A California state agency has filed a racial discrimination complaint against Tesla, accusing the automaker of “racial segregation” in the workplace.
“After receiving hundreds of complaints from workers, the DFEH has found evidence that the Tesla Fremont factory is a racially segregated workplace,” said Kevin Kish, director of the investigating agency. on civil matters, in a statement Wednesday.
“Black workers (y) experience racial slurs and discrimination in terms of job duties, discipline, pay and promotion, which creates a hostile work environment. The facts in this case speak for themselves,” he added.
The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing emailed excerpts from the lawsuit filed “late afternoon” in a California court, when Tesla had already communicated in the morning about its lawsuits, before they were filed. are not confirmed.
“Tesla strongly opposes all forms of discrimination and harassment and has a dedicated employee relations team to respond to and investigate all complaints,” the group said in a statement, which mentions a three-year investigation, covering on facts that supposedly took place in the Fremont plant between 2015 and 2019.
“All day, every day, black or African American employees hear racial slurs about black workers, from other employees, bosses and managers,” the complaint states.
She cites numerous examples of rare verbal abuse, including the “N-word” (an allusion to the derogatory term for black people), a term that has become unpronounceable by white people in the United States.
“Because the factory is racially segregated, factory workers referred to areas where many African Americans worked as the ‘porch monkey station,’ literally ‘the don’t give a fuck monkey area,'” the complaint states.
“Widespread Racial Harassment”
“An employee was told by collaborators and managers to “shut up, N[ ]” and “all blacks are alike”, “continue the lawyers. “A black worker has heard this kind of insults up to 50-100 times a day”.
The complaint points out that black employees were assigned to physically more difficult tasks than others in Tesla factories, that they were more easily fired for minor violations and were much less frequently promoted.
“For many black workers, the stress of widespread racial harassment, the risk of physical altercations with harassers, blatant discrimination, disproportionate discipline and inaction when faced with complaints have made their working conditions so intolerable that they have resigned,” the complaint states.
Several employees and ex-employees of the group led by billionaire Elon Musk have filed complaints in recent months to denounce cases of sexual harassment or racial discrimination within the company.
“Tesla has always taken disciplinary action and terminated employees for professional misconduct, including those who utter racial slurs or harass others in various ways,” assured the group in its press release on Wednesday, which also mentions its team in charge of diversity, equity and inclusion.
Last October, a Californian jury sentenced Tesla to pay $137 million in damages to a former black employee for turning a blind eye to the racism he suffered in one of the group’s factories.
The company intends to ask the court to stay the proceedings to ensure that all the facts and evidence are taken into account.
The automaker, which also insists that it is the last one still installed in California, says it regrets that the DFEH did not send it the specific charges on which its lawsuit is based.