Amadou Diallo, a former UPS delivery driver, was held at gunpoint before his delivery truck was stolen by a group of men near Newark on June 30. Diallo, who is a Guinean immigrant on a refugee visa, was fired by UPS the next day and was withheld a week’s worth of pay.
Diallo says he believes he was unjustly fired and that the company withheld payment because of his immigrant status. Although the stolen van was eventually found, Diallo was told by his manager that he had to quit or be fired.
“I’m sure if it was someone else they would’ve been more concerned about that person’s safety and mental health, but when it came to me I felt like they just saw an insignificant person who doesn’t know his rights,” Diallo said. “I got really traumatized to a point that I was having nightmares for the five days straight.”
In recent months, UPS has been criticized for its mistreatment of delivery employees. In April, some of the company’s drivers spoke out about going to work despite having covid-like symptoms because they feared losing their jobs. In spring, three drivers filed a lawsuit claiming that UPS had failed to pay employees overtime in order to keep insurance costs down.
Fari Murray, one of the drivers who filed the lawsuit, accused UPS of “cheating,” “lying” and “not reporting accidents and injuries.”
“You’re working 17 or 18 hours, and if you speak up you get fired and harassed,” he said.
Diallo started working for UPS in early June and was hired as a full-time employee two weeks later. He said that by the middle of the month, he realized that he was the only among his coworkers who had not been paid at all.
Despite this, he continued to work until the end of the month when the assault happened.
Diallo is a Guinean refugee who arrived in the United States in 2016. He was an Uber and Lyft driver before he began to work for UPS at the height of the pandemic.
He is still missing a week’s worth of pay and a GoFundMe page has been set up to help him.