Ira Glass It's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Today's program, "LaDonna." We're telling the story of LaDonna Powell and watching as she brings her enormous sense of mission to the job of securing JFK airport in New York, and to making the company that she works for, Allied Universal, a better place to work. We've arrived at Act Two of our program. Act Two, The New Guard. So, as you heard in the first half of the show, LaDonna had tried managing up, to reshape her boss's behaviors. Now she went in the opposite direction. And she created something brand new. She was going to start from the beginning, training the new recruits. Again, here's Chana Joffe-Walt.

Chana Joffe-Walt LaDonna did not actually have any experience teaching or training anyone. So she did what she does-- she read, collected tips, watched online videos about giving presentations. She bought The Essential HR Handbook and read about onboarding, how to set company culture from day one.

LaDonna Powell Because it talks about, in HR, knowing your people. So I made sure every time they came into the class I knew who was wearing-- oh, you had a pink shirt on yesterday. People like to know you know them.

Chana Joffe-Walt First class, LaDonna opened with the piece of education people at Allied seemed to have missed-- how to act in a workplace. She held up the AlliedBarton employee handbook. She explained, Allied has a multimillion dollar contract to protect this airport. That is our job. It is what the airport, the client, wants us to be focused on 100% of the time.

LaDonna Powell The client is paying us for a certain quality of work environment. The client is paying us for a certain quality of person working here. For one thing, I would always tell them, this is a sexual harassment-free environment. And I would say to them, you want to read this page-- I can't remember the page at this moment, but I always said, you want to read this page. You want to know your rights. This is a place where you should be able to come to work, not be touched or solicited for sex. You don't want to let people think it's OK to solicit you for sex. This is a place of security. No matter what's happening here, don't adapt to that. They should know they're allowed to use the bathroom. They should know they can't walk off the post. Things will happen here. And if it happens, you want to take note. That was always one of my biggest things to them-- you want to write it down. You have a right.

Chana Joffe-Walt You were, like, starting a revolution.

LaDonna Powell I was trying. And I'm like, listen, open your mind to what I'm saying to you. And then I would just give them morals my mom dropped in my brain, hoping it would stick to them.

Chana Joffe-Walt Like what?

LaDonna Powell Like, take your book. She would always say that, because in West India, they say, "take your book," meaning "go to school." She's like, you don't need bagga fren, you don't need man, you don't need-- you need your book. I'm like, OK, this lady.

Chana Joffe-Walt LaDonna was improvising her own book, her own workplace manifesto. She had gathered bits and pieces from this book and that one, adding her own experience, her insights, wisdom from her mom. And she was trying it out on her first audience. For a long time, LaDonna had imagined what her book would be if she ever wrote one. She told me she had even thought of a title, Do a Little More-- it's something her mom used to say to her. And her trainings did what all those best-selling motivational books do. She said, do what I did, it can work for you too. She encouraged them to push themselves, imagine themselves on a grand stage.

LaDonna Powell Don't be afraid. Be motivated to go forward. You do a little more than the other workers and do your training, you elevate. You're worth it. It was like, you're definitely worth it.

Chana Joffe-Walt People were into it. I talked to guards who went through the LaDonna Powell training, and it was a thing. It was motivating and clear. LaDonna trained hundreds of people after that-- new recruits, and she started to do refresher trainings for the existing guards. People would leave class saying, we're going to vote Powell for president. You've got my vote, Powell. She taught people from retail jobs and former military people, men and women. She liked them. The women were focused-- not on sexual favors but on work. There was one in her class who was super talkative, opinionated.

LaDonna Powell And she was like, you know what? I'm going to be a supervisor. And I was like, OK. Do it. You can do that. You can do whatever you want. Honestly, always in my mind, those guys are gone, and we can just fix it better.

Chana Joffe-Walt Oh, you're picturing the future workplace?

LaDonna Powell Right, up there-- if they had, like, two more women there, just to speak logic, like, no-- you know, just someone to say, no, instead of, yeah, dude, that's good, bro, yeah, do that-- it might be better.

