Tesla Sued by California Agency Alleging Racial Discrimination – A California agency tasked with implementing the state’s civil rights laws has reportedly filed a lawsuit against Tesla, asserting ethnic discrimination and harassment that happened at the electric carmaker.
The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing said it filed the complaint Wednesday in Alameda County Superior Court.
Tesla Sued by California Agency Alleging Racial Discrimination
After receiving hundreds of complaints from workers, DFEH found evidence that Tesla’s Fremont factory is a racially isolated workshop where Black workers are endangered to racial insults and discriminated against in job assignments, discipline, pay, and promotion creating an intimidating work environment,” Kevin Kish, the agency’s director, said in a statement to The Wall Street Journal.
Tesla did not respond to a request for comment but disapproved the agency’s investigation in a blog post Wednesday.
“Tesla strongly compete with all forms of discrimination and harassment and has a devoted Employee Relations team that responds to and investigates all complaints,” Tesla said in the post.
Tesla’s Remark
Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk announced plans in October to move the company’s corporate headquarters from California to Texas. But also said it would continue to enlarge its activities in California.
That same month, Tesla was ordered to pay almost $137 million for compensations in a lawsuit that supposed a Black former employee was subjected to racist abuse, discrimination and harassment at the company’s Fremont facility.
Silicon Valley has been a recurrent target of the DFEH’s scrutiny in recent years. In a lawsuit last July, the agency accused gaming giant Activision Blizzard of discriminating against women and fomenting a toxic work culture. Microsoft, which announced in January it would purchase the game-maker for nearly $69 billion in cash, has sworn to change Activision’s culture.
Verdict
A month earlier, games developer Riot Games agreed to pay more than $100 million to settle down a 2018 gender discrimination and sexual harassment lawsuit filed by the agency.
The Department of Fair Employment and Housing didn’t retort to a request for comment.
