A senior manager who had worked at Oracle Corp. for 16 years testified that she heard the company's top human resources' leadership say that women will work harder for less compensation.

The testimony is part of a multiweek administrative hearing that kicked off Thursday in San Francisco as the company and its Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe counsel continue to defend against the U.S. Department of Labor's claims of systemic pay disparities leveled in a 2017 lawsuit.

Kirsten Hanson Garcia, Oracle's former senior director of the global organization and talent development department, testified that she heard Joyce Westerdahl, the executive vice president of human resources, tell a former chief financial officer if he hired a woman "she'll work harder for less money."

"I was shocked because this was the senior person in charge of HR talking to another executive about hiring," Hanson Garcia said.

When asked why she decided to testify, Hanson Garcia, who is currently a professor at the University of San Diego, said she was speaking out over a sense of responsibility. "I'm here for my daughter's sake, my step-daughter's sake," she said, holding back tears.

The Department's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs slapped the tech giant with a suit in January 2017, days before President Barack Obama left office. The complaint alleges that Oracle engages in "widespread" compensation discrimination at its headquarters in Redwood Shores against female, Asian and black employees in product development, information technology and support roles.

OFCCP, which investigates and pursues discrimination claims against federal contractors, contends that Oracle violated an executive order banning discriminatory hiring and employment practices, as well as laws prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating against workers while accepting $100 million in government contracts over the past two decades.

Janet Herold, regional solicitor for the Western Region of the Office of the Solicitor General, said at the hearing the OFCCP intends to prove that Oracle's compensation decisions were controlled by top management. Herold said the office will present evidence that Larry Ellison, Oracle's co-founder and current executive chairman and chief technology officer, deploys "a strong top-down decision structure" and that compensation requests go through his office.

"Indeed to corroborate Oracle's discriminatory intent, the OFCCP will focus on actions Oracle did not take, specifically analyzing compensation data, keeping complete data, training management on how to ensure compensation decisions are not influenced by gender or race and providing a budget and well-trained team to investigate internal discrimination," she said.

Oracle's legal team, which includes Orrick's Erin Connell and Warrington Parker, rebuffed assertions that the company discriminates against minorities, arguing that it hires and pays based on product-specific skills.

"Oracle does not pay these individuals the same because their work differs and the market does not value their work the same," Connell said. "It's not discrimination, its basic economics."

OFCCP noted that an analysis of the company's wage data showed gender pay gaps of around 20%, and pay gaps among Asian and black workers ranging between 10% and 20%, compared to their white counterparts.

Connell said the statistical models are "divorced from the facts and based on inaccurate and ill-formed assumptions" and do not support the DOL's claims.

A week before the hearing, the company sued the department in federal court in Washington, D.C., claiming the OFCCP has "subjected Oracle to administrative proceedings that are unauthorized and impermissible, in violation of the law, and separation of powers" in an attempted "power grab."

Over the past few years, the parties have flung allegations of misconduct and ethical breaches at each other, and Oracle has raised concerns of political motivations in the case, especially given the fact that the DOL filed the complaint days before President Donald Trump's inauguration.

Earlier this week, Administrative Law Judge Richard Clark, who is overseeing the proceedings, granted the OFCCP's motion for summary judgment on Oracle's affirmative defenses.