Chana Joffe-Walt LaDonna trained 330 people at Allied-- 80% of the workplace, between new people and refreshers. 80%. She felt good, like it was going well. And then, one day, LaDonna was teaching a refresher course. She was standing in front of the classroom, by the projector, in the middle of class, and a black guard raised his hand.

LaDonna Powell He told me the story of the supervisor calling him a nigger. And he was like, it's not the first time. And this is in front of the class. This is is a class of-- roughly, this night, it had to be, like, 11 people in the class. And he's telling the story, and everyone knew. So I said to him, who else in here? And they all were just looking at each other. I was like, you guys can tell me. I was like, you know you can trust me. I'll take it to management. And they were like, no one's going to do anything about him. They never do anything about him.

Chana Joffe-Walt They we're talking about Kevin, which LaDonna had already assumed. Again, we asked Kevin for a response to this. He declined.

LaDonna Powell And I was just trying to tell them, listen, if you write it down, maybe-- you know, we can try. Let's just try.

Chana Joffe-Walt When they said to you, who am I going to complain to, when you--

LaDonna Powell I said, to me.

Chana Joffe-Walt Mm-hmm.

LaDonna Powell I said, you've said it to me, I'm not just going to leave it here. It's not OK. It really bothered me so much to even hear that being said. And the fact that the people we're managing are mostly African-American, minorities, Latin, that's a problem. You shouldn't be overseeing those people, because you don't value them either. You don't value us. So I go to management. They look at me, they look at each other, they kind of smirk. They're like, you know how he is. I don't know why you keep taking this so personal. Well, sorry. The black color of my skin would be one reason. And that's not OK.

Chana Joffe-Walt Allied is an enormous, multibillion dollar company. LaDonna knew the rules come from the top, and these supervisors at JFK were not the top. Allied JFK is one of 20,000 Allied locations. Allied provides security to libraries and museums and malls and baseball stadiums and government buildings. Allied guards are in the waiting rooms of hospitals. They're standing at the gates of universities. They're riding Segways at parks. They protect nursing homes and resorts and construction sites. They are in all 50 states. All of that to say, this is a huge company with a chain of command that expands well beyond the airport. Everyone has a boss, and there were many, many bosses at Allied. Good leadership was up there somewhere. This is why LaDonna insisted her students report infractions. They needed documentation. Maybe if these written complaints built up, they could build a ladder up high enough to reach the responsible leaders. There were more complaints from guards in LaDonna's classes, especially in the refresher courses-- harassment, racist comments. Keep writing things down, she'd say. Take notes. Call this OSHA number and report a safety violation. A woman came to her and said Kevin had been harassing her.

LaDonna Powell So I said, did you write this down? And she was like, I don't know. You know how he is. And I'm like, I understand everything you're saying, but you have to fight for yourself. I'm going to go fight for you right now. But what I need you to promise me you're going to do is also fight for yourself, because there's a lot of fighting I'm doing right now for everybody, and I kind of need you guys to fight back also. She did what I told her to do. And then that resulted in her being a target. So I don't know. It's like, I felt like I told her the right thing, honestly. I felt like I told all of them the right thing, because you are supposed to speak up for yourself. Why can they just not stop?

Chana Joffe-Walt Do you still feel, though, that that was the right-- the approach that you took to those classes was, I'm going to teach people to be like me.

LaDonna Powell Yes.

Chana Joffe-Walt And this woman is saying to you, I did the thing that you told me to, and it did not end up well for me so far, right?

LaDonna Powell Right.

Chana Joffe-Walt Does that make you doubt your approach?

LaDonna Powell It doesn't make me doubt my approach. It makes me feel like their response is wrong.

