Uber has launched an urgent investigation into claims of sexism and sexual harassment made by a former employee, with co-founder Travis Kalanick calling the allegations “abhorrent.”
A blog post written by former Uber engineer Susan Fowler went viral over the weekend, with it outlining widespread sexism in the company that reportedly stretched to its male-dominated management. According to Fowler she was propositioned for sex by her manager, and after raising the issue with HR she was told to either leave her current project or continue working with the same man but risk the negative performance review he would inevitably give her. She wrote: “I was told by both HR and upper management that even though this was clearly sexual harassment and he was propositioning me, it was this man’s first offense, and that they wouldn’t feel comfortable giving him anything other than a warning and a stern talking-to.”
However, Fowler notes that after discussing her manager’s behavior with her female co-workers, she was told that they had also previously reported him to HR and had received the same response. Fowler claims that she and other members of staff continued to escalate the sexism they encountered in Uber, but each time their complaints would be shot down by HR.
According to the blog post, Fowler’s attempts to climb up the food chain in Uber was prevented as a result of her manager wanting to keep her on his team, though only because having more women working under him made him look better. “I overheard him boasting to the rest of the team that even though the rest of the teams were losing their women engineers left and right, he still had some on his team,” she continued.
Uber CEO Travis Kalanick. (Image Credit: Steve Jennings / Getty Images)
“Delete Uber” Trends
Now Kalanick has responded to her claims, stating that Uber is launching an official investigation into the matter.”I have just read Susan Fowler’s blog. “It’s the first time this has come to my attention so I have instructed Liane Hornsey, our new Chief Human Resources Officer, to conduct an urgent investigation into these allegations,” he said. “We seek to make Uber a just workplace and there can be absolutely no place for this kind of behaviour at Uber.”
He continued: “What she describes is abhorrent and against everything Uber stands for and believes in. Anyone who behaves this way or thinks this is OK will be fired.”
The fallout from Fowler’s blog posts has seen #DeleteUber trending once again, with participants encouraging others to remove the Uber app from their smartphones in protest, and to use rival Lyft as an alternative. This is the second time Uber has come under fire this year, after the company was wrongly accused of attempting to capitalize on anti-Donald Trump protests taking place outside the JFK Airport by turning off Surge pricing. This was later found to be untrue, with Uber disabling its price hike system after the protest had taken place, but the strong backlash against the company still led Kalanick to step down from Trump’s advisory council.
