Uber CEO orders urgent investigation after former employee accuses company of harassment

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick said Sunday that he was ordering an investigation after a former employee accused the company of ignoring her repeated reports of sexual harassment and gender bias in a lengthy blog post.

Susan Fowler, a former site reliability engineer at Uber, joined the ride-hailing service in November 2015. She recounted in the blog post published Sunday that she was openly solicited for sex by her manager in a string of messages sent over company chat on her first day in his team.

"I immediately took screenshots of these chat messages and reported him to HR (Human Resources)," Fowler wrote.

Having reported the situation, Fowler said she was told by both HR and upper management that even though this was clearly sexual harassment and he was propositioning her, "it was this man's first offense, and that they wouldn't feel comfortable giving him anything other than a warning and a stern talking-to."

Fowler wrote that the upper management told her the person "was a high performer," and "they wouldn't feel comfortable punishing him for what was probably just an innocent mistake on his part."

Fowler explained that she was given two choices -- to either go and find another team and then never have to interact with this man again, or to stay on the team but would have to understand that her manager would most likely give her a poor performance review which the HR could do nothing about.

According to Fowler, after she switched to another team, she was told by other female employees that they shared similar stories about HR negligence, even citing unacceptable experiences with the same superior that solicited her.

In response to Fowler's allegation, Kalanick promised to investigate the claims.

"What's described here is abhorrent & against everything we believe in. Anyone who behaves this way or thinks this is OK will be fired," Kalanick retweeted Fowler's tweet which contains a link to her blog post.

In addition, Kalanick said he has instructed Uber's new Chief Human Resources Officer Liane Hornsey "to conduct an urgent investigation."

"There can be absolutely no place for this kind of behavior at Uber," Kalanick said.

The sexual harassment claim is the latest hit to the company amid a social media campaign to boycott Uber.

Last month, the New York City Taxi Workers Alliance called for a stop on all taxi service to John F. Kennedy International Airport in support of the protest against U.S. President Donald Trump's travel ban. But Uber announced on Twitter that it has turned off surge pricing at the airport during the protest, a move seen by many as the company's attempt to undermine the taxi drivers' protest.

The move, as well as Trump's announcement in December that Kalanick was joining his economic advisory council, has prompted many users to boycott Uber by deleting its app from their smartphones, making #DeleteUber a hot trending topic on social media.

source: Xinhua