Uber Technologies Inc has fired more than 20 employees following a company investigation into sexual harassment and other allegations, reported Bloomberg. The announcement was made at a company meeting on Tuesday. Those who were fired included senior executives of the company, reported The Guardian.
Uber had hired law firm Perkins Coie to look into complaints of harassment, discrimination, and bullying, after a former employee alleged sexual harassment and sexism at the company in a blogpost in February 2017. The woman, who had worked for Uber between November 2015 and December 2016, had further alleged that the company’s human resources department did not act on her accusations.
Apart from hiring Perkins Coie, the ride-hailing company had also appointed Eric Holder, former attorney general, to investigate the company’s broader culture. Uber said Perkins Coie had investigated 215 complaints – it took action in 58 cases, no action in 100 of them, and investigation is ongoing in the others, Reuters reported. Uber said of the 215 claims, as many as 47 complaints are related to sexual harassment and 54 were of discrimination. The rest of the complaints were related to unprofessional behaviour, bullying and others.
Uber has been embroiled in several controversies lately. While it faces a lawsuit from Google’s owner Alphabet over allegedly stealing trade secrets from them related to self-driving cars, a video showing its Chief Executive Officer Travis Kalanick involved in an argument with an Uber driver had faced sharp criticism. The company’s Senior Vice President of Engineering Amit Singhal had resigned in February 2017 for failing to inform the company about a sexual harassment allegation made against him while he worked at Google.
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