Three women engineers have sued Uber Technologies Inc for discriminating against them. They said they have lost out on earnings, promotions and benefits because of this, Reuters reported.
The lawsuit, filed by three Latina software engineers Ingrid Avendano, Roxana del Toro Lopez and Ana Medina, said the company pays women and people of colour less and does not promote them as frequently as men, whites and Asians. It is the latest blow to the ride-hailing company that has been under the scanner this year over allegations of a hostile work culture, particularly for women.
Women, Latino, American Indian and African American employees are given lower performance scores, the lawsuit said. As a result, they are confined to more menial tasks, it said. Avendano and Toro Lopez left Uber this summer, after more than two years with the company. Medina is still employed there, the Reuters report said. Uber was yet to respond to the lawsuit.
This year, several cases about the technology sector’s domination by white men have been filed, according to a Bloomberg report. Twitter and Microsoft have been accused of not letting women technical workers and engineers advance. In September, Google was hit with a class action suit that alleges it pays men more than women.
Uber controversies this year
An investigation into Uber’s administration began after a former employee alleged sexual harassment and sexism at the company in a blogpost in February 2017.
In June, Uber fired its Asia-Pacific business head Eric Alexander after it was found he made copies of and shared the medical records of a woman who had been raped while using the company’s taxi service in India in 2014. It faces a lawsuit from Google’s owner Alphabet over allegedly stealing trade secrets related to self-driving cars.
Former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick was criticised after a video showed him arguing with an Uber driver. The company’s Senior Vice President of Engineering Amit Singhal resigned in February 2017 for not informing them about a sexual harassment allegation against him while he was at Google.
In August, Uber appointed Dara Khosrowshahi as its new chief executive officer after his predecessor Kalanick was forced to step down following the numerous scandals involving the management.
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