California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) announced on Wednesday that it has grounds for a civil complaint about race discrimination and harassment allegations against Tesla.
The state regulatory agency said that Tesla is being sued over allegations of systemic racial discrimination made at the company’s California facilities, a lawsuit that Elon Musk’s company has refused as misguided.
DFEH’s director Kevin Kish pointed out that following an investigation it has launched after receiving hundreds of complaints from workers on the matter, the agency filed the lawsuit in the Alameda County Superior Court.
The investigation found evidence of a racially segregated workplace in Tesla’s Fremont factory in which Black workers were discriminated against in pay, promotion, job assignments, and discipline, and subjected to racial slurs that have created a hostile work environment.
The lawsuit also alleges that Tesla’s leads, supervisors, and managers were either active participants or witnesses to these racist comments against Black workers without intervening.
Allegations include Black workers in Tesla’s facilities being confronted with racist writings – such as ‘hang N[ ]’ – daily including hurtful graffiti featuring noose drawings, white supremacist skull, KKK, swastikas or the Confederate flag in lockers, workstations, the break room and on restroom walls and stalls, lunch tables and workplace benches.
The lawsuit alleges that Black workers were baited into verbal and physical confrontations and taunted by racial slurs and ended up being the ones disciplined for being purportedly aggressive or threatening.
Tesla issued no comment for the media but said in a blog post it strongly opposes all forms of discrimination and harassment and strives to provide a safe, respectful, fair, and inclusive workplace.
Elon Musk’s company was ordered last year by a federal jury in California to pay $137 million in damages to a Black former employee who sued Tesla for ignoring complaints that other workers had racially abused him.
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