Two former Netflix employees who complained about anti-transgender slurs on Dave Chappelle’s TV special have dropped their labor concerns, and one has quit, according to a statement released Monday.
Terra Field, a trans senior software engineer, stated on Sunday that she had voluntarily left.
“This isn’t how I expected things to finish, but I’m relieved to have closure,” Field wrote in an online resignation letter.
“The Closer” by Dave Chappelle premiered on Oct. 1 and has received millions of views since then. Chapelle’s harsh remarks about the transgender community, on the other hand, sparked outrage among Netflix employees and campaigners. On the 20th of October, some 30 Netflix employees staged a walkout and attended a rally at the company’s Los Angeles headquarters.
After attending a business conference with senior executives, Field was suspended by the corporation, but was shortly reinstated.
A complaint was made with the National Labor Relations Board by Field and B. Pagels-Minor, a game launch operations program manager who is also trans. They said Netflix retaliated against the workers in order to silence them about working conditions, including “Netflix’s products and the impact of its product selections on the LGBTQ+ community.”
“We have resolved our differences in a way that reflects both sides’ erosion of trust and, we hope, allows everyone to move forward,” Netflix said in a statement on Monday.
Pagels-Minor has admitted that they were the employee who was sacked by Netflix last month for allegedly leaking secret financial information about how much it spent for “The Closer.” A Bloomberg news item referred to the information.
The claims against Pagels-Minor have been refuted.
Netflix was slammed not only for the program, but also for how it handled employee complaints in internal memos, including co-CEO Ted Sarandos’ argument that “material on screen doesn’t directly correlate to real-world harm.”
Netflix does not accept titles that are “intended to inspire hate or violence, and we don’t believe ‘The Closer’ breaches that barrier,” according to Sarandos.
The special is still available for watching on Netflix.