The former employee, Pedro Ibarra, said that leading up to the November 2016 presidential election he faced racism and harassment from management.
PayActiv, a company in San Jose, California, that works with customers like Goodwill and Walmart, allows employees to access part of their wages before payday. It's backed and has raised $41.05 million from investors including SoftBank Capital and Generation Partners.that it"was founded to level the playing field for the millions of lower-income hourly workers being exploited and monetized for their 'between paychecks' cashflow timing issues.
PayActiv's chief operating officer, Ijaz Anwar, described the lawsuit as"spurious and without merit." Ibarra said in the filing that after the election he"was subjected to intensified harassment" — for example, he said that colleagues frequently used phrases like"bad hombre" and slurs like"beaner" around him and in reference to him.
"I was the only director that was Hispanic," Ibarra said."They do not value or see us as equal. In my opinion, I believe they did not want someone with my background or ethnicity managing or holding a high position at the company."Ibarra's lawsuit also makes allegations about PayActiv's business practices — mainly that it's not transparent with users about how the service works.
Ibarra argued in the complaint that by the time that second pay period rolls around it's tantamount to credit, because it effectively has to be paid back by hours the employee hasn't worked yet. For employees in industries like retail, where hours can vary between pay periods, there's no guarantee that they will make enough to pay it back.