SAN FRANCISCO—Travis Kalanick, the CEO of Uber launched a time sensitive investigation on Sunday, February 19 after an employee complained about being sexually harassed by higher level executive with the company. Susan Fowler disclosed that she encountered sexual harassment from her direct supervisor while she worked at the company.
When the sexual harassment incidents first arose, Fowler repeatedly reported the incidents to the Human Resource Department. In her blog post published last weekend, Fowler accounts several of the incidents in detail.
“It was clear that he was trying to get me to have sex with him. He was clearly out of line that I immediately took screenshots of these chat messages and reported him to HR,” Fowler wrote. She also wrote in her blog how HR handled the situation indicating the company sided with the manager and threatened to fire her for complaining.
A couple of hours after Fowler’s story was televised on ABC 7 Bay Area New, CEO, Travis Kalanick indicated “it was the first time the issue had come to his attention.”
Early this week as a result of the media coverage from Susan Fowler’s blog, the company hired former US Attorney Eric Holder and Tammy Albarran, partners from the the law firm Covington & Burling to handle the allegations against the company.
San Francisco News is reached out to the Human Resources Department at Uber and is waiting to hear back for a comment.
