Pune: Facebook’s parent entity Meta has been slapped with a new class-action lawsuit that alleges discriminatory hiring practices at the social media firm.
According to the lawsuit, filed by an Indian-origin naturalised US citizen, Purushothaman Rajaram, Facebook allegedly prefers to hire workers on temporary (H-1B) work permits over US citizens as that enables the company to pay lower wages.
ET has seen a copy of the filing. Meta did not respond to ET’s email seeking comment.
Rajaram has accused the company of violating federal civil rights law by treating him differently because he is a US citizen.
“When hiring for US positions, Facebook considers United States citizens, lawful permanent residents (e.g., green card holders), and foreign citizens with proper work permits (e.g., H-1B or L-1 visa holders). But while visa holders make up just a fraction of the United States labour market, Facebook prefers to hire visa-dependent workers for certain US positions, as it can pay these employees less than American workers performing the same work,” the lawsuit says.
Rajaram, who moved to the United States from India, has almost 20 years of experience in solution architecting and delivering enterprise PLM software solutions to Fortune 500 companies. He was considered for employment by Facebook on two occasions in 2020 and claims that he was passed over in favour of a worker with an H-1B visa.
This is not the first time that the US-based company is facing legal action related to…
