Pay discrimination: Female engineer sues Musk’s SpaceX
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San Francisco: Elon Musk-owned aerospace company SpaceX was sued by an employee Ashley Foltz alleging pay discrimination.
According to the lawsuit, women and minority employees are being paid less than male and white workers.
Foltz, a propulsion engineer, said that she was hired by SpaceX in September 2022 on a $92,000 salary as a base-level engineer, even though men with similar or less experience were offered as much as $115,000.
The lawsuit argued that Musk and company executives have “no legitimate justification for their discriminatory pay practices”.
Describing herself as one of the few female engineers at the company, Foltz said that she found out about the pay gap when California's Pay Transparency Act came into effect.
She accused SpaceX of violating California Labour law, and asked the court to “award civil penalties and monetary damages to her and any other affected employees.”
SpaceX has not yet commented on the lawsuit.
This is not the first time the Musk-run company has been accused of discriminatory hiring and promotion practices.
In August this year, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) sued SpaceX for discriminating against asylees and refugees in hiring.
The lawsuit alleged that, from at least September 2018 to May 2022, SpaceX routinely discouraged asylees and refugees from applying and refused to hire or consider them, because of their citizenship status, in violation of the US Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).
In job postings and public statements over several years, SpaceX wrongly claimed that under federal regulations known as “export control laws,” SpaceX could hire only US citizens and lawful permanent residents, sometimes referred to as “green card holders", the DoJ lawsuit alleged.
“Our investigation found that SpaceX failed to fairly consider or hire asylees and refugees because of their citizenship status and imposed what amounted to a ban on their hire regardless of their qualification, in violation of federal law,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke.
With inputs from IANS