LA Times proves its sexism once again
In a thread of tweets, an LA Times employee exposed how she was valued less than her male colleagues for the same work, in a message from management.
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After much scrutiny from former employees at the LA Times, another bomb has dropped on the newspaper via social media, this time, about the gender pay gap.
Patricia Escarcera is an LA Times food critic who recently came forward about being paid less than her white male colleagues. On Nov. 15, Escarcega took to Twitter with a thread explaining the unethical discrimination she’s experienced at one of the most well known newspapers in the United States.
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Last night, after nearly 6 anxious months of being told "the company will have a response for you shortly," my employer, @latimes, finally handed me a decision on the pay discrimination claim I filed through my union.
— Patricia Escárcega (@piescarcega) November 15, 2020
Earlier in the year, Escarcega had filed a pay discrimination complaint through the Los Angeles Times Guild — the union that represents journalists at the paper. The complaint she filed was not part of a class-action lawsuit recently settled. The suit pertained to 240 Black, Latino, and women journalists who complained about their lower paygrade compared to their white male peers.
In Escaraga’s thread, she explained that over summer, she got a response where management said they were going to address the issue at hand. However, after almost six months, on Nov. 15, she received an email that did not deliver the same message as the one over the summer.
The thread explains, that without her knowing, “the company classified me as a junior critic upon hire, even though I was told repeatedly by managers that I was equal to my co-critic, and I have always been expected to do the same work, and held to the same expectations and standards.” The LA Times also advertised the two as co-critics.
She went on to address the systemic bias and discrimination that exists in the workplace. Despite the last seven months of unrest and asking for justice from government as well as corporations, the LA Times still undervalued a Latinx woman.
I realize discrimination is rampant in journalism and food media, and that the @latimes has a history of making women and journalists of color feel like dispensable workhorses. But ubiquity does not make discrimination okay.
— Patricia Escárcega (@piescarcega) November 15, 2020
I would appreciate any RTs or signal boosts.
Escarcega’s case is only the most recent at a paper that has a racist and sexist past that continues to surface. Though a tough pill to swallow, especially as a latinx woman, the brave efforts of so many like Escarcega to tell their story to the world, gives hope to so many in the field that one day we will all reach what so many of us have fought for: equality.
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