Uber has agreed to a settlement amounting to $4.4 million with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) over sexual discrimination charges.
According to the EEOC, the money from the settlement of the sexual discrimination case will be used to set up a class fund to compensate anyone it determines experienced sexual harassment or retaliation after January 1, 2014 at Uber.
The EEOC started an investigation into a 2017 sexual discrimination charge and "found reasonable cause to believe that Uber permitted a culture of sexual harassment and retaliation against individuals who complained about such harassment."
The settlement also mandates Uber to strengthen its business culture against such harassment and retaliation, as well as create a system for identifying employees who have been the subject of more than one harassment complaint.
The company also needs to identify managers who fail to respond to harassment concerns. For three years, an outside party will be monitoring Uber. All female employees who worked at Uber at any point between January 1, 2014 and June 30, 2019 will receive a notice about the settlement.
In the EEOC release, Uber's Chief Legal Officer Tony West said: "We've worked hard to ensure that all employees can thrive at Uber by putting fairness and accountability at the heart of who we are and what we do. I am extremely pleased that we were able to work jointly with the EEOC in continuing to strengthen these efforts."
Uber has been the focus of criticism in the past months due to allegations of sexual harassment and its handling of such instances and its workplace culture.
In June 2018, founder and former chief executive officer (CEO) Travis Kalanick was forced to resign. This was more than a year after a former engineer at the company wrote in a blog post about experiencing sexism and harassment at Uber, prompting an internal investigation, led by former US Attorney General Eric Holder, into its work environment.
