Black Chick-fil-A Worker Called 'Ape', Threatened To Be 'Put In Cage'

A Black employee at Chick-fil-A has filed a lawsuit alleging that he endured racist abuse from coworkers who called him an "ape" and threatened to be put in a cage.

According to the lawsuit obtained by The Independent, Thomas Wade, a former Chick-fil-A worker in Idaho, faced incessant racial discrimination at the franchise despite filing dozens of complaints to his superiors.

“Of course he works at Chick-fil-A; he’s Black, so he loves chicken,” one coworker allegedly told Wade.

Wade started working as a cook on the back-of-house crew at a Chick-fil-A in Idaho Falls in December 2022.

During one instance of abuse, Wade attempted to intervene when he saw two of his coworkers, one of whom was the supervisor's son, "antagonizing a third employee," according to the suit.

“In response to his attempts to intervene and diffuse the situation, [the son] told [Wade], ‘Shut up ape, before I put you in a cage,’” the complaint states.

When Wade said he was planning to report the incident to management, the supervisor's son allegedly called him "monkey-looking a**" and warned him that "my parents own this store."

The complaint details another incident where Wade was told he was a piece of "antique farming equipment," in reference to slavery.

On another occasion, Wade allegedly saw one of his supervisor's sons whipping another colleague with a towel. The son told Wade that "he would know about getting whipped since he is Black." His supervisor's daughters allegedly said Wade "look[ed] like a monkey and act[ed] like a monkey. Wade also found a variation of the n-word written on the kitchen freezer, the complaint states.

According to the complaint, Wade made roughly 25 to 30 reports to Chick-fil-A management about the racist abuse to no avail. He was fired on October 16, 2023, “because [he] refused to tolerate and continued to report racist behavior and comments by his coworkers,” the complaint states.

The owner of the franchise, Lauren Mosteller, Inc. of Woodstock, Georgia, responded to the allegations in court earlier this month, denying “each and every." Wade's lawsuit seeks to hold the franchisee accountable for discrimination, hostile work environment, retaliation, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

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