Black Employees File Complaint Against Facebook, Allege Racial Discrimination

A manager at Facebook has filed a class action employment discrimination charge against the social media company on Thursday on behalf of its Black employees.

The charge was filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission by Oscar Veneszee, Jr who alleged that Facebook systematically discriminated against Black employees, including in evaluations, promotions, and pay.

Oscar, who has worked as an operations program manager at Facebook since 2017 claimed that he was not fairly evaluated or promoted despite his "excellent performance" at the company. Two others also came forward saying they were unlawfully denied jobs at the company despite being qualified.

However, this isn't the first time a black employee has levelled allegations against Facebook. Mark Luckie, who left the company in 2018, sent a memo to his coworkers on his last day and also posted the same on Facebook, that chronicled what he called Facebook's "black people problem."

"In my time at the company, I've heard far too many stories from black employees of a colleague or manager calling them 'hostile' or 'aggressive' for simply sharing their thoughts in a manner not dissimilar from their non-Black team members," Luckie wrote.

According to Veneszee's complaint, filed on Thursday, "People of colour 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."

Facebook had earlier stated that it takes discrimination allegations seriously and investigates the cases to the best of their ability. However, black workers account for 3.8% of all US Facebook employees and 1.5% of all US technical workers at the company.

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