Chana Joffe-Walt There was one thing that did make LaDonna doubt everything. One woman, an enthusiastic, ambitious guard whom LaDonna had trained a few months earlier, came to her and told her she'd been sexually assaulted by another guard-- not on the premises and not during work, but by a coworker. LaDonna says she listened and told her that it wasn't OK, what had happened to her, and they needed to do something. No, no, no, the woman responded, she just wanted to tell someone. LaDonna says she didn't think anything needed to happen.

LaDonna Powell It's like somebody has to help her. And I can't hold something like that inside, because then it's going to drive me insane. I just couldn't. There's no way.

Chana Joffe-Walt LaDonna went to the other supervisors. She says she told them the woman had been raped, and she told them who raped her. She asked the woman's direct supervisor, at the very least, don't put her on duty with him. But LaDonna says he didn't listen. And every day after that, LaDonna went to work, and so did the woman, right alongside the man.

LaDonna Powell I don't know what kind of psychological warfare that is. I don't even know how she still does it-- currently working, and they still put her with him after they found out. I don't know. It makes my skin crawl.

Chana Joffe-Walt The woman did not want to be interviewed for the radio. She wanted to handle this her own way. LaDonna wanted to go to upper management, but the woman didn't want to. She wanted to keep her job. She told LaDonna she didn't need anything to be done. To LaDonna, that was acceptance.

LaDonna Powell People are not supposed to take from you without your permission. I just wanted her to understand she's worth fighting for. They should make you feel worth fighting for. She just-- ugh, she just doesn't see it that way.

Chana Joffe-Walt And there was nothing, no evidence LaDonna could point to to convince her otherwise. LaDonna was trying to force a reckoning that would require this woman, and everyone on staff, to see themselves differently, to be vigilant at all times. But many of them were flagging. They were losing their sense of urgency, turning inward, away from revolution. LaDonna never turned away. Nine months after this, she was pulled into a meeting with HR and the project manager, the big boss at Allied JFK.

LaDonna Powell I was like, am I fired? I asked three times. Am I fired? Tell me what I'm fired for. Am I fired for talking up? And he's like, oh, I wish you would close your mouth. And I said, what am I fired for? And I started reeling off everything. Am I fired for talking up? About what, the sexual harassment? About being called a nigger? And I started saying ev-- I said, all the stuff that goes on in this place, everybody sleeping with everybody, people don't even do their job. And I just started saying everything to him. I said, so am I fired? No, you're not fired. We'll call you in a few days, and we'll let you know something.

Chana Joffe-Walt LaDonna says they didn't call. Weeks later, when she logged into Allied's online portal, that's where she saw she had been terminated. LaDonna had cycled through so many different strategies at Allied, but she had actually never thought about a lawsuit until this point. And when she talked to a lawyer, the lawyer said, this would be a stronger case if you knew other people had experienced the same thing. I do, LaDonna said. I trained them. I trained everybody. I was a supervisor. I saw everything. The lawyer perked up. Well, if you can get other people to join you, you'd have a stronger case. LaDonna sat down, made a list of women she knew had experienced harassment and were no longer at Allied, and one morning she went through the list. The first woman she called said, I can't talk. She wouldn't explain why. LaDonna called the second woman, can't talk. Again, why? Eventually, this woman explained she had already sued Allied herself, settled the case, and signed a non-disclosure agreement-- an NDA. Next woman LaDonna called, same thing.

LaDonna Powell Wow. This is what they've been doing. These guys are still here. It's insane. It's kind of insane to me.

Chana Joffe-Walt Did you even know that was an option?

LaDonna Powell I didn't.

Chana Joffe-Walt Yeah.

LaDonna Powell But you know what? It's not an option. I hope you guys are listening. It's not an option.

Chana Joffe-Walt Wait, who are you talking to, "I hope you guys are listening"?

LaDonna Powell Allied.

Chana Joffe-Walt Oh.

LaDonna Powell I hope they're listening because I feel like, how many times do they get to do that? How many times do they get to do that before they actually take this serious and start making a change?

