Uber will pay $4.4 million in settlements to employees who were victims of sexual harassment and retaliation after an investigation by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
According to an EECO press release, the company will establish a class fund to compensate “anyone who the EEOC determines experienced sexual harassment and/or related retaliation after January 1, 2014.” The company will also create a system to identify victims of harassment and retaliation, identify managers who failed to respond to incidents in a timely manner, and update its policies with the help of an unidentified third party consultant.
The EECO started its investigation in 2017 after the commissioner charged the company with sex discrimination. The investigation concluded that Uber permitted a culture of sexual harassment and retaliation and violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
“This agreement holds Uber accountable, and, going forward, positions the company to innovate and transform the tech industry by modeling effective measures against sexual harassment and retaliation,” Victoria Lipnic, a EEOC commissioner and co-chair of the EEOC’s Select Task Force on the Study of Harassment in the Workplace, wrote in the press release.
Uber came under fire in 2017 after an essay published by former Uber engineer Susan Fowler exposed the companies failures to responsibly deal with sexual harassment in the workplace. The essay eventually led to the resignation of Uber’s former CEO and co-founder, Travis Kalanick, as well as 20 other employees.
“We’ve worked hard to ensure that all employees can thrive at Uber by putting fairness and accountability at the heart of who we are and what we do,” Tony West, Uber’s Chief Legal Officer, wrote in the press release. “I am extremely pleased that we were able to work jointly with the EEOC in continuing to strengthen these efforts.”
In addition to the settlement payout, Uber also recently released a study revealing it received reports of just over 3,000 sexual assaults during rides in the last year. The safety report also answered questions about user safety and tried to present context for the numbers provided.
Uber did not respond to the Daily Dot’s request for comment.
READ MORE:
- Ex-Uber employee details rampant sexual harassment, backstabbing
- Thousands of Uber users have reported sexual assaults, company says
- Travis Kalanick resigns as Uber CEO
H/T Jezebel