The United States: According to a statement, a California agency filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against Tesla on Wednesday, accusing the electric automaker of racial segregation at its California facility.
According to Kevin Fish, the agency’s director, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) “found evidence that Tesla’s Fremont factory is a racially segregated workplace where Black workers are subjected to racial slurs and discriminated against in job assignments, discipline, pay, and promotion,”
According to the complaint, black workers at the factory were regularly subjected to deeply offensive racial slurs and racist jokes by co-workers and managers. Fish stated that the EPA got hundreds of complaints from plant personnel.
“The facts on this case speak for themselves,” he said.
Tesla issued a statement on Tuesday prior to the filing, stating that it “opposes all forms of discrimination and harassment” and that it is dedicated to creating “a workplace that is safe, respectful, fair and inclusive.”
However, extracts from the agency’s case, which was unsealed late Wednesday and filed in a California court, present a completely different image.
Non-Black workers, according to the agency, would frequently refer to areas where a large number of Black or African-American workers were stationed with racist historical names, such as “the plantation”
Workers would frequently be “taunted by racial slurs and then baited into verbal and physical confrontations” by non-Black workers, according to the complaint, and would then face disciplinary action.
According to the petition, non-Black workers were regularly given preferential treatment at the facility, including easier duties and greater leniency in disciplinary hearings when compared to their Black or African-American counterparts.
According to the DFEH, one worker “heard these racial slurs as often as 50-100 times a day” and workers with racially-incendiary tattoos of the Confederate flag would make them visible in order to scare Black coworkers.
In recent months, the company, which is owned by billionaire Elon Musk, has been hit with several lawsuits alleging discrimination at its California factory.
Six women sued the firm in December, alleging a culture of sexual harassment at the factory and other sites. Two further cases were filed within a month after the first.