On Wednesday, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) filed a suit against Tesla inc. The lawsuit alleged that the electric vehicle maker had issues of racial discrimination and harassment at its manufacturing plant in Fremont, California. The lawsuit was filed, late on Wednesday, in state court.
The agency in California has received “hundreds of complaints from workers.” In a statement the agency director Kevin Kish said that they had investigated the complaints and had found that the Fremont factory was a “segregated workplace” where “black workers” faced “racial slurs” and were also “discriminated against in job assignments, pay and promotion.” It also described the plant as a “hostile work environment,” according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
The DHEF suit gains prominence as the agency will be able to follow up on claims that were made by many workers who had agreed not to sue the EV maker in court or to be a part of class action suits against Tesla. The agency’s case will most likely cover many more employees as it is not bound by the agreements that were made by the plant’s workers.
Many Tesla workers had signed agreements that they would not bring legal claims against the company. Instead, they would allow their claims to be settled by arbitration, within the company.
According to a report in Reuters, Laurence Organ, who is a lawyer for a lawsuit by Diaz against Tesla and a plaintiff in the class action suit against the EV maker, said that Tesla had stripped away the “constitutional rights” of its employees who had signed the “arbitration clause.” He called it a “great day” for those workers as they would “get their day in court.”
Tesla has already been sued by at least four employees for race discrimination. It is also appealing against a jury award of $137 million that was given to a former employee of the Fremont factory, who is Black. The award was made in October.
Tesla has not responded when asked for comment by several news outlets, on the recent lawsuit. Earlier it has said that it has implemented several policies, in the past few years, to prevent racist conduct. It also said that it had punitive measures when such conduct took place.
