Tesla Faces Claims of Racism in NYT Report
A New York Times report published on Friday features claims by African-American workers at Tesla’s Fremont, California plant that they were racially harassed.
The Times pieces together a combination of interviews, internal communications, and sworn legal statements from over two dozen current or former Tesla workers. Alleged incidents listed in the reporting include a crude, racist drawing; the use of racial slurs; the drawing of swastikas; and African-American employees being assigned to menial tasks due to their race.
Tesla, of course, denies that there is any pattern of racial harassment while acknowledging to the Times that in a large plant there may be a few bad apples.
The Times piece is a long read, and Tesla claims several of the complainants had performance issues. The claimants dispute this.
A lawsuit filed last year accusing the company of racial discrimination and harassment is seeking class-action status. That suit was filed in California Superior Court. Tesla is seeking to get that case placed in arbitration, where workers would have to file individually instead of with joint claims.
California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing has issued 10 “right to sue” letters. These letters are a prerequisite for a discrimination lawsuit, and the department says each is for an employee complaining of racial bias. There are dozens of other complaints pending against the company, according to the department, but it would not tell the NYT how many involved race.
One complainant declined a settlement offer. This employee even sent cell-phone video to management as evidence.
Other African-American employees, mostly in managerial roles, said their experiences at Tesla were much more positive.
Whether there’s a pervasive culture of racism at Tesla, or these incidents are outliers (if true), it seems we’ll know more in the coming days as legal filings occur and documents become available via public records or media leaks.
The only thing that’s clear is that Tesla can’t avoid the spotlight.
Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.
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What's the CEOs thoughts, he is an African American after all.
Last year my wife's uncle almost got into a big mess at the factory where he worked because a very unpleasant and lazy (african american) coworker accused him of threatening him with racial slurs and violence after the two of them got into an argument on the line. If it weren't for several other coworkers that were right there and called the guy's bluff to management, the uncle probably would have gotten let go. HR refused to in turn fire that guy, it would have been too messy and in all likelihood they would have gotten sued on grounds of discrimination. Instead they just let the guy accumulate enough missed days and tardiness to let him go on those grounds a month or two later. A pretty sad state of affairs.