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Former Delta Employees Claim They Were Fired for Speaking Korean

The lawsuit, filed in May, also claims the former employees were were sexually harassed by another customer service agent and were retaliated against after complaining about it

Four former Delta employees who were allegedly told by a manager not to speak Korean because it made other workers feel uncomfortable are accusing the airline in a lawsuit of discrimination after they were fired last year, NBC News reported.

The employees — Ji-Won Kim, Lilian Park, Jean Yi and Jongjin An — were Delta customer service agents at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and say they were reprimanded for speaking Korean, even though they were assigned to work flights to South Korea, according to their suit.

"Many other employees frequently spoke to each other in their native languages during their shifts and were not admonished or coached not to do so," read the suit, which was filed May 31. The women began speaking publicly about the case this week.

The complaint says the women were told they were being fired in May 2017 for allegedly offering unauthorized upgrades to customers, which the women said was standard practice. The lawsuit also claims the women were sexually harassed by another customer service agent and were retaliated against after complaining about it. The harassment, according to the suit, continued after two of the women reported it to Delta leadership.

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