Five women sue Amazon for race and gender discrimination

‘We are conducting thorough investigations for each of these unrelated cases, as we do with any reported incidents, and we have found no evidence to support the allegations’

Managers apparently retaliated when complaints were raised (AFP via Getty Images)

Five women, current and former Amazon employees, separately sued the e-commerce giant on Wednesday, alleging race and gender discrimination, and accusing their managers of retaliation after they raised complaints.

One suit, filed by Diana Cuervo, former manager in delivery operations at an Amazon facility in Everett, Washington, alleges that her manager used racial epithets, once saying, “Latins suck.” Ms Cuervo claims the company fired her after she complained about discrimination and harassment.

In another suit, Emily Sousa, who works as a shift manager at an Amazon facility in Harleysville, Pennsylvania, alleged a manager compared her to an adult-film star, and accused her supervisor of asking her to spend time with him outside work. Ms Sousa claims she was demoted after rebuffing his advances.

Two of the fives suits were filed in a Seattle federal court, and the others were filed in Arizona, California and Delaware. The suits were all filed by Widgor LLP, the same New York law firm that represented Charlotte Newman, a senior manager at Amazon who sued the company in March over race and gender discrimination claims.

In a statement, Amazon spokeswoman Jaci Anderson disputed the claims in all five of the new lawsuits.

“We are conducting thorough investigations for each of these unrelated cases, as we do with any reported incidents, and we have found no evidence to support the allegations,” Ms Anderson said via email.

The company doesn’t tolerate discrimination or harassment, and encourages employees to raise concerns to managers or anonymously without fear of retaliation, Ms Anderson said. (Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

In one of the suits, which were first reported by the technology news website Recode, Pearl Thomas, a black human resources employee in Washington state, alleges she was placed in performance improvement process program, a disciplinary action she claimed was taken for accusing her manager of using the n-word after he thought he had disconnected from a video call with her.

Another black human resources employee, Tiffany Gordwin, claimed she was unfairly bypassed for several promotions at Amazon’s Avondale, Arizona, facility. She alleged supervisors, who gave those jobs to white male peers, retaliated against her for complaining about racial bias by a white supervisor.

And Cindy Warner, a gay executive in the company’s Amazon Web Services cloud-computing business, accused a manager of making homophobic comments, and alleged she was fired in retaliation, in part, for her decision to hire a lawyer to pursue legal claims.

The Washington Post