Source: John Greim / Getty
TBS and CNN have been slammed with a lawsuit from a former employee, who saw a major lack of diversity at the executive level.
One woman has accused the Atlanta networks of professionally holding Black employees back.
Wanda Byrd is suing both networks and their parent company for racial discrimination, TMZ.com reports. According to her lawsuit, Wanda was passed over for a senior-level promotion after 13 years as a mid-level quality assurance manager for TBS.
Byrd said that the position went to a less-qualified, less-skilled White man; supposedly, this is fairly standard practice at the Atlanta networks.
Court documents state that Black employees have to work three times harder to move up the corporate ladder at TBS and CNN. However, Black workers allegedly still have a lower promotion rate than their White colleagues. Further to her point, the suit states that no people of color have ever risen to a Senior VP position or higher at the networks.
Byrd claims that discrimination does not end there as Black workers are generally relegated to “less powerful and non-revenue generating” divisions within the networks. She has also accused TBS and CNN of perpetuating wage inequality by paying their Black employees significantly less than their White counterparts.
Although Byrd has never worked for CNN, she is targeting them in her lawsuit which is aimed at all Turner Broadcasting channels. It’s possible that she may expand her grievance into a class action lawsuit.
Neither TBS nor CNN have commented on the legal action at this time.
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