EEOC v. Morgan Stanley
Resolved Case
Del Toro Lopez v. Uber
In 2018, Outten & Golden secured a $10 million settlement for women and engineers of color who worked for Uber and were allegedly underpaid.
Uber is practically synonymous with app-based transportation, serving passengers as well as delivering food and groceries. In 2024, it had 13,100 employees in the United States and 31,000 globally.
The lawsuit, which was filed in California federal court, alleged Uber used a “stack ranking” system that forced managers to rank employees from worst to best, regardless of actual performance differences. This system disproportionately harmed women and engineers of color, who received lower rankings on average despite similar or better performance, their complaint said. It also prevented employees from getting promotions, which were tied to the same flawed performance review system.
Uber had a workplace culture that was not only unequal but openly hostile, the engineers alleged. According to the complaint, women and engineers of color faced demeaning treatment and exclusion, often with the knowledge or encouragement of senior leadership. The lawsuit claimed that Uber failed to protect its employees, allowing bias and harassment to persist across teams and departments.
The settlement O&G negotiated included more than financial terms. It also included long-term systemic changes in an effort to keep these problems from happening again. Uber agreed to revise how it sets pay, evaluates performance, and makes promotion decisions.
The company also committed to strengthening its systems for fair pay, diversity, training, and workplace investigations. It promised to provide better professional support, so employees would have the tools they needed to grow. To ensure accountability, Uber agreed to external monitoring.
Framing the Issue
- The gender pay gap has narrowed in recent decades, but progress is moving at a glacial pace. In 2024, women earned 85 cents for every dollar men earned, according to the Pew Research Center. In 2003, women earned 81 cents on the dollar compared to men.
- The gender wage gap is even wider for most women of color. In 2024, Black women earned just 66 cents on the dollar compared to white men, according to Equal Pay Today. For Latina workers, that number was 58 cents.
- Many factors contribute to the gender wage gap, such as occupational segregation, lack of pay transparency, pressure to take on caregiving responsibilities, and historical differences in higher education rates. Gender discrimination also plays a role, as both overt and subconscious biases can lead to pay and promotion decisions that favor men.
- For Black workers, the racial pay gap begins as young as 16. That disparity has lifelong consequences as it sets individuals on an earnings track that lasts for decades.
