eBay Under Fire: Alleged Discrimination & Retaliation Add To H-1B Immigration Controversy
eBay's labor troubles continue with new allegations of discrimination and retaliation surfacing amidst backdrop of larger H-1B immigration debate.
With a background in the US military as well as degrees and experience in HR and business management, Amanda Bartolotta was excited to join eBay in 2022 as a Senior Technical Product Manager working on post-transaction protections products and automated claims handling.
But in a new lawsuit filed against eBay, Bartolotta details how what she thought was a dream job turned into a nightmare as she experienced harassment and discrimination at the hands of her manager (identified as GA in the complaint), then was retaliated against and performance managed out of the company when she reported her experiences through internal employee relations and ethics departments.
The suit alleges violations of the Missouri Human Rights Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, saying Bartolotta received positive feedback on her performance initially, but that changed when she raised concerns that she and other Caucasian team members were not being treated fairly compared to the majority of the team who were of South Indian descent.
Throughout Plaintiffs term of employment, Plaintiffs superiors, GA and
DG, as well as co-workers, subjected Plaintiff to discrimination and harassment because of and motivated by Plaintiffs race (Caucasian), her national origin (United States born Citizen), and ancestry (not of Indian ancestry).After expressing her concerns about discrimination and harassment....members of Plaintiff's team began to exclude Plaintiff from important planning meetings, ignore her during meetings she attended, and criticize her efforts and work product.
On or around December 22, 2022, Plaintiff reported acts of discrimination against Plaintiff and other Caucasian employees to DG, a manager over GA...
...DG's response to Plaintiff's complaints caused Plaintiff to feel fearful and reluctant to take her complaints to human resources.
Source: Bartolotta v eBay Inc Document 1-2
In an effort to avoid the escalating tensions under GA, Bartolotta sought to switch to an open role within the eBay Motors division for which she was qualified, but her request was denied and the situation within her existing team continued to deteriorate.
On or around February 15, 2023 Plaintiff reached out to the people experience team and asked about changing roles and transferring to another team but was told she had to be in her role for twelve months.
In mid-February 2023 Plaintiff made a complaint of harassment to Human Resources. Plaintiff provided examples of harassment, discrimination and retaliation by GA as well as by team members and colleagues, including:
- a. Team members insisted that Plaintiff verify her answers with certain other employees before they would accept Plaintiff's response;
- b. Team members would fulfill requests from other colleagues but not from Plaintiff;
- c. Plaintiff was required to have content ready, even when beyond her control, while non-Caucasians were not held to the same standard.
Source: Bartolotta v eBay Inc Document 1-2
Bartolotta says the stress from the experience was so great, it landed her in the ER for chest pain due to extremely high blood pressure and anxiety, causing her to take medical leave from February 28 until early April 2023.
eBay's HR department claimed to be investigating her harassment complaints during that time, but she would later find out the person in charge of the investigation did not even contact key witnesses to the events Bartolotta had reported.
Upon return from this leave, she alleges the harassment and retaliation continued, resulting in filing additional complaints - at which point she was made aware that she would be "performance managed" with the ultimate goal of facilitating her exit from the company.
Plaintiff submitted another written complaint of discrimination, harassment and retaliation to HB in Human Resources on or around June 21, 2023.
Plaintiff reported that since her prior written complaint against GA, GA had continued to subject her to discrimination, harassment, and retaliation, including placing unrealistic demands on Plaintiff, assigning projects to Plaintiff at the last minute, threatening to give Plaintiff poor performance evaluations, not making any of her requests clear, and not allowing Plaintiff to explain any of Plaintiffs work.
Plaintiff spoke with GA's supervisor, DG, on June 23, 2023. DG summarily dismissed Plaintiffs report of harassment. DG told Plaintiff that Human Resources would not believe Plaintiffs claims, that Human Resources would decare any concerns a miscommunication, that it would be Plaintiff's word against that of GA.
He told Plaintiff that her options were to get off his team, to get out of eBay, or to accept that GA will be leaning hard on Plaintiff. He also told Plaintiff that following their meeting he would discuss the issues with GA and have a hard evaluation of Plaintiff to identify performance improvements.
Source: Bartolotta v eBay Inc Document 1-2
The situation escalated over the following months and as it became increasingly clear internal reporting was only resulting in additional retaliation, Bartolotta also filed complaints with the California Civil Rights Department, ultimately leading to her termination in December 2023.
On or around November 20, 2023 Plaintiff filed formal complaints of discrimination with the California Civil Rights Department, since Defendant is headquartered in California. Plaintiff's complaint detailed the discrimination, harassment, and retaliation to which she had been subjected since at least October 2022.
Upon information and belief, Plaintiff's complaint of discrimination was sent to Defendant on or about November 21, 2023.
Also on November 21, 2023, Plaintiff had her second meeting with GA since Plaintiff's return from leave. During that meeting GA took away a project Plaintiff had completed and gave it to another project manager. GA stated that the projects had been given more funding, making them more important, and thus reassigned to another team member. Plaintiff was then assigned a project that might not even be approved for the next year.