Chana Joffe-Walt We found court records for 11 lawsuits against Allied at JFK that allege workplace discrimination. It's unclear how many more Allied might have settled before the cases formally went to court. So LaDonna wasn't alone trying to push back. Other women were fighting back too. She had no idea. They did come forward. The information was conveyed to a higher authority, to a court of law, and it did not make LaDonna or these women more secure. It made them invisible. LaDonna filed her lawsuit last October. Soon after, three more people from Allied got in touch, asking to join her lawsuit. And then, after that, there were two more workplace discrimination lawsuits filed against Allied at other New York sites-- the World Trade Center and LaGuardia Airport. LaDonna waited. Everyone has a boss.

LaDonna Powell What else do you guys need to happen-- just what else, before you say, all right, let's get these guys out of here, they've went too far?

Steve Jones OK, my name is Steve Jones, and I'm the CEO of Allied Universal.

Chana Joffe-Walt Steve Jones became CEO in 2016 when his security company, Universal Services of America, merged with AlliedBarton, becoming the largest security firm in North America. He told me LaDonna was fired because of her failure to comply with her supervisory duties. He wouldn't say more about what duties but was clear it was not for speaking up about sexual harassment and racial discrimination. He said he only heard those complaints after LaDonna filed her lawsuit and there was a local news story about it. He adds, "This is despite Allied's many systems in place for employees to communicate concerns."

Steve Jones There's literally a half a dozen avenues to where you could communicate to us, and then we would launch an immediate investigation. Why didn't LaDonna Powell choose to take one of those avenues of communication and inform us of it? I don't know. We're obviously--

Chana Joffe-Walt So wait, you're saying she didn't-- you're saying that she did not report any of this behavior, verbally or in a written form to supervisors or HR?

Steve Jones What I'm telling you, yeah, is the first time we were made aware of this was through the media.

Chana Joffe-Walt There's lawsuits-- I mean, there's lawsuits going back to 2014. There's three lawsuits that describe very similar behavior that LaDonna is describing in the-- there's two more in 2015. There's formal complaints that I've seen written to HR that describe very similar behavior. There's calls to OSHA about being denied bathroom breaks. There's an employee at Allied JFK who left a letter and distributed it publicly that described widespread sexual misconduct by supervisors. And not to mention, I've been talking to many, many staff at Allied who have heard about these things. So it does not seem true that you were not made aware of some of the issues that LaDonna's raising.

Steve Jones So what I would tell you is LaDonna Powell did not make us aware of her specific claims. And what I would say is, with regards to any other claims, every claim that gets brought to our attention is investigated thoroughly and responded to. And obviously, if it's a pending legal matter, I clearly can't comment on that.

Chana Joffe-Walt No, they were settled. There are lawsuits that were settled. And for the most part, it seems like the people who settled those lawsuits signed nondisclosure agreements, so they can't talk about it.

Steve Jones OK. That does not change the fact that we don't take all allegations of either harassment or discrimination very, very seriously, and then we investigate each and every one of them.

Chana Joffe-Walt One of the things that did not make sense to me was, if there are multiple complaints about certain employees, and Allied is having to pay out money in settlements over and over, why not just get rid of those managers? Setting aside what's fair or what's right, it just seems like there'd be strong financial reasons to do that. I asked him what he made of the fact that some of the same men were accused again and again.

Steve Jones We can't speculate that because someone has an allegation that that means those facts are correct. Again, our position--

Chana Joffe-Walt Of course, but it's repeated. I mean, that's the difference, right? It's not a single allegation. It's repeated allegations that are similar to one another against the same people.

Steve Jones And again, any time an allegation is made, we conduct a thorough investigation-- is that allegation true? Is there a portion of it that is true? And what type of behavior was being done or wasn't being done? We have to get to the facts.

