Uber Eats: Code of Ethics - Ensuring Fair Business Practices

This report provides an analysis of Uber Eats' codes of ethics, focusing on key areas such as discrimination, exploitation, corruption, dishonest and fraudulent behavior, whistle-blower protection, and enforcement. It highlights instances where Uber Eats has faced allegations of discriminatory practices and exploitation of its riders, and proposes a code of ethics that promotes fairness, respect, and integrity within the organization. The report emphasizes the importance of anti-bribery and anti-corruption policies, as well as measures to prevent dishonest and fraudulent behavior. It also underscores the need for whistle-blower protection to encourage the reporting of unethical practices. The conclusion stresses that adherence to a code of ethics is crucial for maintaining the profitability, image, and ethical standards of Uber Eats.

Codes of Ethics

Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY ..................................................................................................................................1
Discrimination .............................................................................................................................1
Exploitation .................................................................................................................................2
Corruption ...................................................................................................................................3
Dishonest and fraudulent behaviour ...........................................................................................4
Whistle-blower protection ..........................................................................................................5
Enforcement.................................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Codes of ethics refers to the sets of activities and guidelines which an organisation as well
as its employees must conduct their practices under this guidelines to follow integrity, honesty as
well as professionalism. It outlines the principle of ethics and norms which govern behaviour and
decisions at a company (Briggle, 2022). Many company is adopted ethical codes to assists its
staff members in order to get understanding the difference among right as well as wrong practices
and how they apply in their decision making. If any member and company conduct unfair or
fraudulent practices then they have to suffer from huge loss like penalty, loss of money,
reputation and job. To define the concept of codes of ethics the selected organisation is Uber Eats
which is online food ordering or delivering company. It was established in 2014 by Travis
Kalanick and Garrett Camp to provide online food ordering and delivering services.
This report covers a drafts of a code of ethics of Uber Eats in specific areas of
discrimination, Exploitation, Corruption, dishonest and fraudulent behaviour, whistle-blower
protection and Enforcement.
MAIN BODY
Discrimination
Discrimination refers to the act of making unfair and prejudicial treatment of individuals
or group of people based on their characteristics such as gender, race, age or caste.
Discrimination at workplace takes place because of particular prejudices and happens when a
staff member is treated unfavourably due to their gender, disability, religion etc. It can be occur
in direct form also, as when organization pays someone less than other staff for no solid reason.
Generally, in organizations it happens in case of favouritism where employer keep discriminate
in their employees on basis of who is their more favourite. In terms of Uber Eats, a customer
alleges that the company violates certain rights act by charging discriminatory delivery fees
based on race of business owner (Choi, 2021). To address this type of discrimination, Uber Eats
had announced that the firm will waive off delivery fees for independent black owned restaurants
as form of incentive for buyers who order from those businesses. The code of ethics for Uber
Eats should comprise of:
 The firm should be committed to offer a affirmative workplace where every individual is
treated with respect and dignity.

 This involves treating customers and any person who is associated with company with
courtesy and respect.
 The firm should involve in fair trade practices and be honest with their stakeholders.
 To eliminate discrimination fully from workplace, the management should listen, learn
and answer appropriately to the perspectives and others concerns.
 Uber Eats strives to maintain an inclusive workplace and look after the health and well
being of their employees and customers.
 The firm should refrain its management from indulging in any kind of bullying and
unlawful discrimination.
 Uber Eats should inform team members about their unaccepted work practices in fair and
constructive way (Uber Eats faces discrimination allegations over free delivery from
Black-owned restaurants, 2020).
 Attributes such as gender, relationship status, pregnancy, parental status, gender
expression, race, colour, nationality, age, ethnicity should not become reasons for treating
an employee or customer less favourable.
Exploitation
Exploitation refers to the act of taking benefits of someone as well as group of people for
their selfish purpose or earn profit for them. In an organisation when company use their power to
exploit their staff member in order to save money and earn huge profit without sharing with
them. Uber Eats do this unfair practices with their employees in many ways like not paying
proper salary to them what they deserve, treating them unfairly, overworking them to exhaustion
as well as not giving them credit, appreciation and recognition for their better work. In Uber Eats,
the working condition is far below the standards expected in Australia. One of the employees
said the contract reeks of desperations to shore up a business model that relies on exploitation as
well as displayed Uber's wrapped to transfer all the risk to their underpaid riders. In order to
reduce exploitation of riders and staff members they change their business model in Australia in
order to stop the app coupling up riders and members with many restaurants for delivery as well
as payment. Now they will now contract with riders directly which means all restaurants will
have to pay Uber Eats instead of individual riders. That means company take advantage of extra
pay and more income of riders and pay only fixed amount to them which exploit their good work
or extra efforts. The codes of ethics for Uber Eats should comprise for-

