UPDATED 23:50 EDT / OCTOBER 26 2017

APPS

Three female engineers are suing Uber for gender and race discrimination

Uber Technologies Inc. is being sued by three Latina engineers who claim the company discriminated against them based on their gender and race.

A lawsuit was filed on Tuesday at the Superior Court in San Francisco by engineers Ingrid Avendano, Roxana del Toro Lopez and Ana Medina. Medina is still working at the company and the two other plaintiffs left over the summer, according to a report in Reuters.

The three women claimed in the lawsuit that they all missed out on wage increases as well as promotions and benefits because they are women of color and female. “In this system, female employees and employees of color are systematically undervalued compared to their male and white or Asian American peers,” the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit further detailed a “stack ranking” system at Uber that allegedly favors male employees, as well as white and Asian employees. It says that performance scores for women, African Americans, Latino and Americans Indians are lower, making it difficult to succeed in the company. This, says the lawsuit, negatively affects wages, benefits and stock options.

The lawyer representing the three women, Jahan Sagafi of Outten & Golden, said, “These three engineers are seeking to ensure that Uber pays women and people of color equally for the hard work they’ve done, and will continue to do, to help make Uber successful.”

In July, Uber adjusted salaries in an attempt to ensure pay equality, and to level the playing field for women and people of color and white male employees. This came after a troubled period for Uber in which the company faced internal and external investigations for sexism, sexual harassment and issues relating to mismanagement.

The investigations led to the firing of multiple staff members and executives who reportedly played a part in Uber’s “toxic” work environment. The catalyst of the controversy was a blog post written by former Uber employee Susan Fowler. Fowler had also worked on the same reliability engineering team as the plaintiffs. Her experience at Uber is now being made into a movie, according to recent reports.

Image: Automobile Italia via Flickr

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