Uber face another sexual harassment lawsuit from a former engineer

Just days after Uber changed its policy allowing employees to take it to court a former engineer of the ride-hailing app is suing on the grounds of sexual harassment. Former female engineer, Ingrid Avendano, claims to of experienced pay inequity and racial discrimination along with sexual harassment. The lawsuit was filed on Monday in the California Superior Court by Ms Avendano who worked for the tech giants for just over three years. In the lawsuit, Ms Avendano claims to of suffered emotional and physical stress caused by her experiences while working for Uber. The stress became so bad that it left her hospitalised and eventually caused her to resign. Avendano claims that she repeatedly reported the sexual harassment and discriminatory working environment to those "higher up" but saw little disciplinary action taken. Ms Avendano's claims echo those of Susan Fowler, the former Uber engineer that was the first to openly expose the male dominated "frat boy" culture within the firm, which in turn was the catalyst to-then-CEO Travis Kalanick being forced out. The new policy which came into play last week saw a change in how Uber deals with such claims. Victims or alleged victims will no longer require confidentiality clauses in settlements or be forced into resolving any disputes through arbitration. As reported in Recode , this is not the first lawsuit against uber that Mas Avendano has been involved with. She was formerly the lead plaintiff on a class action suit alleging discriminatory practices at Uber. That lawsuit was eventually settled.