Vice Media just learned another big “Don’t.”
The company has agreed to pay $1.87 million in order to end a class-action settlement accusing Vice of paying female employees less than their male coworkers. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the agreement was submitted to a Los Angeles Superior Court earlier this week, following mediation between parties. Vice will make payouts of about $1,600 to an estimated 675 individuals in California and New York, the Reporter notes.
The settlement comes after an investigation that involved more than 60 interviewees, as well as a consultation with a statistician. Though their findings indicate the company did not coordinate across-the-board salary disparities between male and female employees, it noted multiple instances in which women were paid less than their similarly experienced male colleagues.
The suit, which was filed last year, was the latest headache for the company, which began in 1994 as an underground-culture magazine—one that ran infamously bratty features such as its “Dos and Don’ts” fashion critiques—before evolving into an all-encompassing digital brand. But after a 2017 New York Times piece revealed a corporate culture that had failed to curb sexual harassment, CEO Shane Smith was replaced by Nancy Dubuc, a veteran of A+E Networks. And earlier this year, the company cut around 250 employees, roughly 10% of its workforce.
