Former staffers sue Dell over sex discrimination

LOS ANGELES, USA: Alleging that Dell Inc, the world's second-largest computer maker, is discriminating against female employees and workers over forty, four former female Human Resources executives sued their ex-employer seeking $500 million in damages.

Dell had terminated the service of four senior female employees earlier this year, as part of the job cut.

Filing a class action discrimination lawsuit against the company in U.S. District Court in California, they alleged the company of systemic discrimination in blocking women across the company from breaking into the top ranks.

The plaintiffs, in their lawsuit, wanted Dell to change, what they call the company’s discriminatory policies regarding pay, job placement, promotion, and termination.

The lawsuit demanded $500 million in damages for a class of thousands of current and former Dell female managers and executives, and older employees affected by the company's mass layoffs in 2007 and 2008.

According to the lawsuit, nearly 80 per cent of the top executives in Dell are male, while Dell website claims that 32 per cent of the employees are women and people of color. They accused the company of denying them promotion and salary hike, which was due to them.

"While Dell publicly proclaims a commitment to diversity as 'an essential element of our corporate values,' the reality fails to live up to the rhetoric," said Wittels, Class Counsel in the case. "At Dell, it is an understatement to say that women face a glass ceiling; Dell's glass ceiling is made of concrete."

Dell website says the company is headed by an exclusively male fourteen-member Executive Leadership Team. The plaintiffs alleged that it was this team, which recently engineered mass layoffs of more than 8000 employees, singling out women and older employees.

However, a Dell spokesman said the claims of this suit are without merit and the company does not tolerate discrimination in any aspect of employment.