The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing is suing auto manufacturer Tesla in light of reports from Black employees at the company’s California manufacturing plant that they have faced rampant racism at work.
According to the lawsuit, Tesla has segregated the manufacturing floor, relegating Black workers to areas that employees call “porch monkey stations,” “the slave ship,” and “the plantation.” Black workers are continually deniedPromotions and training are available to the most qualified workers.
The lawsuit claims that Black employees are frequently targeted by coworkers who use racial slurs and that managers often use the n word. At least one worker claimed to have heard racial slurs as often as 50 to 100 times a dayAccording to the filing
The lawsuit alleges that Black workers are subjected to racism even in the bathrooms. Racist graffiti like “hang [n-word],” “all monkeys work outside,” swastikas and KKK symbols have been carved into the walls, where they allegedly remained for months before the company finally cleaned them up.
“These numerous complaints by Black and/or African American workers about racial harassment, racial discrimination, and retaliation lodged over a span of almost a decade have been futile,” the lawsuit reads. “Tesla has continued to deflect and evade responsibility. While it claims to not tolerate racial harassment or discrimination at its factories, Tesla’s investigations of complaints are not compliant with law.”
The agency’s director, Kevin Kish, told the Los Angeles TimesThis is the largest racial discrimination case ever filed by the state. The agency has been investigating this company for three years.
The company has responded to the lawsuit by saying that the allegations happened only over the course of a few years and that the agency has investigated and dismissed discrimination cases at the company before – a claim that the agency has denied. Tesla also stated that it will request a pause in the case.
In its lawsuit, the agency claimed that discrimination began in 2012, just one year after the plant opened. It continues to this day.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk is said to be aware of these issues but has dismissed them. In an email sent to employees in 2017, The New York Times found that Musk warned workers against “being a huge jerk” to “less represented” workers, but emphasized that the workers facing abuse should be forgiving.
“[I]f someone is a jerk to you, but sincerely apologizes, it is important to be thick-skinned and accept that apology,” Musk reportedly wrote.
None of the company’s executives are Black, according to the lawsuit. Instead, while Black people are overrepresented in the company’s contracted workforce, they are “severely under-represented” as managers, senior officials and other higher paying, more influential roles.
When workers speak up about facing racism and harassment, they are often subject to “retaliatory harassment, undesirable assignments, and/or termination, especially since [Tesla’s] human resource personnel charged with addressing the complaints were allegedly close to the harassers,” according to the lawsuit.
An anonymous Tesla worker told More Perfect UnionLast year, they were subject to harassment by a coworker. She announced in front 50 workers that she was going beat them up in the lot. Later, the human resources department informed the worker that they were responsible for the incident.
The department didn’t investigate the alleged harassment, the worker said – and when the department asked the majority-white witnesses what had happened, white employees sided with the alleged harasser.
