Oracle Loss Shows Pay History Policies Can Bolster Class Actions

Oracle Corp.'s alleged tying of workers’ pay to their prior salaries proved key in a recent court win for women in their compensation and promotion lawsuit, signaling that the common business practice could allow some discrimination class actions to survive where others have not.

A California judge last week certified a class action of more than 4,000 women against Oracle, in part because the workers’ attorney pointed to the use of applicants’ salary history to set their pay. A similar argument about prior pay has been raised in a proposed pay discrimination class action against Google Inc., also pending ...