 The organisation must conduct fair practices with their employees by giving them salary
as per their working and job role.
 They must create healthy workplace by overseeing the well-being and health of their team
members and riders.
 Professionals of Uber Eats must give respect, treat their staff member fairly by giving
them recognition, bonus, extra pay, incentives for their extra work and good work.
 Also they can assign duty to each and every employees on equal basis as per their job
role to reduce their workload, stress and mental pressure.
 As well as management must make sure than no one take advantage of others skills, good
nature and shyness (Francis, 2021).
Corruption
Corruption is refers to the form of criminal offense and dishonesty that is undertaken by
an organisation and person that is commit with a powerful position of authorization to gain
unlawful advantages as well as mistreatment power for personal benefit or gain. It includes many
activities such as influence peddling, bribery and embezzlement as well as many practices that
are legal in many nations. The various causes of corruption are the economic or political
environment, morality, professionals ethics as well as custom, habits, demography and tradition.
Many big organisation commits this unfair practices in order to earn huge profits from their
illegal goods and services (Goldman, 2018). In Uber Eats, many people conduct these practices
by taking work on other delivery app as well as commit fraud and leak the valuable data to other
app in order to earn money which harms image and reputation of Uber Eats. It refers to the act of
member to influence other people illegally and unfairly by giving them money benefits in order
to receive private information about company to use it foe their personal benefits. It can be
reduce and eliminated by tracking the records of company, by continuously monitoring the action
and behaviours of employees and members as well as by applying codes of ethics in organisation.
The codes of ethics for Uber Eats should comprise for-
 Professionals of Uber Eats must use anti bribery or anti corruption policy in their
organisation as well as must conduct fair practices to provide better services for the
betterment of society.
 They must guide and make proper agreement with their employees in order to comply
with all applicable policies, laws and regulations.

 If any employees and member do not follow codes of conduct and policies then they
must take strict action and terminate the guilty person immediately.
Dishonest and fraudulent behaviour
It refers to the unfair practice and or an act of the person with the intention of gaining an
unauthorised advantage. It includes various activities like lying to managers, employee theft,
submitting incorrect time sheets, lying to other members about their work as well as many
unethical conducts like drugs abuse or harassment. In Uber Eats staff members and people who
more authority conduct fraudulent practices by manipulating the important documents in
computer files to gain extra profit. They leave the company in before time and show full working
hours in order to gain full salary (Holden, 2018). Leak important documents of company to other
firms in return of extra money and other benefits. Misuse and misappropriations of company
property like bikes, funds and other assets for their self purpose. Also financial manager conduct
unethical practices in financial report for using company money for their personal work and
advantages. All these practices fall down the company profitability, productivity, growth and
many more which impacted the image or brand name of the company. To reduce and eliminate
these practices and behaviours they must renew their business policy in order to maintain
discipline and control over dishonest and fraudulent actions. The codes of ethics for Uber Eats
should comprise for-
 Uder eats must make proper internal policies as well as guidelines that implement codes
of ethics for all employees and member to make sure serving best services to customer,
helping their people to grow and prevent them for fraudulent behaviours.
 Each of the staff members has responsibility to follow the business policy of Uber Eats
otherwise, they have all rights to take action and ask question to them about their
dishonest and illegal practices (Liu and Flynn, 2021).
Whistle-blower protection
It refers to the protection activities and law to protect those person who raise their voice
against unethical practices like fraud, harassment, robbery, corruption, discrimination and many
more. The government make law for protection which act to provide proper protection to all
people who reporting to the police, company and other persons about all these unethical
condition. In Uber Eats, some people raise their voice about exploitation, harmful work condition

