse Niantic of denying their feminine staff and ladies of colour equal pay.
The worker says that, regardless of having a $84,000 wage by the tip of the yr, she came upon in “roughly” 2021 {that a} male colleague of hers was being paid more cash, despite the fact that she had extra tasks and the next job title than him. By the point she had been laid off, this was nonetheless an issue. Her male colleague was being paid $127,000 per yr as early as 2022, and he or she acquired a increase in spring 2023 which resulted in her making $115,000 per yr. To make issues worse, the feminine worker found that Niantic had posted a median pay vary for her job title and degree, and he or she noticed that she was being paid greater than $10,000 lower than the underside finish of that vary.
The worker claims that she mentioned her issues with different feminine staff, and sexism and equal pay had been introduced up in Wolfpack, Niantic’s worker sources group for ladies. The feminine worker additionally went to Niantic’s Range Fairness and Inclusion Director and Principal Individuals Companion to voice her issues, just for each to “clarify” that “they and male higher administration at Niantic had been hostile to her complaints or voiced issues about sexism or sexual bias within the office”. On this identical assembly, there have been additionally executives there, and the feminine worker says that they advised her that it was due to her talking up in regards to the matter to her colleagues that her job evaluations had been being affected and he or she was being paid under the rang. The feminine worker says that they then “instantly unsubscribed” from the Wolfpack group becuase she feared that “her affiliation with Wolfpack would drawback Wolfpack staff or her”.
Lastly, the feminine worker mentions within the lawsuit that higher administration was knowledgeable of a Wolfpack survey. Within the survey, Wolfpack discovered that “many feminine staff considered Niantic as a sexist work tradition that disadvantages feminine staff”. Not solely that, however a majority of respondents “expressed issues about equal pay at Niantic”. After they had been knowledgeable of the survey’s findings, the worker says within the lawsuit that “Niantic’s Chief Advertising and marketing Officer, Mike Quigley, required Wolfpack to take away references to Boys Membership and comparable feedback about sexism within the office from their presentation to Wolfpack members in regards to the outcomes of the survey”. Wolfpack was them advised that they couldn’t survey staffers with out approval from higher administration. Total, the criticism accuses Niantic of making a “boys membership”. The Verge reached out to Niantic for a remark, however they acquired no rapid response.
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