Black employees routinely faced racial slurs, including variations of the n-word, at the Fremont site, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), and graffiti depicting nooses, swastikas and more were casually drawn across the facility’s public spaces. Tesla did not immediately respond to request for comment.
Tesla workers faced slurs, racist graffiti and retaliation, federal suit says
Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company Tesla allowed racial harassment of its Black employees to run rampant at its Fremont, Calif., plant and retaliated against some workers who complained, the federal agency charged with enforcing civil rights laws alleged in a lawsuit Thursday.
According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, since at least 2015, Black employees at the Fremont facility “have routinely endured racial abuse, pervasive stereotyping, and hostility as well as epithets such as variations of the N-word, ‘monkey,’ ‘boy,’ and ‘black b—-.’”
The agency added that employees who objected to the hostility were terminated, transferred or had their job duties changed.
“Every employee deserves to have their civil rights respected, and no worker should endure the kind of shameful racial bigotry our investigation revealed,” EEOC Chair Charlotte Burrows said in a statement.
Tesla’s Fremont site is the company’s first manufacturing facility, and where it continues to produce the company’s Model S, Model 3, Model X and Model Y. Tesla has since grown to include facilities in Nevada, Texas, New York, Shanghai and Berlin.
“When you let a standard slip, you’ve set a new standard. Determining that prolific racial slurs do not merit serious discipline and failing to correct harassing conduct sends an entirely wrong message to employees,” EEOC San Francisco District Office Director Nancy Sienko said. “It also violates an employer’s legal responsibility to act swiftly and effectively to stop race-based harassment.”