On November 22, 2023 and November 30, 2023 Plaintiff notified members of Defendant's Human Resources, Ethics, and POC of ongoing incidents of discrimination, harassment, and retaliation.
GA confronted Plaintiff on November 30, 2023 and escalated reprimands. On November 30, 2023 and December 1, 2023, Plaintiff notified GA and members of Defendant's Human Resources department of the ongoing discrimination, harassment, and retaliation perpetrated by GA.
On December 6, 2023, Defendant terminated Plaintiff's employment. During Plaintiff's termination meeting Defendant stated it would deal with whatever agencies needed to handle Plaintiff's complaints, confirming that Defendant was aware that Plaintiff had made a formal charge of discrimination.
On January 2, 2024, Plaintiff emailed members of Defendant's Human Resources department as well as Defendant's ethics team and reported that she had been wrongfully terminated in retaliation for her complaints of discrimination and harassment.
Source: Bartolotta v eBay Inc Document 1-2
While Bartolotta continues to seek justice for her personal experience at eBay, she's gone on to join the broader debate about how Big Tech companies often use the H-1B visa program to replace American workers, which has recently gained national attention due to controversial stances on the subject taken by Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk.
She has also shared more about her personal story and how it has inspired her to advocate for other US tech workers who may be facing similar situations on her Substack.
Substack
These claims come as eBay faces increasing legal and regulatory scrutiny of their hiring and labor practices on multiple fronts, particularly since acquisition of Sneaker Con's authentication business in 2021 and collectible trading card marketplace TCGPlayer in 2022 added in-house physical labor-centric warehouse operations for the first time in the company's almost 30 year history.
Authentication workers at TCGPLayer voted to form the the first union in eBay history in March 2023, leading to the sudden departure of the company's Chief Accounting Officer when due diligence concerns were raised about the deal and multiple unfair labor practice claims were filed with the National Labor Relations Board.
Liz Morton
TCGUnion-CWA has continued their now year plus long fight to get eBay to bargain in good faith and agree to a contract, filing more complaints with the NLRB along the way.
The company recently undertook an "investor recommended" indepedendant Values Assessment, with the supposed goal of determining if eBay is living up to the principals of their published Human Rights Policy which includes respecting the rights of workers to organize as well as commitments to equal opportunity employment and providing a harassment and discrimination-free workplace.
Liz Morton
eBay's chosen independent assessor Davis Wright Tremaine LLP returned a positive report - an unsurprising result considering eBay explicitly excluded any topics related to working conditions, pay or benefits from the assessment.
eBay is also facing a class action lawsuit from sneaker authenticators employed at the company's former Queens, NY facility, alleging the pay structure violated Fair Labor Standards Act and New York Labor Law requiring manual laborers to be paid on a weekly basis.
Liz Morton
However, it's not just authentication workers that eBay has to worry about - Don Bivens PLLC is investigating the company for potential employee rights violations related to underperformance of assets tied to 401(K) benefits that crosses over into eBay's wider white collar salaried tech employee base as well.
Liz Morton
eBay also undertook a mass layoff at the beginning of 2024 which cut ~1,000 roles and as other big tech companies have done the same, they've increasingly been subjected to scrutiny of hiring practices, particularly around H-1B visas - could eBay find themselves under the immigration microscope soon too?
Bernadette Walker
The Department of Justice is already keeping a close eye on the company as part of a deferred prosecution agreement regarding multiple federal felonies committed by eBay security employees who targeted journalists Ina and David Steiners of EcommerceBytes in 2019 with a shocking campaign of harassment and stalking aimed at influencing their coverage and outing an anonymous source known as FidoMaster/ unsuckEBAY on Twitter/X.
Liz Morton
Last year, eBay promoted Aaron Johnson to take on the role of Chief Ethics Officer, despite the fact that in his previous role at the company he was the main recipient of the infamous "Whatever. It. Takes" email from ex-Chief Communications Officer Steve Wymer, revealed in the cyberstalking case.
Given the criminal events that occurred following this email, it would appear neither Johnson nor then Chief Legal Officer Marie Oh Huber took action in their respective positions to make sure eBay's head of security, Jim Baugh, handled executive "frustration" within established legal bounds or reported this troubling and inappropriate communication from Wymer through any of the internal compliance or ethics channels which existed at that time - or, if they did, those channels clearly failed.
How are current employees supposed to feel knowing this is the person who may ultimately handle any internal reports or ethics complaints they may have?
Interestingly, Bartolotta's lawsuit seeks production of relevant communications from Oh Huber, Johnson, CEO Jamie Iannone, Chief People Officer Cornelius Boone and other executives as part of the discovery process, indicating eBay's labor relations, ethics, and compliance problems go all the way to the top of the c-suite.
The case has been moved to Federal Court as Bartolotta v. eBay Inc.
Missouri Western District Court Case #: 4:25-cv-00015, where it is currently awaiting a formal reply from eBay.
