Lawsuit Alleges Female Amazon Employees Are Paid Less Due to Company Job Codes

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A proposed class and collective action claims Amazon systematically pays female employees less than male workers in comparable positions.

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The 35-page lawsuit was filed by three female employees who allege the company violates a slew of state and federal laws by maintaining compensation policies that result in a gender pay disparity. The plaintiffs also claim that Amazon retaliated against them by demoting them shortly after they raised concerns about the alleged discrimination.

According to the suit, Amazon assigns each employee a job code upon hire, with lowest-level workers receiving Level 4 (L4) status and top employees categorized as Level 12 (L12). As the case tells it, the company “considers past compensation” when assigning a worker’s job code, which effectively determines their base salary, bonuses and other compensation.

“To the extent [a job code] is the only variable responsible for a gap in compensation based on gender, it is discriminatory,” the complaint contends.

The job code system creates substantial pay discrepancies between male and female employees, the filing claims, as Amazon “regularly” assigns women lower job codes than men for equivalent positions and repeatedly fails to promote female employees to higher codes. Per the lawsuit, this results in women performing similar work as men in higher job codes, but for less pay.

To make matters worse, the suit charges, even when male and female employees are assigned the same job code and perform comparable work, the company still compensates the women at a lower level than their male counterparts.

“Inequity in compensation based on gender compounds over time because periodic compensation decisions, such as salary increases and promotions, are based on current job code,” the case explains. “Therefore, female employees are systematically disadvantaged by the common compensation structure.”

One plaintiff, a Washington resident who joined Amazon’s Worldwide Communications team in 2017, claims she was misclassified by the company as a general marketing manager—a lower-paid job category—despite “exclusively performing a research role” since 2019. According to the woman, the alleged misclassification has resulted in some of her direct reports—including two male workers with significantly less experience and education—being paid more than she was paid as their manager.

In addition, between 2019 and 2022, Amazon purportedly paid the plaintiff less than her male peers, including a man who led a similarly sized team but had fewer years of experience and less education than the plaintiff, the complaint relays. Nonetheless, the male employee was assigned as an L8 upon hire, while Amazon continued to pay the plaintiff as an L7, the filing states.

As a result of the defendant’s failure to accurately classify the plaintiff’s position, the woman has been underpaid by hundreds of thousands of dollars each year, the lawsuit contends.

“Specifically, [the plaintiff] was paid $205,006 in 2019, $279,810 in 2020, and $351,438 in 2021,” the suit shares. “But if [the plaintiff] had been correctly classified as a researcher then, upon information and belief, she would have been earning between $570,000-$900,000 as an L7 Research Scientist, and between $900,00-$1,300,000 if she were an L8 Research Scientist.”

The case argues that at the end of the day, female Amazon employees are paid less than their male coworkers for work requiring equivalent skills and responsibilities and performed under the same conditions. The pay disparity is “not justified by seniority, a merit system, a system that measures earnings by quality or quantity of production, or any factor other than sex,” the complaint stresses.

As the filing tells it, the three plaintiffs have repeatedly voiced their concerns and those of their female subordinates about the alleged gender-based pay discrimination and disparate treatment of male and female workers. The lawsuit charges, however, that Amazon has failed to take prompt, sufficient action to address the problems.

On the contrary, the suit claims the defendant retaliated against the plaintiffs by demoting them from leadership roles, stripping them of their direct reports and “severely diminish[ing] their career paths” by reassigning them to positions with less opportunity for advancement.

Amazon’s alleged discriminatory practices and retaliation were “willful and malicious” and intended to humiliate and distress the plaintiffs, the case contests. As of the date of the filing, the company has neither addressed the purported gender pay disparity nor restored the plaintiffs to their former leadership positions, the complaint adds.

The lawsuit looks to represent any woman who worked for Amazon in a position assigned a job level between 4 and 8 at any time within the last three years.

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