Tesla Fires Female Engineer Who Alleged Sexual Harassment (theguardian.com)

Tesla has fired a female engineer who accused the company of ignoring her complaints of sexual harassment and paying her less than her male counterparts. AJ Vandermeyden, who went public with her discrimination lawsuit against Tesla in February, was dismissed from the company this week. The Guardian reports: Vandermeyden had claimed she was taunted and catcalled by male employees and that Tesla failed to address her complaints about the harassment, unequal pay and discrimination. "It's shocking in this day and age that this is still a fight we have to have," she said at the time. In a statement to the Guardian, Tesla confirmed the company had fired Vandermeyden, saying it had thoroughly investigated the employee's allegations with the help of "a neutral, third-party expert" and concluded her complaints were unmerited. "Despite repeatedly receiving special treatment at the expense of others, Ms Vandermeyden nonetheless chose to pursue a miscarriage of justice by suing Tesla and falsely attacking our company in the press," a Tesla spokesperson said. "After we carefully considered the facts on multiple occasions and were absolutely convinced that Ms Vandermeyden's claims were illegitimate, we had no choice but to end her employment at Tesla."

Comments

Ballsy

[alvinrod]

Tessa must have some pretty damning evidence against her to fire her for this, because it does open up a legal case against them for retaliation, which their HR department and legal team are no doubt well aware. They'd have to have solid proof that she made it all up or so flagrantly lied about parts of it to be able to fire her over it without legal repercussion.

Re:Ballsy

[gweihir]

Indeed. Whenever some people are really discriminated against, you find others that are just trying to get a free ride on this. Pretty bad. The worst case is women claiming to have been raped, when nothing like that happened. It is just far too easy to do and apparently many cannot resist.

Re:Ballsy

[guruevi]

Not quite how it works, it's a civil case so the proof doesn't have to be nearly as strong and as a company you have to prove that you have the proper guidelines and training AND that you have investigated every single complaint thoroughly AND that you tried to make the situation better for the complainant.

Re:Ballsy

[Anonymous Coward]

In the US, as long as someone makes a good-faith claim of discrimination, you are legally protected against retaliation in the form of any kind of adverse job action. Firing someone would be the ultimate adverse job action, but it could be as little as giving them a verbal warning. The catch comes in that you have to file a complaint with state and or federal agencies, which are often overworked and understaffed to the point where if you don't have a smoking gun in terms of evidence, they're likely not going to do anything more than sit on your case.

In this instance, the woman skipped all that and went right to a lawsuit (which is an option). However, she's still protected against retaliation unless Tesla can show that her complaint was made in bad faith.Your claim of discrimination doesn't actually have to be proven correct to be given the protection against retaliation, it only has to be made in good-faith. Good-faith, defined in the US legal system basically amounts to you believe it to be the case, and usually have some kind of evidence to support your belief. Based on the reports, this woman definitely has some examples to support her claim, so it's on Tesla to prove that the woman knew it was not true when she made the complaint(s).

Tesla is playing an extremely dangerous game by firing the woman. Unless they have some hard proof that she made the entire thing up, her lawyer will file a retaliation suit in addition to the discrimination suit and it won't be a question of IF Tesla pays out, but HOW MUCH.

Re:Ballsy

[phantomfive]

Looks like they hired a neutral third-party to investigate. They presented some of the evidence:

The investigator had access to Tesla’s compensation data and found that Vandermeyden’s salary was in the middle of the range and while some new hires were indeed paid more than her as her lawsuit claims, the highest paid new hire was a woman and several men were paid less than her. Therefore, Hilbert determined that gender discrimination had nothing to do with her compensation.

It doesn't say why she was fired, but most companies won't say that.

Re:Ballsy

[Theaetetus]

Tessa must have some pretty damning evidence against her to fire her for this, because it does open up a legal case against them for retaliation, which their HR department and legal team are no doubt well aware. They'd have to have solid proof that she made it all up or so flagrantly lied about parts of it to be able to fire her over it without legal repercussion.

I would agree, provided they're competent. And while I have no reason to presume that Tesla's HR and legal staff are incompetent, it's a textbook case of retaliation because many, many other allegedly competent HR and legal departments have done the same thing in the past. Hell, there are law firms that have gotten in trouble for retaliation. Some people's outrage level get so high that they stop thinking rationally, and do whatever they can to destroy the person who complained.

Re:Ballsy

[Anonymous Coward]

"Despite repeatedly receiving special treatment at the expense of others, Ms Vandermeyden nonetheless chose to pursue a miscarriage of justice by suing Tesla and falsely attacking our company in the press," a Tesla spokesperson said. "After we carefully considered the facts on multiple occasions and were absolutely convinced that Ms Vandermeyden's claims were illegitimate, we had no choice but to end her employment at Tesla."

Re:Ballsy

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't say why she was fired, but most companies won't say that.

TFA does have a statement by Tesla about the reason for firing her:

“The termination was based on Ms Vandermeyden behaving in what the evidence indicates is a fundamentally false and misleading manner, not as a result of retaliation for the lawsuit,” the spokesperson added. “It is impossible to trust anyone after they have behaved in such a manner and therefore continued employment is also impossible.”

Re:Ballsy

[luis_a_espinal]

It doesn't say why she was fired, but most companies won't say that.

TFA does have a statement by Tesla about the reason for firing her:

“The termination was based on Ms Vandermeyden behaving in what the evidence indicates is a fundamentally false and misleading manner, not as a result of retaliation for the lawsuit,” the spokesperson added. “It is impossible to trust anyone after they have behaved in such a manner and therefore continued employment is also impossible.”

