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SACRAMENTO, California (AP) — California filed a lawsuit Wednesday against Tesla Inc. over allegations of discrimination and harassment against Black employees at its San Francisco Bay area plant.
Kevin Kish, head of the state’s Fair Employment and Housing Department, said the lawsuit, filed in Alameda County Supreme Court, was sparked by hundreds of worker complaints.
The department that enforces state civil rights laws “found evidence that Tesla’s Fremont factory was a racially segregated workplace where Black workers were subjected to racial slurs and discriminated against in job assignments, discipline, pay and promotion, creating a hostile work environment” Kish, Wall He said in a statement reported by the Street Journal and Bloomberg.
Details of the lawsuit have yet to be disclosed, and Tesla did not immediately respond to the lawsuit, which the electric automaker warned would come a few days ago in an annual filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
However, in a blog post prior to filing, Tesla misdirected the case, saying the agency had “never been concerned” about its workplace practices after three years of investigation.
The post noted that the lawsuit focused on accusations from manufacturing partners at the factory who said that abuse took place between 2015 and 2019. The post also said it would ask the court to “stop the case and take further steps to ensure the facts.” The evidence will be heard.”
“Attacking a company like Tesla that has done so much for California should not be the primary goal of a government agency with prosecutorial authority,” he wrote on the blog.
Last October, a San Francisco jury awarded nearly $137 million in rewards to a Black contract worker who said he faced “everyday racist nicknames” at the factory in 2015 and 2016, including the “N-word.”
Owen Diaz said employees painted swastikas around the factory and left racist graffiti and drawings, and supervisors were unable to stop the abuse.
Tesla is appealing this decision and has denied any information about racist behavior that Diaz says took place at the factory, which has about 10,000 workers.
Tesla’s blog post said that “it has always disciplined and fired employees who misbehave, including those who use racial slurs or harass others.”
In recent years, Tesla has faced numerous charges of sexual harassment and racial discrimination by former workers at the Fremont factory. However, many do not reach court because Tesla requires its full-time employees to agree to private arbitration of employment-related disputes.
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