A former PayPal employee wants to take the company to court, alleging that she was passed up for a promotion because the job would require travel and she had young children, according to Gizmodo.
Theresa Pasinosky is filing a gender discrimination suit and says that the job ultimately went to a male colleague with one child. The position, which Pasinosky approached her boss about in 2017, was to lead the international expansion of Xoom, a PayPal product she had been working on since 2006 and previously traveled for, according to Gizmodo. She also moved her family to Europe for several months to work on the product at one point.
Pasinosky saw herself as the ideal candidate for the job, and for good reason, she had worked on the product and at the company for over a decade. Ultimately, none of this resulted in her being considered or interviewed.
The job ended up going to someone who Pasinosky says was less qualified than her, and according to Gizmodo, someone she hired and supervised for three years. Pasinosky filed a gender discrimination complaint in July 2017 and was fired four months later for “alleged insubordination” according to Gizmodo.
Pasinosky is alleging discrimination, failure to prevent discrimination, retaliation, negligent training and supervision, breach of contract, breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing, and conversion against PayPal. She is seeking economic, non-economic, and punitive damages, and costs of attorney fees.
-Gizmodo
Pasinosky may have to settle out of court because of an arbitration agreement she signed. Basically, when she signed her contract, she gave up all of her rights to a trial. It’s a practice that’s common in the tech industry, which is why a lot of cases involving discrimination never make it to light.
This case makes PayPal the latest tech company to be under the spotlight for forced arbitration. Google recently changed its rules on forced arbitration following a walkout of 20,000 of its employees. Other tech companies like Facebook, Airbnb, and Square said they would end their forced arbitration policies later this year as well.
According to the Economic Policy Institute, the number of employees in the U.S. who are subject to forced arbitration has doubled since the early 2000’s, and is now over 55 percent.
Paypal says it’s investigating the claims and a spokeman told Gizmodo that “Creating a safe and respectful work environment is foundational to PayPal’s values.”
