Ex-Uber employee describes rampant sexism, harassment at company

One former Uber employee from the United States has written a postdescribing her "very, very strange year"working with the company, and how sexism forced her to leave.

Susan J Fowler describes receiving unwanted sexual advances from her manager. She documented it, thensubmitted a complaintto HR, but HRdid nothing to stop it.

Far from. They gave her an ultimatum: Either changeteams, or not be shocked to receivea bad review from themanager who asked herto havesex with him. Upper management told her the man in question was a "high performer" and they didn't feel comfortable giving more than a stern warning because it was supposedly his "first offence".

Add WION as a Preferred Source

Fowler saysthe situation gotmore "comically absurd" eachday, and she describes how sexism impacted her work appraisal.Fowler claims that when she joined, Uber employees were 25 per cent female, a figure whichdropped to sixper cent a year later.

In response, on Sunday evening Uber CEO Travis Kalanick said in a statement that he instructed the company's new chief human resources officer to conduct an "urgent investigation" into the allegations.

Uber has been accused of sexism before, after Kalanick made a joke about women-on-demand ("Yeah, we call that Boob-er") in a widely-circulated GQ profile from 2014.

Almost a year ago, the company downplayed the significance of leaked internal data published by Buzzfeedclaimingthat thousands of customers have used the word "rape" and "sexual assault" in a formal complaint, with Uber responding at the timethat it received only"five" complaints alleging rape andbetween December 2012 and August 2015 received170 complains with a "legitimate claim of sexual assault".

Uber claimed: "Riders routinely misspell 'rate' (as in the fare) as 'rape', or use the word 'rape' in another context. For example, 'you raped my wallet'."

(WION)