Outcry After Plant Workers Forced to Listen to “Work B**ch” on Repeat
Public uproar rocked the internet this past Friday as a controversial video taken from inside the Ford Assembly Plant in Louisville, Kentucky was uploaded to Twitter. The video, reportedly taken from a worker’s cell phone, is a 45-second clip of an assembly line floor, where workers are seen looking shell-shocked while speakers blast Britney Spears’ hit 2013 song “Work B**ch.” At the end of the chorus, an unknown voice over the speakers sings along with Britney, yelling, “Now get to work, bitch!”
The video quickly went viral, and currently sits at more than 400,000 retweets. Ford’s CEO, James Hackett, responded directly to the video in a press conference on Monday, stating that he was “horrified,” and that “the appropriate steps are being taken to terminate the employee responsible.” He added “We want to assure the public that the video is not demonstrative of Ford’s values — an ideal manager would have played ‘I’m a Slave 4 U’ instead.”
Stephen Lightfoot is Editor in Chief of The MQ.