Valve sued over discrimination and other inner hostilities

[Hassat Hunter]

http://www.polygon.com/2016/5/24/11761242/valve-former-employee-lawsuit-transgender-discrimination

http://www.pcgamer.com/former-valve-employee-files-31-million-lawsuit-over-wrongful-dismissal

 

 

 

At some point after moving to Los Angeles, the plaintiff filed a complaint with Valve's human resources “about their unfair business practice of utilizing people interested in their products to provide translation services for free.” The people in question “worked hours upon hours based on promises that their work could lead to a paid position,” but it never actually did. 

Shortly after filing a written complaint about the practice in January of this year, the plaintiff was fired, allegedly because her job was being moved back to Washington. But when she offered to relocate, the suit claims, she was refused.

“The real reason for termination was that Plaintiff was complaining about the hostile work environment and illegal business practices as stated above,” the lawsuit states. “Moreover, Plaintiff was terminated due to her transgender status. While Defendants accommodated her at first, her direct supervisor, Torsten Zabka, referred to her in a derogatory fashion. He referred to Plaintiff as 'it,' which is highly offensive to a transgender person.”

 

Related to this were the dismissal of the Italian and Spanish fantranslation teams after giving false promises by a Valve employee, the supervisor of the fired employee doing the sue.

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:o0dAmHlG6p4J:https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/44yl24/how_a_whole_language_of_the_steam_translation/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

 

 

 

TL;DR: There has been a huge mess involving Valve’s employee Torsten Zabka and the Spanish team of Steam Translation Server that has resulted a strike from the whole team, and 2 valuable colleagues being expelled, one of them being a Valve employee that also got fired. We want to share the story to reach Valve’s attention and show the community that not everything around is pretty.

 

 

We did what we thought wiser: we sent an email to Human Resources at Valve, asking for any information of why our superiors had been kicked - and fired, in Ambra’s case - without any explanation. We also suggested for some actions to be taken on Torsten, because we didn’t consider he was being fair and he was acting against us. Meanwhile, we also tried contacting Torsten, but he wouldn’t even answer. The response from HR came almost a week later, and while we can’t copy the message here for obvious reasons, it basically said that “Valve is grateful for your work; however we’ve decided to release all Spanish translation duties from STS”. So not only did they ignore our petitions, ignore our suggestions, kick our coordinator, kick and fire our administrator, but they also neglected us for complaining about it and asking for an explanation. A whole language of STS, one of the languages that reaches more users and has one of the biggest potential for users in the future, moved away from their tasks, for no reasons.

[Gfted1]

So they are a group on interns that got let go?

[Lexx]

I am not an expert, but working for free and expecting to be paid later is pretty dumb, no?

[213374U]

I am not an expert, but working for free and expecting to be paid later is pretty dumb, no?

 

Location: Germany

 

 

Seriously though, it's not uncommon for people to pay for the privilege of working, in hopes of being hired later. We have to outcompete the Chinese and Indians, you see.

[Tale]

So they are a group on interns that got let go?

They were volunteers who were supposedly told they could be graduated to contractors.

[Gfted1]

"Could". In this case it did not.

 

Admittedly Ive only read the quote summaries that HH provided but to me it stinks of people being upset, likely due to a feeling of irreplaceability, because they weren't hired on permanently. Queue throwing random turds against the wall (discrimination!, meaness! ism! ISM! ISM!) to see what sticks.

 

I could be wrong.

[Fenixp]

I am not an expert, but working for free for a company as rich as Valve is pretty dumb, no?

I have fixed that for you. It devalues translation work across the board, it produces pretty crappy results and since it's collective effort, you can't even really use it on your resume.

Edited May 25, 2016 by Fenixp

[Bartimaeus]

I remember when this story originally broke on reddit a long while back (like, probably somewhere around half a year ago) - with this and some other stuff over the last few years, it can't really be helped that my opinion of Valve has seriously bottomed out recently.

 

(e): The quoted bits here don't paint as full of a picture as I got originally on reddit, though.

Edited May 25, 2016 by Bartimaeus

[Blarghagh]

Welcome to the game industry. Enjoy your average-of-4-years-industry-wide stay. No isms involved when everyone is treated like hot excrement.

[213374U]

Admittedly Ive only read the quote summaries that HH provided

 

[...]

 

I could be wrong.

Okay, this is going to sound a little crazy, but bear with me for a second: read the news pieces.

 

I know, right? An informed opinion? That's like, so 20th century.

 

Actually the lawsuit isn't about "isms" -- the discrimination allegation is just one of eight different complaints, some of which have to do with Valve being clever about employee classification and tax fraud resulting from that. The plaintiff also argues that Valve was profiting from work done by unpaid minors.

 

I know, not nearly as interesting as whatever you have come up with in your mind, but that doesn't mean it's without merit.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Meanwhile, at Blizzard, employees get to walk away with unique swords after a few years of loyal service. It's a cruel, cruel world for game devs and translators - so uncertain, unfortunately.

Hopefully, they weren't led on. I mean, years of work for nothing is harsh in itself, but when there's no pay at all at the end, it stings even worse.

Edited May 25, 2016 by IndiraLightfoot

[Tale]

"Could". In this case it did not.

 

Admittedly Ive only read the quote summaries that HH provided but to me it stinks of people being upset, likely due to a feeling of irreplaceability, because they weren't hired on permanently. Queue throwing random turds against the wall (discrimination!, meaness! ism! ISM! ISM!) to see what sticks.

 

I could be wrong.

