LOS GATOS, Calif. (KRON) — Employees at Netflix plan to stage a walkout on Wednesday morning at both the headquarters in Los Gatos and in Hollywood as well.
The people walking out and rallying are demanding Netflix better support its transgender and non-binary employees.
This comes after Netflix fired a transgender employee who actually helped organize this walkout in response to Dave Chappelle’s comedy special ‘The Closer.’
People have called the special transphobic.
Netflix claims it fired the employee because they disclosed confidential financial information about what the company paid for the special.
Chappelle says in the show that gender is a fact, among other things.
Many who work at Netflix were disappointed with how the co-CEO Ted Sarandos responded to employees’ concern about the special.
In his original email sent to employees, he said the Chapelle special would not cause real world harm and not everyone will agree with content put on the platform.
Since then, Sarandos said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal he regrets not showing some humanity in his response and compassion towards employees truly upset.
Employees say the company continues to put out harmful content towards the transgender community and it must stop.
They have released a list of demands for Netflix to adopt, which includes hiring more people of color and transgender people, creating more trans positive content, and adding a disclaimer before transphobic shows or movies.
Netflix provided a statement to KRON4 regarding the demonstration, saying: “We value our trans colleagues and allies, and understand the deep hurt that’s been caused. We respect the decision of any employee who chooses to walk out, and recognize we have much more work to do both within Netflix and in our content.”