Late last month, 26 current and former employees of a Joliet Amazon warehouse accused the company of allowing a racially hostile work environment. They’ve since been joined by a dozen more workers, who’ve filed charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that outline racist death threats against Black employees – and some of those employees also say they’ve faced retaliation from Amazon since speaking out.
On May 25 – just days after the grocery store mass shooting in Buffalo that’s believed to have targeted Black residents – employees at Amazon’s MDW2 distribution warehouse in Joliet say they found graffiti threatening the lives of Black workers.
“We were told that we could go home with no pay … or we could stay there and keep working,” said former Amazon employee Tori Davis. “We were put in a predicament where we still were in fear every day.”
Workers say Amazon didn’t send a message to employees until nearly 24 hours after the threat was found. And Tori Davis says she was fired after talking with coworkers and demanding action from management.
“We’re not going away until they take this seriously,” said attorney Tamara Holder, who represents the workers in their complaint to the EEOC. She’s since taken on clients at an adjacent Amazon facility in Joliet, MDW4. The graffiti isn’t the only instance of discrimination alleged in the charges.
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