Uber fires 20 employees amid sex-harassment probe
Ride-hailing firm says move wasn’t related to impending inquiry
Uber has fired 20 employees after more than 200 claims of sexual harassment, bullying and other workplace violations surfaced in the wake of a former engineer’s account of pervasive sexism at the ride-hailing company.
Uber confirmed the news in a statement Tuesday, adding the dismissals were not related to an impending internal investigation led by former U.S. attorney general Eric Holder, which is due out June 13.
The firings, first reported by Bloomberg, were announced at an all-hands meeting at the company’s headquarters Tuesday.
Bloomberg reported that law firm Perkins Coie reviewed 215 sexual-discrimination charges at the company and “took no action in 100 instances as it continues to investigate 57 others; meanwhile, 31 employees are in counseling or training, while seven received written warnings from the company.”
Perkins Coie did not respond to a request for confirmation of those details.
Uber’s corporate culture came under sharp scrutiny after a February blog post by former engineer Susan Fowler, who described sexual harassment and discrimination she and others experienced, with complaints to human resources going unheeded.
Specifically, her male boss made unwanted advances, and when she complained about him to human resources personnel, Fowler was told that her boss was highly valued, had probably made an innocent mistake and would not be disciplined. She was told her only options were to stay quiet or transfer to another division. She said she later found out other women had complained to HR about the same individual.
In response to the news about the firings, Fowler tweeted Tuesday that claims from top Uber of- ficials — namely board member Arianna Huffington and new human resources boss Liane Hornsey — that sexual harassment wasn’t a big issue at Uber were off base.
“Arianna and Liane to press: there is no systemic sexual harassment, just Susan. External lawyers: there are 215 cases of sexual harassment,” Fowler tweeted.
In an interview with USA TODAY last month, Hornsey said that after conducting 200 “listening tours” with some of the company’s 12,000 employees, she found that sexual harassment did not come up as a major issue. Instead, morale and pay were top concerns.
“Other things came up that are in that area, that our values are masculine and a little aggressive, but the harassment issue, I just didn’t find that at all,” Hornsey said.
Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has responded to the accusations that his company is a sexist sweatshop by holding a series of employee meetings in which he pledged to address the issues and even hire a second-in-command. The search for an Uber chief operating officer is still underway.
Kalanick has been out of the spotlight since his mother was killed and his father injured in a boating accident May 26.
Uber’s issues also extend to a lawsuit from Google’s self-driving car company, Waymo, which claims that some of Uber’s technology was stolen by Anthony Levandowski, who had worked at Google before starting self-driving truck company Otto, which Uber bought last summer for around $680 million. Uber fired Levandowski a week ago.
In recent days, Uber has made efforts to show that it hopes to be proactive about changing its culture. Those include the hiring Monday of Harvard expert Frances Frei, who will report to Hornsey.
Frei, who has been advising the company for a few months, is the author of Uncommon Service: How to Win by Putting Customers
at the Core of Your Business. She specializes in helping organizations transform themselves and is known for her work on trying to close the gender gap at Harvard Business School.
“Arianna and Liane to press: there is no systemic sexual harassment, just Susan. External lawyers: there are 215 cases of sexual harassment.” Tweet from Susan Fowler