Last year I was hired on by UPS as a driver helper. Being a UPS worker I was part of the UPS Teamsters Union. My first day I was in the break room when everyone was being assigned drivers, the lady giving the orientation assigned everybody a driver, except for me. I was the only one not sitting at a table because all the tables were full, so I sat in the chairs lined against the wall by the entry door in order to observe social distancing. Maybe she was moving too fast and overlooked me because I wasn't at a table or she thought I was just an employee on break?
Once I spoke up, the lady giving the orientation said she will be right back and left out the back room. I waited over an hour and then another group of new employees came into the break room for PVD orientation. A different lady was leading the orientation this time so I came and asked her when I would be assigned a driver and she laughed at me and said that's not her job. She told me she runs PVD and I'm an hour late for the driver helper orientation. I told her I've been here for over an hour already with the first group that came and I'm the only person left from that group. She then says if I'm not here for PVD then I need to leave. She was extremely rude and dismissive with no help offered at all. So me feeling kinda irritated at this point after being ignored and waiting for over an hour, I say something under my breath and the lady hears me and says, “you wanna repeat that you terrorist looking motherfucker”. 2 other people heard her say it in the break room. At this point I get mad and storm off into the back room where the first lady left but the door is locked with a key card so I start banging on the door until another UPS employee comes and lets me in. I tell him what happened and he escorts me to the office with the first lady from the orientation. She tells me “oh I'm so sorry I forgot about you” but I'm so mad after everything that happened I just tell her straight up “look I don't care about the driver or any of this, one of your trainers just said something racist to me and I feel offended.” She then told me maybe I'm overreacting and that I should go home and try to do my orientation again another day if I'm going to be flustered.
To be honest I was kind of rowdy in there, I was being loud and confrontational after that incident with the PVD trainer because I was just so disgusted with how I was treated on my first day. I ended up leaving and receiving an email from HR to tell them what happened. I explained the situation and told them I was discriminated against and that two other people witnessed it as well. I asked if I could start my orientation at a different UPS facility in my city due to the fact that I had a bad experience with the folks who run that location. HR said they would get back to me, the next day I received an email stating that I was terminated from UPS.
What the hell is the point of a union if I'm going to get terminated for reporting racial discrimination???