By Matthew Kaufman
Staff Writer
California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) is suing electric vehicle maker Tesla, alleging that the company allowed racial discrimination to persist in its Fremont, California factory for years.
According to the New York Times, hundreds of Black factory workers reported seeing racist graffiti and repeated use of racial slurs. They also alleged that Black workers received more strenuous assignments and were more frequently denied promotions than the rest of the workforce. The suit also alleges that Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, told workers that they needed to be more “thick-skinned” regarding the harassment.
“After receiving hundreds of complaints from workers, 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 creating a hostile work environment,” said Kevin Kish, director of the DFEH.
In addition to unspecified monetary damages, the agency is also seeking back pay and job reinstatement for the affected employees, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Prior to the announcement of the lawsuit, Tesla posted a statement on its blog titled “The DFEH’s Misguided Lawsuit,” refuting the agency’s claims and saying that the Department had repeatedly failed to find any evidence of misconduct at Tesla over the past several years.
“It therefore strains credibility for the agency to now allege, after a three-year investigation, that systematic racial discrimination and harassment somehow existed at Tesla,” the company wrote. “A narrative spun by the DFEH and a handful of plaintiff firms to generate publicity is not factual proof.”
The automaker also defended its factory as a haven for manufacturing jobs in California, noting “Tesla is also the last remaining automobile manufacturer in California. The Fremont factory has a majority-minority workforce and provides the best paying jobs in the automotive industry to over 30,000 Californians.”
The lawsuit follows a federal jury awarding $130 billion to a Black factory employee named Owen Diaz who said that Tesla created a racially hostile work environment and failed to prevent Mr. Diaz from being harrassed, as reported by the WSJ.
Another ongoing lawsuit alleges that Tesla did not do enough to protect its female employees from sexual harrassment, according to the AP.
This also isn’t the first time that Tesla, and Musk specifically, have been at odds with state and local governments in California. As reported by the Washington Post, Tesla violated Alameda County’s stay-at-home order when it reopened its factory in May, 2020. Musk at the time decried pandemic lockdowns as “fascist.”
The DFEH previously brought another high-profile lawsuit against video game maker Activision Blizzard for its company culture, according to the WSJ.
The company is “so advanced on one level,” said David Lowe, a lawyer representing the women in the sexual harrassment suit, “and yet when it comes to how its workers are treated and the racial harassment and sexual harassment, it’s almost like a company from a different era. They’re so far behind the curve in how they treat their workers.”
While it is unsure how the case will turn out, Tesla said it would ask the court to “pause the case and take other steps to ensure that facts and evidence will be heard.”
