Corporate culture at Chicago's top evictor is 'an absolute caste system'

Current and former employees at Pangea describe racism, segregation, and a "toxic" workplace.


Since protests against the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis spurred a reckoning over racism and white supremacy in almost every industry, employees at companies around the country have come forward demanding changes in corporate culture that leaves people of color, and especially Black people, feeling unwelcome, undervalued, and often actually underpaid. The real estate industry is no exception.

In September the Reader was alerted of two complaints, one filed with the city's Commission on Human Relations and the other with the Illinois Department of Human Rights, detailing discrimination and racist statements made by high-level managers at Pangea, one of Chicago's biggest corporate landlords. Until the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the company was the city's most prolific filer of eviction cases. Its apartment holdings are concentrated largely in Black neighborhoods on the south and west sides of the city and in nearby suburbs, now totaling 9,400 units in 492 buildings. The company also has several thousand more units in Indianapolis and Baltimore.

The complaints were filed by Armando Magana, 45, the chief maintenance supervisor at Pangea in Chicago who'd been with the company since 2010. He's worked in various roles and received promotions and bonuses, most recently in February, Magana writes. "Notwithstanding my exceptional performance, Pangea has repeatedly discriminated against me because of my Hispanic ethnicity and my Mexican national origin. Throughout my employment, Pangea has also subjected me to a hostile work environment based on numerous derisive and derogatory statements made by Pangea's managers and executives regarding my ethnicity and national origin."

Magana's complaint includes several examples of such statements from vice president of operations Derek Reich and CEO Pete Martay. He claims that in 2017 Reich "told me that I should avoid being seen working with an African-American work colleague if I did not want to be viewed in the same way as that 'lazy n****r.'"

Read more: https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/pangea-toxic-racist-office-culture/Content?oid=84677214

Note: I edited the last word since it is offensive.