An entire crew of Latino construction workers staged a walkout at their job to protest their racist boss after he fired several of their co-workers for no apparent reason.
A video of the walkout was shared Wednesday on YouTube by Antoine Dangerfield, who worked at the Indianapolis construction site building a UPS hub.
In the video, several Latino workers are seen putting their equipment up and walking out of the building. According to Dangerfield, their boss became irate during a meeting and sent a couple Latino workers home, so they all decided to leave early.
‘Who y’all think y’all playing with,’ Dangerfield says, cursing and laughing throughout the video. ‘Mexico … man, this what black people need to be on. … They are packing they s*** up and shutting this muthaf***** down.’
An entire crew of Latino construction workers staged a walkout to protest their boss after he unfairly fired their co-workers
The workers left because they their safety coordinator boss got mad during a meeting and reportedly started firing some of the Latino workers
Antoine Dangerfield posted the video to social media, and it quickly got millions of views. He ended the video by showing the empty construction site
‘They thought they was gonna play with these amigos, and they said, “Yeah, we rise together, homie”. And they leaving!” he added.
The video later shows the warehouse completely empty.
Dangerfield told Jacobin magazine that their safety coordinator boss is racist and ‘was always messing with anybody’s who’s not white’. He said the Latino workers tried to stay out of their boss’ way.
‘They warned each other when he came because they know he was always messing with them, taking pictures and videos, trying to get them fired,’ Dangerfield said. ‘We have safety meetings, and we usually have a translator (for Spanish speakers) because there are so many.’
He said on Tuesday, they had a safety meeting but no translator was available so their boss asked one of the Latino workers to do it. When the worker refused, their boss became irate, Dangerfield said.
‘(The coordinator) got mad, real red-faced. Next thing you know, he dismissed the meeting. So, he’s walking around just sending them home, trying to fire them. So he sent like five or six of them home. So the Hispanics got together and were like, “Nah, we got families and kids. We’re not about to let these dudes just do whatever”. So they took a stand,’ he said.
Dangerfield, who said they were building a UPS superhub, said he was fired from the job as a result of the video
Dangerfield said he filmed the walkout because he thought it was ‘powerful’.
‘It just felt good. They were walking out with their heads up, strong. It touched me. That’s why I was like, wow, this is beautiful. It was beautiful that they came together like that — stood up for themselves and not let that dude walk all over them,’ he said.
The safety coordinator was fired after the video went viral.
The Indiana father said he lost his job too for posting the video and refusing to take it down.
‘They’re real made about it. But there’s nothing I could do about it. I didn’t expect it to be this big,’ he said.
Since posting the video last Wednesday, it has been viewed more than eleven million times and attracted the attention of celebrities like Snoop Dogg and J Cole.
‘I was shocked. I come in here every day. The last video I posted got two likes! I wasn’t trying to harm anybody,’ he told Jacobin, saying he doesn’t regret posting it.
Friends of Dangerfield created a GoFundMe to raise money for him and his son as he searches for a new job. So far, they have raised more than $35,000.