Many Rhode Island residents spend a large percentage of their waking hours at the office and should feel safe there. Unfortunately, though, sexual harassment occurs more often than it should, resulting in a hostile work environment. This issue has hit the ride-sharing company Uber, which has recently been in the news for multiple incidents that have caused many people across the country to boycott the app and use Lyft instead.
The latest story involves a former employee who wrote a blog post accusing the company of sexual harassment and workplace discrimination. The employee started working for Uber in November 2015 and claims that her manager made unwanted sexual advances toward her. According to her blog post, the manager was sending her messages to try to get her to have sex with him. The employee screenshot the messages and reported the issue to human resources. However, human resources allegedly refused to punish the manager due to his stellar work performance. Other managers at the company allegedly threatened her for coming forward about the abuse. These managers were also not punished due to their good work performance
The matter is ongoing. Uber has hired a law firm to look into its workplace practices. The employee also states that Uber is blaming her for their decline in user accounts and that they have hired a second law firm to investigate her. Uber has stated that the second firm will be investigating her claims, but not her personally.
While the employee has an attorney, no legal action has yet been brought against the company. However, it is clear that the employee in question suffered a great deal in the workplace and should be compensated for it. Those who find themselves in a similar situation should be sure to know their legal rights and how best to act on them, which could lead to the recovery of compensation for damages suffered.
Source: KFOR, “Ex-Uber engineer who blogged about alleged discrimination lawyers up,” Meg Wagner, March 2, 2017