An October 2017 lawsuit alleged that Uber has discriminated against women and certain minority employees, leading them to receive reduced earnings, promotions, and benefits (including stock options and bonuses). The lawsuit argues: “In this system, female employees and employees of color are systematically undervalued compared to their male and white or Asian American peers.”
Female driver in UK claimed gender discrimination due to insufficient security
A female driver in the UK claimed gender discrimination in that Uber purportedly failed to provide sufficient security to female drivers. She complained that she had to accept a passenger’s request without knowing the destination in advance, and had no option to cancel requests to remote or unsafe destinations. She also complained that Uber would penalize her if she canceled a trip for an aggressive passenger or a passenger raising other safety concerns.
Five rapes by fake Uber driver targeting women leaving bars
In Chicago, a man was charged in five area cases. He picked up four of his five victims by claiming to be an Uber driver.
Promotion perpetuated gender stereotypes
In India, an UberEats promotion offered a discount on food delivery, suggesting that a customer “let your wife take a day off from the kitchen” and thus presuming that all cooking is done by women and not men. Readers criticized Uber’s promotion as perpetuating gender stereotypes.
Uber Board Member Arianna Huffington said sexual harassment not a “systemic problem”; Eric Holder report disagreed
In March 2017 remarks, in response to a widely-circulated blog by former Uber employe Susan Fowler about sexual harassment and the company’s refusal to respond to complaints of sexual harassment, Uber Board Member Arianna Huffington denied that sexual harassment at Uber was a “systemic problem”:
Yes, there were some bad apples, unquestionably. But this is not a systemic problem
In sharp contrast, when former Attorney General Eric Holder and colleagues examined misconduct at Uber, their report found 215 complaints of inappropriate workplace conduct, yielding at least 20 firings, 31 retrainings, and 7 final warnings.
287 alleged sexual assaults by Uber and Lyft drivers
Who’s Driving You? reports 287 incidents of alleged sexual assaults by Uber and Lyft drivers.
Representative examples:
Driver accused of locking customer in vehicle and demanding sex
A Chicago-area Uber driver was ordered held on $100,000 of bond based on the allegation that he demanded sex from a 19-year-old passenger. The allegations continued: When she refused, the driver repeatedly locked the car’s doors and refused to let her out. She ultimately jumped out of the moving vehicle when it slowed in traffic.
Uber said it removed the driver from its service.
Driver pondered opportunities to take advantage of a drunk female passenger
A San Jose passenger recorded an Uber driver’s remarks while driving:
My dream is to have some drunk chick by herself also going home at the end of my shift and she wants me to come in. That would be the perfect ending to my day. … Half the work is already done, man. She’s isolated and she’s drunk. … I will get really drunk too and then I can’t be held responsible.
Uber indicated that it banned the driver from further rides for Uber.
Women underrepresented on Uber’s technical staff
Fortune reports that Uber’s engineering team is just 15.1% women — calling that figure “bad–even by tech industry standards.” (Compare Facebook at 17%, Google at 19%, Apple at 23%, and Airbnb at 26%.)
Employee misconduct: drugs, theft, groping, threats of violence
In February 2017, the New York Times reported misconduct by Uber employees: A manager groped a female co-worker’s breasts at a company retreat, a director shouted a homophobic slur at a subordinate, a manager threatened to beat an underperforming employee with a baseball bat, employees used cocaine at private parties, and an employee hijacked a shuttle bus and took it for a joy ride.