EEOC v. Morgan Stanley
In 2024, Outten & Golden secured a $3.35 million class action settlement for nearly 17,000 Uber Eats driver applicants, who allege they were unlawfully rejected because of their criminal records.
Uber Eats is one of the country’s leading food delivery services. It has an especially strong presence in New York City, where Uber and similar companies employ 70,000 delivery workers who make 2.72 million deliveries per week.
The lawsuit alleged that Uber violated the Fair Chance Act, which makes it illegal for most employers in New York City to consider an applicant’s criminal history before making a job offer.
New York City’s Fair Chance Act is a “ban the box” law. It places questions about an applicant’s criminal history later in the hiring process so they can be evaluated based on their qualifications first, without the stigma of a criminal record and an immediate rejection. It’s part of the city’s antidiscrimination law, known as the New York City Human Rights Law.
The Fair Chance Act also prohibits employers from rescinding a job offer unless certain factors are met, such as whether the offense has a relationship to the position, the applicant would present an unreasonable risk, or there’s evidence of rehabilitation.
According to the Uber lawsuit, the company did not properly weigh these factors before rejecting workers.
The plaintiffs also accused Uber of unlawfully failing to provide them with a copy of their individualized assessments before nixing their job offers. Employers are supposed to give applicants an opportunity to dispute or explain information that turns up in a background check.
In addition to payments to class members, Uber agreed to update its background check process to better support job applicants with criminal histories and ensure it follows the Fair Chance Act.
Framing the Issue
- Roughly one in three adults in the United States—about 80 million people—has a criminal record, according to the National Employment Law Project.
- People with criminal records form a surprisingly large part of the population seeking work—almost half the men in the labor pool. In total, more than 25 percent of workers in the active workforce have at least one prior conviction. (RAND)
- Black Americans are disproportionately incarcerated, comprising 37% of individuals behind bars even though they account for just 13% of the nationwide population, according to the Prison Policy Initiative.
- People who interact with the criminal justice system are more likely to be poor and Black, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
- One out of every three Black boys born today can expect to be sentenced to prison at some point in their life, compared to one in six Latino boys and one in 17 white boys, according to the NAACP and an analysis of Department of Justice data published in the Prison Journal.
- This general trend persists even after researchers control for background factors such as parental marriage rates, education, and wealth. For example, black men who grew up in the top 1% of household incomes are incarcerated at the same rate as white men who grew up in families making $36,000 per year.
