Comcast Workers Walk Out To Protest Trump's Ban
SUNNYVALE (CBS SF) – Employees of Comcast staged walkouts in the Bay Area and across the country on Thursday, protesting President Donald Trump's executive order banning refugees and restricting travel from seven Muslim-majority nations.
The largest protest took place in Philadelphia, where the telecom giant is headquartered. More than a thousand tech workers marched from company headquarters to City Hall.
"Immigrants basically contribute a lot to the tech sector. What we're doing right now is preventing people from coming in, we're potentially taking away a lot of the talent that has been working in the U.S.," Bobby Wren, an immigrant and tech worker told CBS Philadelphia.
A much smaller protest took place at the company's Silicon Valley tech center in Sunnyvale.
Protests also took place in other locations where Comcast does business, including New York and Washington, DC.
An organizer told the Philadelphia Enquirer that the nationwide protest was organized among employees through an internal Slack channel and that it had "no resistance" among higher ups.
Business leaders and CEOs have been vocal in their opposition to Mr. Trump's immigration policies, particularly the tech industry. Apple CEO Tim Cook said he is opposed to the travel ban, along with CEOs from Amazon, eBay, Etsy and Netflix.
Earlier this week, workers at the Google headquarters in Mountain View staged a walkout to protest Mr. Trump's actions on immigration.
Last weekend, Google co-founder Sergey Brin was spotted at a protest at San Francisco international Airport, where people were detained because of the executive order.
