A former engineer at Uber Technologies in San Francisco in the United States on Monday sued the company, alleging she was subjected to sexual harassment during her time with them, Reuters reported. The woman, who worked at Uber between 2014 and 2017, said the company failed to act on her complaints and denied her promotions in retaliation for reporting the misconduct.
The suit comes a week after Uber announced a new policy allowing people claiming sexual assault or harassment to approach the court rather than dealing with the matter in arbitration.
In her complaint, the woman said she experienced “male-dominated work culture, permeated with degrading, marginalising, discriminatory, and sexually harassing conduct toward women”, Reuters reported. She claimed that the male colleagues would openly discuss who they wanted to have sex with and share explicit content in instant messaging.
Each time the complainant raised concerns against the misconduct, “she was met with Uber’s entrenched disregard for the rights of its women employees and a refusal to take effective steps to prevent harassment”, the lawsuit read, according to CNet. “Worse, she suffered blatant retaliation, including denial of promotions and raises, unwarranted negative performance reviews, and placement on an oppressively demanding on-call schedule that had detrimental effects on her health.”
Earlier on Monday, the Supreme Court in the United States passed an order allowing companies to compel their employees to sign arbitration agreements, waiving their right to bring class-action claims on various disputes, including wages and hours.
In February 2017, another former Uber employee, in a blog post, had raised sexual harassment claims against the company. 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.
Following her revelations, Uber fired more than 20 employees for sexual harassment and misconduct after investigation.
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