Washington - Uber has fired 20 employees in recent months as
part of a wide-ranging investigation of the climate and culture at the popular
ride-hailing service, the company said Tuesday.
The report of the firings initially came from an attorney at
the Perkins Coie law firm, which Uber hired to assist in a broader harassment
investigation at the company and which made a presentation at the company's
weekly staff meeting Tuesday.
The company later said the firings, which included some
senior executives, were for sexual harassment, discrimination, unprofessional behaviour,
retaliation, bullying and physical safety issues. Most, but not all, of those
fired worked at Uber's San Francisco headquarters.
Uber has faced allegations of misconduct this year,
including a criminal investigation by the Justice Department for allegedly
using software to trick regulators and avoid government scrutiny. Taken
together, the probes have tarnished the image of one of Silicon Valley's most
aggressive and widely emulated companies and its chief executive, Travis
Kalanick.
"This is enormous. For corporate allegations of sexual
harassment and misconduct to lead to firing 20 people, I know of no comparable
corporate action. It's unprecedented," said Debra Katz, a partner with
Katz Marshall & Banks, a Washington-based firm specializing in representing
employees who bring sexual harassing claims against companies. "This is a
significant action by Uber to give a strong message to take these actions
seriously."
Katz said Uber's decision cast doubt on earlier comments by
board member Arianna Huffington, who is on a committee overseeing Uber's
workplace culture and who had said that Uber had "some bad apples"
but that the company's problems were not systemic. "This seems to suggest
that they cannot simply say it's only a few bad apples here."
Huffington told The Washington Post that she could not
comment until the process is completed next Tuesday by former US attorney
general Eric H. Holder Jr.
The firings, which were first reported by Bloomberg News, follow
an investigation led by Holder. Kalanick hired Holder after reports of
widespread sexual harassment within the company following a February blog post
by former employee Susan Fowler. Her accusations prompted a barrage of criticism over sexual
harassment and a discriminatory work environment.
In the post, Fowler, who had been a site-reliability
engineer, detailed a horrifying year in which her sexual harassment claims were
ignored by Uber's human resources department and upper management. The post
went viral and prompted other women to speak out about Uber's rule-breaking
"bro culture."
Read also: Uber CEO orders 'urgent investigation' on sexual harassment
One person who spoke out was an ex-girlfriend of Kalanick's,
who said she felt uncomfortable when executives, including Kalanick, went to an
escort bar during a business trip in South Korea in 2014.
Holder's investigation, which has produced a draft report on
Uber's workplace culture that has not been publicly released, found specific
cases of alleged sexual harassment and other professional misconduct.
Those cases were referred to Perkins Coie to further
investigate and resolve, leading to the firings outlined in Tuesday's staff
meeting. Bobbie Wilson, a Perkins Coie partner based in San Francisco, made the
presentation at the staff meeting Tuesday. She did not respond to requests for
comment from The Post.
So far, no names of fired employees or details of the
alleged harassment have publicly emerged. Overall, Perkins Coie reviewed 215
claims of alleged misconduct, leading to the 20 firings. No action was taken on
100 other cases, but 57 are still under investigation. In addition, 31
employees are receiving training, and seven have received written warnings.
The actions are Uber's latest effort to quell escalating
controversies that have shaken the eight-year-old company to its core, analysts
said. In addition to sexual harassment allegations, Uber is facing a variety of
issues, including a slew of executive departures, the federal criminal
investigation into whether it has been deceiving law enforcement and an
admission that it underpaid tens of thousands of drivers.
The company is also in the midst of a major trade-secrets
lawsuit filed by Google that could threaten Uber's self-driving car ambitions.
In addition, Kalanick last month suffered personal tragedy when his mother was
killed and his father seriously injured in a boating accident.