Dive Brief:
- A new company, Chariot for Women, offers an Uber-like experience with a fundamental difference: its drivers are women only and its customers can only be women or children who are under 13. It's primarily about safety, but despite the good intentions, it could run afoul of employment discrimination and equal access laws, according to the Chicago Tribune.
- Chariot drivers must answer a security question daily for ID confirmation, plus passengers and drivers will share a "safe word," so no ride until the word is confirmed between the two parties. On a purely economic front, Chariot will not have so-called surge pricing and 2% of every fare will be donated to "woman-based" charities, the Tribune reports.
- Counsel for Chariot for Women argues that hiring based on gender in the interest of "servicing privacy interests" including safety has long been supported by courts.
Dive Insight:
"This company sounds great," Joseph L. Sulman, an employment law specialist, told the Boston Globe last month. "Whether it's legal or not is a different question."
"There's nothing wrong with advertising particularly to a female customer base," Dahlia C. Rudavsky, a partner in the Boston firm of Messing, Rudavsky and Weliky, which specializes in labor law, told the Boston Globe. "But if a company goes further and refuses to pick up a man, I think they'd potentially run into legal trouble."
Chase Liu, general counsel for Chariot for Women, told the Worchester Telegram and Gazette that courts have long held that hiring on the basis of sex is permissible where (gender) is a "bona fide occupational qualification in the context of serving privacy interests." She adds that beyond privacy, safety and security are also relevant.
"As such, we are confident that our hiring of women drivers constitutes a bona fide occupational qualification, where doing so is necessary to uphold the privacy, safety and security of our drives and riders," she told the newspaper.
So far, USA Today reports that more than 1,000 women have signed on to be Chariot drivers.
