3 women of color sue Uber over gender and race-based wage discrimination

Uber discriminated based on race and gender in compensation and promotions, three women of color have alleged in a lawsuit filed in California.

Three Uber engineers—two former and one still employed at the ride-hailing giant—filed a lawsuit Tuesday after bringing complaints to the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency this summer. Women and people of color at Uber are paid lower salaries, awarded smaller bonuses, given less equity, and promoted more slowly than their white, male, and Asian American counterparts, the lawsuit alleges. (The suit defines "of color" as referring to black, Latino and Native American employees and the engineers who filed the suit are identified as Latina).

"As a result of Uber’s policies, patterns, and practices, female engineers and engineers of color receive less compensation and are promoted less frequently than their male and/or white or Asian American counterparts," the lawsuit says.

Uber is facing this lawsuit eight months after the company was force to publicly reckon with a dismal company culture that included accusations of sexual harassment and sexism. Since Susan Fowler published her account of harassment and discrimination throughout her time at Uber, Uber has brought on a new CEO and pledged to improve its culture. Uber declined to comment on the lawsuit.

Ingrid Avendano, Roxana del Toro Lopez, and Ana Medina filed the suit on behalf of all aggrieved Uber employees who would have been affected by this discrimination. The engineers worked at Uber between 2014 and 2017, and Medina is still employed at the company.

At the core of Uber's wage discrimination is its stack ranking system. The review process requires managers to rank their employees, which can lead to qualitative judgments that discriminate against women and people of color. The engineers say they were assigned tasks at Uber that were less meaningful, challenging, and important that the ones given to their white and male peers, and that Uber failed to give them concrete professional goals or guideposts.

At the same time, Uber sets compensation for its new hires based on their past earnings—a well-documented way to perpetuate the wage gap.

The plaintiffs are asking for wages due in an amount to be set at trial and for damages, along with changes to equal employment opportunities and performance evaluations at Uber.

Where there's sexual harassment, there's probably pay discrimination.