and unlawful practices and many more in media. In order tom protect them form criminals and
culprit as well as company exploitation. They use code of conduct by providing safety, secure
environment as well as other benefits for their well being. They also save their identity from
other members, should not leak information publicly as well as can not terminate them from job
in order to promote humanity and ethical practices (Mion and Bonfanti, 2019).
.
Enforcement
Enforcement refers to the proper execution of business process by assuring compliance
with law, regulations, social norms and standards for ethical working. It is refers to a process to
enforce a rule and implement new policy to prevent company and its valuable employees form
unethical practices. In Uber Eats, the company make new business policy such as they will now
stop the app pairing up riders with many hotels and restaurants for payments and delivery. As
now they hire all riders so all restaurants will pay and contact directly to company rather than
personal riders which exploits them. They makes new polices to retain their employees to work
extra for other company and leak their valuable information to others to their personal benefits.
The company must execute that laws and policies which are beneficial for both employees and
company it self rather than implement that type of policy which exploit ethical employees also.
They must use anti corruption and anti bribery policies to detect and punish only those
employees who conduct illegal and unethical behaviour (Zamoon, 2021).
CONCLUSION
As per above presented information, it has been concluded that code of ethics provides
proper guidelines to a business and its entire workforce to conduct fair and honest practices. It is
a professional documents which clearly states how an organisation's workforce should behave or
work in workplace on daily basis. Many company do unethical and illegal practices such as
discrimination, exploitation, corruption, dishonest and fraudulent behaviour in order to gain
monetary and non monetary benefits. All these practices leads to be harm the profitability and
image of the company lifetime. They must enforce all rule and regulation in business strictly by
using code of ethics in order to make sure that their employees and activities are working with
honesty, fairly and ethically.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Briggle, A., 2022. On Leaving and Receiving Traces: Thoughts on an Un-professional Code of
Ethics. In Codes of Ethics and Ethical Guidelines (pp. 229-242).
Choi, B.H., 2021. Software professionals, malpractice law, and codes of ethics. Communications
of the ACM. 64(5). pp.22-24.
Francis, M., 2021. The treatment of privacy in professional codes of ethics: An international
survey. The Library Quarterly. 91(3). pp.304-321.
Goldman, A., 2018. Moral epistemology and professional codes of ethics. The Routledge
Handbook of Moral Epistemology. pp.482-492.
Holden, A., 2018. What do dental codes of ethics and conduct suggest about attitudes to raising
concerns and self-regulation?. British Dental Journal. 224(4). pp.261-267.
Liu, K. and Flynn, C.A., 2021. How the environment is conceptualised and represented globally
in social work codes of ethics. International Social Work, p.00208728211020071.
Mion, G. and Bonfanti, A., 2019. Drawing up codes of ethics of higher education institutions:
evidence from Italian universities. International Journal of Educational Management.
Zamoon, S., 2021. The Need for Updated and Electronically Published Codes of Ethics: Lessons
from Kuwait. Public Integrity. pp.1-15.
Online:
Uber Eats faces discrimination allegations over free delivery from Black-owned restaurants,
2020. [Online] Available through: <https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/30/uber-eats-faces-
discrimination-allegations-over-free-delivery-from-black-owned-restaurants/>