Tesla Is Being Sued For Racial Discrimination And Harassment

EV maker Tesla is being sued for racial discrimination in the wake of widespread harassment of Black workers at the company's manufacturing plant in Fermont near San Fransisco.

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New Delhi: EV maker Tesla is being sued for racial discrimination in the wake of widespread harassment of Black workers at the company's manufacturing plant in Fermont near San Fransisco. The Elon Musk-owned EV maker said that the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) is filing a lawsuit against it over alleged systematic racial discrimination and harassment.

The lawsuit, according to Tesla, appears focused on alleged misconduct by production associates at the Fremont factory that took place between 2015 and 2019. "This follows a three-year investigation during which the DFEH -- whose mission is supposedly to protect workers -- has never once raised any concern about current workplace practices at Tesla," the company said in a statement.

According to media reports, Tesla's request to provide it with the specific allegations or the factual bases for its lawsuit was declined by the DFEH. The DFEH has also said that one Black worker had apparently heard racial slurs as often as 50 to 100 times a day. Some who complained about the offensive language said supervisors and managers were active participants in the abuse or witnesses to it, according to a report by Fortune.

"Tesla has always disciplined and terminated employees who engage in misconduct, including those who use racial slurs or harass others in different ways. We recently rolled out an additional training program that reinforces Tesla’s requirement that all employees must treat each other with respect and reminds employees about the numerous ways they can report concerns, including anonymously," the company added.

The EV maker has mentioned that once the DFEH files the lawsuit, it will be asking the court to pause the case and take other steps to ensure that facts and evidence will be heard. Tesla is already fighting a series of suits over allegations of sexual harassment and racial discrimination.