{"id":72773,"date":"2020-07-04T08:22:18","date_gmt":"2020-07-04T12:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sunlightradio.com\/?p=72773"},"modified":"2020-07-05T09:42:10","modified_gmt":"2020-07-05T13:42:10","slug":"black-worker-files-discrimination-complaint-against-facebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sunlightradio.com\/black-worker-files-discrimination-complaint-against-facebook\/","title":{"rendered":"Black Worker Files Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Facebook\"
FILE \u2013 In this March 29, 2018, file photo, the logo for social media giant Facebook, appears on screens at the Nasdaq MarketSite, in New York\u2019s Times Square. A Black Facebook employee, joined by two others who were denied jobs at the social network, has filed a complaint against the company, saying it discriminates against Black workers and applicants in hiring, evaluations, promotions and pay. Facebook did not immediately respond to a message for comment Thursday, July 2, 2020. (AP Photo\/Richard Drew, File)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) \u2014 A Black Facebook employee, joined by two others who were denied jobs at the social network, has filed a complaint against the company, saying it discriminates against Black workers and applicants in hiring, evaluations, promotions and pay.<\/p>\n

The charge was filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission by Oscar Veneszee, Jr., who has worked as an operations program manager at Facebook since 2017 and claims he has not been fairly evaluated or promoted despite his \u201cexcellent performance\u201d at the company. Two others joined Veneszee\u2019s complaint, saying they were unlawfully denied jobs at the company despite being qualified.<\/p>\n

Facebook said in a statement it takes discrimination allegations seriously and investigates every case.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe it is essential to provide all employees with a respectful and safe working environment,\u201d said spokeswoman Pamela Austin.<\/p>\n

Black workers account for 3.8% of all U.S. Facebook employees and 1.5% of all U.S. technical workers at the company. Those numbers have barely budged over the past several years, a common pattern across large Silicon Valley firms.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the first criticism a Black employee has leveled at Facebook. Mark Luckie, who left the company in 2018, sent a memo<\/a> to his coworkers on his last day \u2014 also posted on Facebook \u2014 that chronicled what he called Facebook\u2019s \u201cblack people problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFacebook\u2019s disenfranchisement of black people on the platform mirrors the marginalization of its black employees,\u201d Luckie wrote. \u201cIn my time at the company, I\u2019ve heard far too many stories from black employees of a colleague or manager calling them \u2018hostile\u2019 or \u2018aggressive\u2019 for simply sharing their thoughts in a manner not dissimilar from their non-Black team members.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Veneszee\u2019s complaint, filed on Thursday, \u201cpeople of color and Black workers in particular remain underrepresented at all levels of Facebook and especially at the management and leadership levels. They do not feel respected or heard. And they do not believe that Black workers have an equal opportunity to advance their careers at Facebook.\u201d<\/p>\n

While there may be Black Lives Matter posters on Facebook\u2019s walls, the complaint says, \u201cBlack workers don\u2019t see that phrase reflecting how they are treated in Facebook\u2019s own workplace.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FILE \u2013 In this March 29, 2018, file photo, the logo for social media giant Facebook, appears on screens at the Nasdaq MarketSite, in New York\u2019s Times Square. A Black Facebook employee, joined by two others who were denied jobs at the social network, has filed a complaint against the company, saying it discriminates against […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":72774,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[159],"tags":[2502,2504,2503],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sunlightradio.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72773"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sunlightradio.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sunlightradio.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sunlightradio.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sunlightradio.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72773"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sunlightradio.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75370,"href":"https:\/\/www.sunlightradio.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72773\/revisions\/75370"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sunlightradio.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sunlightradio.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sunlightradio.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sunlightradio.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}