Daryle Washington is a father, a native San Franciscan and a hard working family man. He is also a victim of a racist employer who has jeopardized his ability to provide for his five children. According to Mr Washington, he is not the only one mistreated by this employer, Recology Corporation of San Francisco. There has been a pattern of poor training leading to the physical stress of long hours and injuries for garbage truck drivers, and the emotional distress of racial jokes and remarks (low-lifes and monkeys) as well as nooses placed in full view of Black employees. Mr Washington is speaking out on these injustices not only for himself but for the other employees subjected to this abuse. The racism evident in the company misbehavior appears to be at worst intentional, at best tolerated by management and the employees are expected to put up with it in order to keep their jobs. Here in his own words is Daryle describing his experience while being interviewed by Poor Magazine's 'street newsroom'.
Clearly Daryle is able to detail a pattern of harassment of employees of color, in particular Black employees, from improper training and racist jokes to nooses in the workplace and lack of time to recover from on the job injuries. Having lost family members to Klan activity in the South, he is both personally and historically aware of the extent to which some people will go to punish Black people who stand up to the system. Here are some closing words from Daryle:
As of today I have stopped action by DFEH & have obtained a right to sue letter & I'm moving forward with that. As of June 17th I have not received any money from Recology or their insurance company Corvel Corporation since April 17th. It is only by the grace of God that my landlord has not kicked me out on the streets & without loving family & friends I would have had many hungry nights. I am the father of 5 children & all I want to do is provide for them. I want justice, not only for myself but justice for the rest of the Black employees at Recology that have to work under the pressure of wrong & injustice & having to live in fear of losing their job if one speaks up. I want the City of San Francisco to investigate what's going on, since Recology is contracted to pick up San Francisco's garbage. I want a call to action to interrupt services until they make changes & correctly deal with the racial issues going on. How the company in the past & present treats some so-called minorities is not right & they need to be held accountable for it. Open up the books and let's see how many have not been given fair & equal treatment.