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Taco Bell worker fired for filming manager’s racist rant about Black workers mopping floors

The employee revealed that the manager, who was a white female, had fired him for filming her racist rant about black workers mopping the floor

A Taco Bell employee has been reinstated to his job after his manager fired him for filming her racist rant about workers "mopping the floor because (they're) Black."

The manager at a Taco Bell outlet in Lexington, Virginia, is seen in a viral video saying, "(Employee’s name) is sweeping the floor because he is Black. (Another employee’s name) is mopping the floor because he is Black.” A TikTok user who shared the clip said the employee who filmed the manager had asked her, "Why do you always have me sweeping and mopping?" before she went on a rant. The employee later revealed that the manager, who is a white female, had fired him for filming her.

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“If my video wasn’t out there, if I didn’t have a video and it was just hearsay stuff, I don’t think nothing would have happened,” the employee told NBC 10 on condition of anonymity. “I think I still would have been out of a job, and they would still be working there, happily ever after.”

“She told me I could leave," the worker said of his manager. "I said ‘I’m not leaving until 11.’ That’s my usual time that my general manager put on there. She said, ‘Well I don’t need you.’ So we had words back and forth about me leaving, about me not coming in tomorrow, about how she didn’t need me.”

The employee said he's also received death threats over the video. “I also had a threatening message from a number saying they were going to kill me and my kids," he told the station. "And they hoped I kept the ‘same energy’ when I was ‘holding my kids’ lifeless bodies.’”

Taco Bell's corporate office has since fired the manager. “We take this seriously," the company said in a statement. "Our franchisee who owns and operates this location immediately addressed the incident in line with their policies and has informed us that the person seen in the video is no longer working for them.” Meanwhile, the employee who filmed the manager's racist rant has since been offered his job back. He told authorities about the death threats he had received, and they are now investigating the same.

Last month, MEAWW reported how James Iannazzo, a wealth management advisor at Merrill Lynch, was fired after abusing Robeks employees and throwing a smoothie at one of them. Iannazzo purchased the drink from an outlet and returned thirty minutes later in a rage, saying his kid had an allergic reaction to the peanuts in the drink. A viral video showed the 48-year-old yelling at the employees and demanding to know who had made the drink.

Iannazzo is seen in the clip shouting at the employees and hurling racist comments. He is heard calling the employees "immigrant losers" and being abusive towards them. Post the racist rant, he threw the smoothie at a worker who asked him to leave. He then went on to trespass by entering an "employees only" area. He was arrested and charged with "intimidation based on bigotry or bias in the second degree," "breach of peace in the second degree," and "criminal trespass in the first degree". Merril Lynch, the wealth management company he worked for, fired him, stating, "Our company does not tolerate behavior of this kind. We immediately investigated and have taken action. This individual is no longer employed at our firm."