California accuses Tesla of alleged discrimination at plant

[ZiprHead]

California accuses Tesla of alleged discrimination at plant

California regulators have sued electric car maker Tesla Inc. They allege the company has been discriminating against Black employees who have been likened to monkeys and slaves at the San Francisco Bay Area factory where most of its vehicles are made.

apnews.com

SAN RAMON, Calif. (AP) — California regulators have sued Tesla Inc. alleging the electric car maker has been discriminating against Black employees who have been likened to monkeys and slaves at the San Francisco Bay Area factory where most of its trendy vehicles are made.

The explosive lawsuit seems likely to widen a rift between Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, and the state where he launched the company. Tesla is now worth more than $900 billion, less than 20 years after Musk set out to transform the auto industry.

Musk moved Tesla’s headquarters from Palo Alto, California, to Austin, Texas, last year after publicly feuding with California officials over whether Tesla’s factory should remain shut down during the spring of 2020 while the coronavirus pandemic was still in its early stages.

The 39-page lawsuit, filed late Wednesday in Alameda County Superior Court by California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing, frames Tesla’s move to Texas as an attempt to evade accountability for turning “a blind eye to years of complaints from Black workers who protest commonplace use of racial slurs on the assembly line.”

Last October, a federal jury awarded $137 million in damages to a former Black elevator operator who had alleged he faced daily racist slurs and other forms of harassment while working at the Fremont plant in 2015 and 2016 before quitting. Tesla is appealing that verdict and has denied any knowledge of racist conduct that the former elevator operator, Owen Diaz, said took place at the plant.

And then more than a half dozen current and former Tesla employees filed another lawsuit alleging the company didn’t take adequate steps to protect them against sexual harassment. Tesla is seeking to shift those complaints into arbitration.