How Uber's personal computer 'benefit' and $1000 payment to laid off workers exposed Silicon Valley's two-class divide

Uber has offered the nearly 7,000 employees it laid off in May a fair severance package by nearly all accounts.

But the company created a lot of confusion because it initially offered the first crop of mostly hourly workers cut on May 6 a less cushy package than it offered the second group of mostly white-collar workers cut on May 18.

Since Business Insider's inquiries on the discrepancies, Uber has gone back and made the first group's severance package the same as the second's, including a potentially valuable benefit to them concerning their work computer.

However, employees tell us that the work computer benefit has been a major source of confusion as some employees were allowed to keep theirs and others are not.

Uber says all laid off employees not allowed to keep their computer will get an extra $1,000 payment instead.

None of the hourly workers were allowed to keep the computer, and many did not learn about the $1,000 payment until after they signed their initial severance papers.

Some employees say the initial treatment of the hourly, customer support workers is a symptom of a bigger problem.

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As tech companies slash their headcounts to weather the coronavirus crisis, severance packages are in the spotlight. And a recent dust-up around Uber's severance has exposed a contrast that some say illustrates Silicon Valley's two-tier workforce.

When Uber laid off roughly 7,000 employees in May, it did so in two separate episodes, breaking the news to 3,700 primarily customer support staffers on May 6, and two weeks later cutting 3,000 mainly white-collar workers.

The key parts of the severance packages, particularly with regards to the number of weeks paid out, were nearly the same for both groups, and by all accounts fair and generous. But a discrepancy about one conspicuous detail — what happens to employees' personal computers — has caused confusion and added to the stress in a difficult situation.

As part of the severance package, some Uber employees were allowed to keep their work computers, others were not and were offered $1,000 cash payment instead. Uber's hourly workers however, were initially told to turn their computers in without any mention of payment at all.

In response to Business Insider's inquiries, Uber says that it has now gone back to the employees cut on May 6, including the crop of hourly workers, and promised to pay them $1,000 for the computers they turned in.

But confusion has reigned over this benefit for weeks, even for simple things, like Uber saying it would send employees a box so they could send their computers back. It said it wouldn't write the $1,000 check until after the computer and charger was returned, but as of last week, one month after the layoffs, some employees still hadn't received the return boxes.

A generous package bedeviled by an exasperating computer problem

The decision about the computers is a seemingly small detail in the context of a global pandemic and an economic recession that has wreaked havoc on businesses and employees, including the thousands of laid off Uber workers. But for some of the laid-off hourly workers, the ability to keep a computer is a much more meaningful benefit than it is to a salaried employee like a programmer or a marketing professional, many of whom are likely to already own PCs.

The situation has not been helped by the fact that employees are working at home due to the coronavirus.

After the layoffs, Uber remotely locked an undetermined number of computers, requiring a PIN to open, so those employees have not been able to use the computer at all during this time.

And some employees told Business Insider that instructions on erasing the data on the computers and the deadlines for returning the machines have seemed unnecessarily complex. In some cases, people were sent a final waiver that asked them to either return or wipe their computers by a date which had already passed.

Uber says the difference were due to different types of computers and roles among staffers, with some computers able to be wiped remotely, for instance, and some that were not, so that those computers needed to be physically returned for legal reasons. Uber also says the confusion is because it decided to improve the severance package for the May 6 group of laid off workers after the fact, in order to make it match the benefits offered to the May 18 group. So the company has been issuing revised severance documents.

As for other benefits, all workers received four weeks  of "garden leave" pay, four weeks severance, and two weeks for each year worked (with up to 8 weeks total available in this tenure severance pay), as well as health insurance paid until year's end.

Initially, hourly workers and others cut on May 6 who had been employed with Uber less than a year didn't get any tenure severance pay. But Uber has now gone back and granted one week of it to them, so that all employees, no matter their tenure, get at least 10 weeks pay, it says.

We also discovered another thoughtful benefit for the lowest paid, hourly workers known as Community Specialists. Those enrolled in Uber's tuition reimbursement for a bachelors degree at Arizona State University will continue to be granted free courses through the end of the summer. After that time, ASU will offer them a 40% reduction in tuition, one former Uber employee who left before the layoffs, told us.

Computers, bathroom breaks and second-class citizens

While that all sounds like as fair an ending as possible for the laid-off hourly support workers, that initial, lesser severance was a symptom of the second-class status of the lowest-paid workforce, many employees told us.

Uber has about 65 driver support offices known as "Greenlight Hubs" nationwide, as well as a handful of bigger call-center known as Centers of Excellence. People close to the employees who worked at these centers say that they are often run as fiefdoms by the local managers. Employees are subject to the whims of the regional boss.

We've heard stories of nursing mothers not allowed to take extra breaks to pump milk. We've heard talk of employees who feared retaliation if they reported issues to HR, among other stories. 

Uber tells us that it has clear policies on worker treatment including how to support new parents and that it encourages employees to report breaches in policy to its anonymous Integrity Helpline.

Yet, former Uber employees point out: managers who have been the subject of such reports remain working at the company while thousand of hourly folks have been laid off.

Are you an Uber insider with insight to share? Contact Julie Bort via email at jbort@businessinsider.com or on encrypted chat app Signal at (970) 430-6112 (no PR inquiries, please). Open DMs on Twitter @Julie188. 

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