The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is reportedly investigating Uber for gender inequality after complaints about the matter, people familiar with the investigation told the Wall Street Journal.The probe has been active since August 2017, but has only recently been reported. It’s one of several open federal investigations into Uber.Investigators with the EEOC have been looking into the ride-sharing behemoth’s hiring procedures, gathering information on potential gender-based pay gaps and other gender-related issues, the Journal reported. The commission is also interviewing current and former Uber employees as part of the probe.Uber has carried a stigma of a chauvinistic work environment since early 2017 when a former software engineer at the startup, Susan Fowler, wrote a blog post detailing her experiences with harassment at the ride-sharing company.After Fowler’s post went viral, Uber brought in former US Attorney General Eric Holder to internally investigate the company’s work culture. Holder’s probe led to 20 firings.The company also hired a new CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, in September 2017, who says he has been focused on hiring more minorities and women in addition to changing the company’s work environment.Sign up for our daily newsletterEmail addressSign upI would like to subscribe to The Points Guy newsletters and special email promotions. The Points Guy will not share or sell your email. See privacy policy.“We are continually improving as a company and have proactively made a lot of changes in the last 18 months, including implementing a new salary and equity structure based on the market, overhauling our performance review process, publishing Diversity & Inclusion reports, and rolling out diversity and leadership trainings to thousands of employees globally," an Uber spokesperson told TPG in an email.More recently, a lawsuit was brought against Uber in May by Ingrid Avendaño, another woman who was a software engineer for the company. She is suing Uber because during her time at the company she “experienced a male-dominated work culture, permeated with degrading, marginalizing, discriminatory, and sexually harassing conduct towards women.”*This post has been updated to include Uber’s statement to TPG.