Chana Joffe-Walt Allied says that is what they're trying to do now. They told me that since the lawsuit was filed, JFK management and supervisors have received training on discrimination and harassment, and HR staff got specialized training on how to respond to such matters. They've launched their own investigation and an independent investigation into what happened. Those investigations got started seven months ago-- which, to be clear, was four years after LaDonna says she first complained verbally and filed a written complaint against Kevin. Kevin and the four other men named in LaDonna's lawsuit denied all the allegations to us through their lawyers. I got an email response from the lawyer for Kevin McNamara and Chris Timberlake and the head boss at Allied JFK, Martin Feeney. It said, "We're confident that once the facts of the case come to light, it will be clear that Mr. Feeney, Mr. Timberlake, and Mr. McNamara did nothing wrong. It is unfortunate that these individuals' professional reputations are being tarnished as this case is debated in the court of public opinion." There is one other investigation to come out of this lawsuit. The Port Authority, which runs New York's airports, says it is now reviewing LaDonna's allegations, and others, as well. A statement from the Port Authority says, they'll "take aggressive measures against Allied if they find those allegations to be true." And then, just recently, I started to hear rumors about some aggressive measures. I started to hear that the entire leadership of Allied JFK was gone.

Female Guard 1 Oh, it's beautiful now.

Chana Joffe-Walt This is a guard who works at Allied currently. She didn't want me to use her name. None of these workers did.

Female Guard 2 I didn't believe it at first, because I thought maybe it was just a rumor, but then my phone started blowing up, so I was like, oh, wow. Wow.

Male Guard Yeah, it's about time. It's like, how can they get away with this, and why isn't someone doing something about it?

Chana Joffe-Walt The Allied guards say management did not explain what happened to the supervisors, or even why something was done. But they say they all know why it was done-- LaDonna.

Female Guard 1 I love it. I thank her for moving all these no-good people out, who have so many records on accusing women and doing all that stuff. I thank her.

Male Guard And for years, you've heard the people doing stuff. And all of a sudden, bingo, finally something was getting taken care of. Yeah.

Chana Joffe-Walt A lot of people I spoke with didn't want to share their opinions on the record at all. And then there was this woman, who said she couldn't talk to me, but then stood next to her coworker yelling while I interviewed him.

Male Guard Yeah. They said that women are tired of what's going on--

Female Guard 3 Yeah, you get tired of it.

Male Guard It's true. It's like, you know--

Female Guard 3 After a while, [INAUDIBLE].

Male Guard Yeah, enough is enough. And--

Female Guard 3 It's always been a big issue.

Male Guard Yeah. As you said, it's always been a big issue.

Female Guard 3 Women are speaking out now.

Male Guard Yeah. Yeah.

Chana Joffe-Walt Allied told me three people were fired. They wouldn't tell me who. As far as I can tell, Kevin McNamara and Chris Timberlake were not fired. They, along with most of the leadership from Allied JFK, were reassigned-- meaning they still work for Allied but not at JFK. I asked Allied CEO Steve Jones why many of the supervisors were reassigned.

Steve Jones So, we reassign employees all the time, whether it's promotion opportunities or new different challenges or--

Chana Joffe-Walt Right. But are they being moved because they were at fault of some form of harassment or discrimination?

Steve Jones No. So, I would say-- are some of the allegations found to be true? I would say no.

Chana Joffe-Walt So why are people being reassigned?

Steve Jones Well, again, we reassign people-- we reassign people all the time.

LaDonna Powell It's just not an answer. Somebody just say it. We hired these guys. They're animals. We fucked up. We must stop. As a company, we frown upon this, and we're making changes. What's so hard to say that?

Chana Joffe-Walt It occurred to me at some point that I've asked LaDonna the same question almost every time I've talked with her, did that make you feel powerful? I've asked her this about so many different things. Did that make you feel powerful when you made it to supervisor, when you were training all those people, when a fancy Manhattan law firm filed a lawsuit on your behalf, when the CEO of the company was responding directly to your complaints? No. LaDonna's answer was always no. It did not make her feel powerful. It was the same when the leadership of Allied JFK was removed. LaDonna heard that news, especially the part about the men from Allied being reassigned, and she was not thinking about her power. She was thinking about theirs. She was imagining Kevin arriving at his new job, putting on his same Allied uniform every day.

