A lawsuit for male drivers from a male-dominated industry? Experts say that there are two significant classifications of lawsuits against ridesharing apps. The first are personal injury claims resulting from accidents, and the second are employment and labor lawsuits primarily over driver classification.
Most of the drivers you chance upon on ridesharing apps like Lyft are male. Perhaps on a given day, even if you order like five rides, there are nearly no or actually zero chances that a female driver would appear.
However, apparently, a party of male drivers have filed lawsuits against ridesharing platforms like Lyft in the category of gender discrimination lawsuits. The cases were filed by a group of male drivers who claim that the recent driver preference policies have negatively impacted their jobs and opportunities of getting passengers and earning. But, what does the other gender feel, too, right?
Four male plaintiffs filed the lawsuits, asking for a whopping $4,000 in damages for each of the driver in order to make up for the perceived loss of opportunities and revenue due to the gender preference features.
The lawsuit is claiming that Lyft violated the state’s Unruh Act, a Civil Rights law that “prohibits sex discrimination by business enterprises.” The class-action lawsuit is also saying that hundreds of thousands of male drivers must be eligible to receive money.
The ridesharing feature they are decrying is that for female drivers. In particular, as also reported by the Ridesharing Forum team, Lyft has the Women+ Connect feature.
“We’re driving change one ride at a time. Now, women and non-binary drivers can turn on Women+ Connect to increase their chances of matching with more women and non-binary riders,” Lyft explained the feature.
Basically, passengers who want to increase their chances of getting linked to a female driver may turn on this feature on the app. Lyft says this creates opportunities, makes ridesharing better, and connects women.
Usman Ojibara, a male driver for Lyft since 2015, stated about this feature, “I’m all about opportunities for everyone.”
Uber, too, has the Uber Women’s Preferences, which was added to 26 more cities in the United States.
“Across the US, women riders and drivers have told us they want the option to be matched with other women on trips. We’ve heard them – and now we’re introducing new ways to give them even more control over how they ride and drive,” Uber told the Ridesharing Forum website. “For the first time in the US, we’re launching Women Preferences – features designed to give women riders and drivers more choice, more confidence, and more flexibility when they use Uber.”
These are what the male drivers in the lawsuit are complaining about.
You could remember that Lyft has been sued multiple times, including class action lawsuits, for failing to address safety concerns among women riders. Uber, for instance, has been accused of harassment, as Ridesharing Forum also previously reported.
Meanwhile, conservative organizations and alt-right figures are vocally denouncing the safety features in those ridesharing apps, too. In particular, The Heritage Foundation, which plays a role in the Trump administration this year, pointed out that Uber’s safety policies constituted a violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.