The lawsuit isn't even them. The lawsuit is from an employee that supervised such groups. One who was called names by her boss for being transgender and then was fired when she  spoke up about her belief that the volunteers were being misled.

[Gfted1]

Okay, this is going to sound a little crazy, but bear with me for a second: read the news pieces.

 

I know, right? An informed opinion? That's like, so 20th century.

 

Actually the lawsuit isn't about "isms" -- the discrimination allegation is just one of eight different complaints, some of which have to do with Valve being clever about employee classification and tax fraud resulting from that. The plaintiff also argues that Valve was profiting from work done by unpaid minors.

 

I know, not nearly as interesting as whatever you have come up with in your mind, but that doesn't mean it's without merit.

I'm here to chit-chat, not research someone else's topics. Generally speaking, when having informal conversations, I will take what the person offers as a summary of the talking points. That's just how I roll. Others prefer to drive it into the ground.

 

I wonder what the laws are regarding unpaid minors. Maybe nothing since they aren't technically an employee?

[Gfted1]

The lawsuit isn't even them. The lawsuit is from an employee that supervised such groups. One who was called names by her boss for being transgender and then was fired when she  spoke up about her belief that the volunteers were being misled.

Yeah, that's the part that makes my radar flicker. Its very convenient in todays day and age to squeal like a pig with cries of discrimination every time you don't get what you want. It cant just be that she sucks, it MUST be because shes transgender.

[213374U]

I'm here to chit-chat, not research someone else's topics. Generally speaking, when having informal conversations, I will take what the person offers as a summary of the talking points. That's just how I roll. Others prefer to drive it into the ground.

 

I wonder what the laws are regarding unpaid minors. Maybe nothing since they aren't technically an employee?

 

If a cursory reading of the links someone posts is "researching", I guess I'm at least a JD now, since I actually read the submitted court document, right?

 

Regarding unpaid work, I used the skills I acquired while earning my JD to determine that you cannot be "technically" not an employee, if you are doing work for someone else, and that someone is making money off of your work.

 

Individuals who volunteer or donate their services, usually on a part-time basis, for public service, religious or humanitarian objectives, not as employees and without contemplation of pay, are not considered employees of the religious, charitable or similar non-profit organizations that receive their service.

 

http://webapps.dol.gov/elaws/whd/flsa/docs/volunteers.asp

 

Apparently, minors under 14 also cannot be employed beyond babysitting, newspaper delivery, taking out the trash, etc. Whether "very young minors" means under 14 isn't made clear in the suit, though.

 

And no, they don't meet the FLSA criteria for unpaid internships, either:

 

1. The internship, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to training which would be given in an educational environment;

2. The internship experience is for the benefit of the intern;

3. The intern does not displace regular employees, but works under close supervision of existing staff;

4. The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern;

and on occasion its operations may actually be impeded;

5. The intern is not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the internship; and

6. The employer and the intern understand that the intern is not entitled to wages for the time spent in the internship.

 

https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.pdf

 

Now, it is perfectly possible that the allegations are baseless, that the plaintiff will not be able to present sufficient evidence, or whatever, and the lawsuit will be thrown out, or ruled in favor of Valve. But her complaints go beyond "Help help, transphobia! Discrimination!". Hell, it's even possible that she is making the whole transphobia thing up to use against Valve. But if that's the case, how stupid can they be to fire her without objective, well documented reasons?

 

 

 

Its very convenient in todays day and age to squeal like a pig with cries of discrimination every time you don't get what you want.

 

More or less convenient than dismissing someone's complaints out of hand because you decided that the problem is actually something else entirely?

Edited May 25, 2016 by 213374U

[Hurlshort]

 

The lawsuit isn't even them. The lawsuit is from an employee that supervised such groups. One who was called names by her boss for being transgender and then was fired when she  spoke up about her belief that the volunteers were being misled.

Yeah, that's the part that makes my radar flicker. Its very convenient in todays day and age to squeal like a pig with cries of discrimination every time you don't get what you want. It cant just be that she sucks, it MUST be because shes transgender.

 

 

Well that's why we have a legal system where lawyers present evidence and a judge makes a decision on the merits of the person's claim.

[Zoraptor]

It won't be as clear cut as she makes it sound- after all, she has to make her case as strong as possible. But I do find the idea that transgender people complain essentially for the sake of it to be very hard to credit as they instantly set themselves up for abuse. Frankly, they probably do complain more but then there can hardly be any doubt that they also do genuinely face more discrimination than the average Joe or even Josephine.

 

Welcome to the game industry. Enjoy your average-of-4-years-industry-wide stay. No isms involved when everyone is treated like hot excrement.

 

Dunno, sounds like at least some capital-ism is involved.

 

Hmm, I thought that Valve had flat management, after all that's what that 'leaked' handbook said. So they shouldn't have managers to offer them money or be transphobic... Still, ex employees getting the same sort of non support 'support' emails as everyone else is vaguely amusing.

 

(ceterum censeo Valve delendam esse etcetera etcetera)

[Keyrock]

The forecast calls for a 40% chance of bull**** with a chance of scattered frivolous lawsuits.

[Nonek]

I predict that it will be a fair while (if ever) before the fields of Valve are sown with salt.

[Malcador]

Sheesh, forgot how many fricking JS scripts are running on Polygon's page. I'll bet on Valve paying out for this though. $1MM for lost wages though, is an interesting figure.

[redneckdevil]

To be honest, sounds like they just weren't up to par with the standards and got let go and denied a paying job and is now filing a lawsuit because they worked for free as interns and didn't pan out. I could very well be wrong but hopefully justice gets served either way.