LaDonna Powell That you can continue to walk around, just doing whatever you want to whomever you want, however, and nobody can touch you, it's almost like you're the boogeyman. You're untouchable.

Chana Joffe-Walt What LaDonna could now see was that he was protected, thoroughly, and she was not. She was alone. What LaDonna believed from all those self-help books is you have the power. There may be barriers, but if you act right, set your mind right, if you're strategic and ingenious, you can thwart their efforts to take your power away. This news made her feel like, not really, because, yeah, everybody has a boss, but it was not just Kevin. It was not just the supervisors. It was also the project manager and the HR manager and the legal department at Allied Universal that paid women and the law that allows them to do that. It was a system designed to withstand her refusal to comply, to absorb her whole onslaught, all her strategic thought, passionately executed, carefully taught. It just ate it up and kept doing its thing. And now that LaDonna has seen all of that, she's not sure how to see herself.

LaDonna Powell I just-- I keep having these moments, like, it still leaves this lasting feeling that I was so vulnerable to these people, and they damaged me.

Chana Joffe-Walt That damage is not visible, except to her. LaDonna still works at the airport. She works for the government now, for Customs and Border Protection. She's making more money, and it's a more prestigious job. LaDonna walks Terminal Four, her torso doubled in size by her bulletproof vest, head high, scanning the area like someone who owns the place. A couple months back, she was at work--

LaDonna Powell And I'm walking. I have a M4 in my hand, my vest, pistol on my side. I'm walking, and I'm doing an escort. It's, like, five of us, and we're escorting someone. He's a diplomat.

Chana Joffe-Walt She's not allowed to say from where.

LaDonna Powell He gave us a little pin and everything from his country. It's a regular day. And so we're escorting him. And we're walking, and everything's fine. And then I see one of the men.

Chana Joffe-Walt One of the men from Allied, a supervisor named Osvaldo Ortiz, the guy LaDonna says let the guard bleed on herself instead of giving her a bathroom break. He was coming into Terminal Four to get a coffee from Dunkin' Donuts.

LaDonna Powell And then I just-- literally, I'm walking, and I'm fine. I'm talking, duh-duh, we're laughing, very militant, walking. And I'm fine. I got my gun. I'm holding it like this. And I turn, and I get a sign of him. And then he sees me. And then I just turned my whole body, shifted to the left, and I ducked down.

Chana Joffe-Walt LaDonna ducked as she was telling this to me. This is a man who, at this point in time, has no official power over her. She doesn't work for him. She's not financially dependent on him.

LaDonna Powell Literally, I am-- I felt afraid. It's like, I'm nervous. Like, I started sweating and everything. It's like, why am I scared of this guy? It doesn't make sense to me. Regardless of me being, oh, badass Customs Agent with a gun, still the sight of him makes me cringe.

Chana Joffe-Walt And you're escorting a fancy diplomat.

LaDonna Powell Exactly.

Chana Joffe-Walt Who's here for important business.

LaDonna Powell Yes.

Chana Joffe-Walt Who needs your protection because you are able to provide protection.

LaDonna Powell Protection. Right, right. And then I feel like I couldn't protect myself in that moment, yes.

Chana Joffe-Walt And you have a gun.

LaDonna Powell And I have a gun. It's kind of horrible.

Chana Joffe-Walt Yeah. And that guy has a Dunkin' Donuts coffee.

LaDonna Powell Coffee And I still feel, yeah, at his mercy. So power? No. I feel like I am caged because of them.

Chana Joffe-Walt The cage is invisible, of course-- or it was until recently, just like the NDAs, and the reassignments, and everything else LaDonna can now see. She's still trying to map the contours of this cage, its full size and shape. It's hard. It's not written down anywhere or clearly marked. And that's what makes it scary. LaDonna needs to know exactly what she's dealing with. Then she can figure out her next move.