Amazon charged of gender-racial prejudices in workspace
A manager at Amazon.com Inc filed a lawsuit in the US federal court on Monday accusing Amazon of keeping women and black employees down while publicly talking up for the need for diversity and social justice. Charlotte Newman, a business development head at Amazon Web Services who is a Black has filed a lawsuit. She said that the company suffers from a “systematic pattern of insurmountable discrimination” despite its pledge to fight racism and statements of solidarity from the Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos. There has been no immediate comment from the Seattle- based company, Amazon Inc.
Newman, a graduate from Harvard Business School and a former advisor to US Senator said, Amazon delayed her rise to senior manager by 2-1/2 year by hiring her in 2017 for a more junior role for which she was overqualified. She accuses a male supervisor of using racial tropes by calling her ‘aggressive’, ‘too direct’ and ‘just scary’ and another male co-worker of harassing her sexually and pulling on her braids and saying “You can leave this behind.” According to the lawsuit the co-worker was terminated. Newman is now seeking compensatory and punitive damages and is represented by Douglas Wigdor.
Last week a prominent news agency reported allegations of racial disparities in Amazon promotion and performance reviews. Amazon is also facing multiple lawsuits which claim it mistreats its workers and its handling of the coronavirus pandemic and its facilities.
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