On Thursday, fifteen black former or present Tesla employees filed a complaint against the electric vehicle manufacturer, claiming they were the targets of racist abuse and harassment at its manufacturing.
According to the lawsuit filed in a California state court, the employees claimed they were often the target of inappropriate racial remarks and behavior by coworkers, supervisors, and human resources personnel.
The lawsuit added that the automaker’s “standard operating procedures include blatant, open and unmitigated race discrimination.” The harassment, which mostly took place at Tesla’s Fremont, California, factory, included using the n-word and terms like “slavery” or “plantation” as well as making sexual remarks like “likes booty.”
According to the complaint, Teri Mitchell, one of the plaintiffs, was often harassed by coworkers and management who used racial slurs and said things such as, “Black people seldom work here. How long you will be permitted to stay here is unknown to me.”
Nathaniel Aziel Gonsalves, another plaintiff, detailed supervisory harassment. The complaint stated that the supervisor labelled Gonsalves a “zebra” because he was “neither black nor white” and that he “wasn’t like most Black people” and “didn’t behave ghetto.”
According to the complaint, some of the plaintiffs were denied promotions or given jobs that required the most physical labor at Tesla.
It claimed that after taking an authorised leave of absence due to hiring Covid-19, Montieco Justice, a manufacturing associate at Tesla’s Fremont facility, was promptly demoted upon returning to Tesla.
Reuters’ inquiries for comment on Tesla on Thursday and Friday were not answered.
At least ten lawsuits have been filed against the carmaker, including one from the California state civil rights office, alleging rampant sexual harassment and racial discrimination.
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