Uber Settles Sexual Harassment Claims in $4.4M Deal with EEOC

Under an agreement with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), transportation firm Uber Technologies will establish a $4.4 million fund to compensate anyone who the EEOC determines experienced sexual harassment or related retaliation after Jan. 1, 2014.

The settlement resolves a 2017 EEOC charge of sex discrimination, ending an investigation in which the EEOC found reasonable cause to believe that Uber permitted a culture of sexual harassment and retaliation against individuals who complained about such harassment, in violation Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The two parties said the pre-litigation agreement was voluntarily entered into by Uber.

In addition to setting up the compensation fund, Uber has agreed to create a system for identifying employees who have been the subject of more than one harassment complaint and for identifying managers who fail to respond to concerns of sexual harassment in a timely manner.

The company has also promised to update its policies on workplace sexual harassment and retaliation and has agreed to be monitored for three years by an outside party, former EEOC Commissioner Fred Alvarez.

EEOC Commissioner Victoria Lipnic, co-chair of the EEOC’s Select Task Force on the Study of Harassment in the Workplace who also initiated the charge against Uber after widespread publicity in 2017 concerning the treatment of female employees at Uber, said 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.”

The announcement by EEOC said that a claims administrator will be sending notices to all female employees who worked at Uber at any time between Jan. 1, 2014 and June 30, 2019.

Topics Claims