Oracle America has been sued by the US Department of Labour which alleges that it paid Caucasian employees more than female, African American or Asian workers who were doing the same job.
The lawsuit was filed by the department's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programmes. It also claims that Oracle had a systemic practice of favouring Asian workers when it came to recruiting and hiring for product development and other technical jobs and this discriminated against non-Asian applicants.
The suit follows a review by the OFCCP of Oracle's equal employment opportunity practices at its headquarters in Redwood Shores, California.
According to the OFCCP, Oracle often refused to provide employment data and records that was requested during the review. It said that it tried for almost a year to resolve the issues it unearthed and only filed the lawsuit when these efforts failed.
{loadposition sam08}The company had been granted many federal government contracts and as a contractor was prohibited from discriminatory employment practices, the suit said.
"Federal contractors are required to comply with all applicable anti-discrimination laws," said OFCCP acting director Thomas Dowd. "We filed this lawsuit to enforce those requirements."
The suit has been filed with the Office of Administrative Law Judges.