Housekeeper sues Jeff Bezos for alleged racial discrimination

Jeff Bezos has been sued by a former housekeeper identified as Mercedes Wedaa claiming she was subjected to racial discrimination and forced to regularly climb out of a laundry room window to go to the toilet as she wasn’t allowed to enter the Amazon billionaire’s house except on “cleaning assignment”.

Mercedes Wedaa, who spent three years cleaning Jeff Bezos’s Seattle mansion, alleged in a lawsuit filed in state court in Seattle that she and other Hispanic cleaning staff members were treated unfairly in comparison to white staff.

She asserts that while being “respectful and polite” to white groundskeepers, Bezos’s household manager “became aggressive and abusive” toward her.

A representative for Bezos refuted all of the allegations and called it “absurd” to suggest that Wedaa was subjected to prejudice because of her race.

Mercedes Wedaa, who started working at Bezos’s house in 2019, claimed that if Bezos and his family were “in residence,” she would typically have to put in 10 to 14 hours a day without lunch or rest breaks.

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According to the lawsuit, Wedaa and other household employees would frequently eat in the laundry room because there was no designated break room or rest area.

Mercedes Wedaa also alleges that she was prevented from entering Bezos’s home “except to perform a cleaning assignment,” which complicated using the restroom and caused health problems.

“For about 18 months, in order to use a bathroom, [the] plaintiff and other housekeepers were forced to climb out of the laundry room window to the outside. Then run along the path to the mechanical room, through the mechanical room and downstairs to a bathroom,” the lawsuit, first reported by the Seattle-based blog Geekwire, states.

The lawsuit claims that because Wedaa and other housekeepers “had to spend large parts of their day unable to use the toilet”, they frequently developed urinary tract infections.

Wedaa is suing Bezos personally, along with two companies – Zefram and Northwestern – that manage his interests and properties.

Harry Korrell, a lawyer for Bezos, said: “We have investigated the claims, and they lack merit. Wedaa made over six figures annually and was the lead housekeeper.