Taco Bell is under fire for its recent treatment of an employee. In a video going viral online, an employee named Denzel Skinner is getting fired for wearing a Black Lives Matter face mask. According to TMZ, Skinner has been an employee for eight years and was a shift leader.
As the outlet explains, “He was told by a supervisor he couldn’t wear the face cover but he was adamant Taco Bell’s policy says nothing about face covers with messages on them. The one stipulation — face coverings had to be clean. Skinner explained in a Facebook Live video that he wore the face cover because the surgical masks provided by the joint to employees proved inadequate in warm conditions.”
In a statement, Taco Bell insists that employees are allowed to use their own mask or face covering. They wrote that they are “disappointed to learn what took place in Youngstown. We are working with our franchisee that operates this location to understand what happened.” They also point out that they’ve apologized to the fired employee, and they believe that black lives matter.
Back on June 2, Taco Bell announced that they were muting their social media channels. In a posted letter from their CEO, he wrote, ” I am committed to fostering inclusion and embracing and supporting diversity in all of its forms. This is something I feel we all can strive to live by. We have a lot of work to do to combat systemic racism in America, but one of the first things I want to start with is listening.”
They added, “Taco Bell Corp. does not make donations to presidential political campaigns and has no involvement with or control over donations made by franchisees.”