Yeah. Launching a lawsuit like that just to be found w/o merits by a third, neutral party, that's reason enough to fire her. Or him, or whatever. The minimal trust required to keep someone on payroll has been broken.

Bad career move from her part (and if she did it with premeditated malice and dishonesty, she just fucked a whole bunch of women who might be real victims of discrimination.)

Re:Ballsy

[Ol Olsoc]

Tesla is playing an extremely dangerous game by firing the woman. Unless they have some hard proof that she made the entire thing up, her lawyer will file a retaliation suit in addition to the discrimination suit and it won't be a question of IF Tesla pays out, but HOW MUCH.

So what you are saying is that a disruptive employee must be kept on staff based on gender?

We've been seeing cases of disruptive females losing their discrimination cases, Ellen Pao is perhaps the most prominent example.

Being a disruptive employee is not a gender specific thing, I've worked with both. The problem employee does tend to grasp at anything to continue to be disruptive, regardless of gender. Certain groups have extra claims they can make. And when you can play the gender card, you will immediately polarize the issue, with people falling into predictable positions.

We don't know the particulars of this case, so it is difficult to determine who did what. But having a third party investigate the issue was smart on Tesla's part.

Now that being said, and with the firing, I suspect that Tesla has at the least, a solid case. I would not be surprised if they refused to settle and took any resulting lawsuit to open court.

Let's take gender out of the equation, and move to a similar matter. Where I spent most of my career, there were a number of service workers. There were a small but not insignificant number of these workers that were Workman's comp/SS disability cases waiting to happen. Minor injuries - like the kind that required a band-aid and antiseptic, were trumped up by these folk as a injury so severe that they could not ever work again. I recall one person who tried to get disability for a back muscle spasm.

And yup, they were so adamant about the evil place making them work. And yup, almost all were exposed if they did manage to get disability. They keep track of work these days, and if a person is really interesting, they'll have someone tail them and take video and photos. But the point is that there are people out there who are willing to use every tool at their disposal, and the person's sex is now often used as a bludgeon.

Regardless, it will be interesting to see how this one plays out. But if the Pao case is any indication, a person playing the gender discrimination card case is not a slam dunk when a third party is investigating the issue.

Re:Ballsy

[cyberchondriac]

Indeed? Conservatives generally place blame for crime where it lies; on the criminals. They go too easy on white collar crime, but generally acknowledge victims and perpetrators for what they are and the roles they play.
Conversely, liberalism frequently defends violent criminals and twists things to instead portray them as victims, by way of absolving people of personal responsibility (what a concept), and laying blame at the feet of "society", or "Big Pharma", the NRA, "white privilege" (more recently), corporations, and the ever popular "industrial prison complex". They rally for BLM riots, justify the burning of cars, beating of objectors, and destruction of businesses; protest on behalf of Mumia Abu-Jamal, berate and stereotype law enforcement, venerate Che Guevara and Castro, and discount the growing threat of ISIS and Al Queada.
However, if the criminal can be identified (whether correctly or incorrectly) as "right wing", then all bets are off; suddenly personal responsibility is a factor again; there's blood in the water and new heights of Godwinism are achieved, though the aforementioned items might share some blame as well (usually the NRA).
Overall, in liberalism, the murderer/attacker/thief/burglar/rapist/mugger is rarely to blame for their violent, anti-social behavior. It's everything else that drove them to this. This is why since an early age I could never vote liberal, it's the pretzel logic, the disregard for actual, hurting victims and the bizarre coddling of violent sociopaths, the twisted definition of compassion and skewing of priorities, despite the fact that I agree with them on some of the other issues.

Re:Ballsy

[Ol Olsoc]

First off, Reddit didn't retaliate against Pao when she filed a lawsuit. The board didn't fire her like a week after she filed her lawsuit. Reddit followed the law and compartmentalized Ellen Pao the litigant and Ellan Pao the CEO. After she lost the case, she resigned.

Let's stop here. The lawsuit that I was speaking about was the one against Kleiner Perkins for gender discrimination This was the one in which she managed to be both discriminated against, and found it advantageous to enter in to a sexual relationship with a senior partner at Kleiner Perkins. This as we all know is a great way to bolster your credibility. Pro offered to drop her appeal of the case for 2.7 million dollars from KP.

Some of the sexual "harassment" she received was a gift of a book of Leonard Cohen poems. Apparently there was an all male dinner that was intolerable, we have to remember there has never ever been any all women dinners between workers. These are what third wage feminists call "micro-indignities". These are what regular people, men and women both, call life. Except most of us aren't having sex with senior partners. Meanwhile she was ordered to pay $276,000 of Kleiner Perkins legal fees.

That's pretty disruptive.

There was no reddit lawsuit as far as I know, but she is always up to something, some might think.

There's no good outcome here.

[Gravis Zero]

Regardless of the claims legitimacy, she was becoming increasingly hostile toward the company and thus a liability. That said, I really hope there was no discrimination here.

Re:There's no good outcome here.

[david_thornley]

Except that employers are clearly and strictly forbidden to retaliate against someone launching a non-frivolous lawsuit against them. If the woman in question has reasonable evidence (and apparently she does), the lawsuit is not frivolous, whether or not she wins.

She may have been becoming increasingly hostile against the company, but that could be because the company was becoming increasingly hostile to her. I don't know whether or not it was, but just providing a hostile environment in the face of a lawsuit is retaliation.

Entitled

[geekymachoman]

> "Despite repeatedly receiving special treatment at the expense of others, Ms Vandermeyden nonetheless chose to pursue a miscarriage of justice by suing Tesla and falsely attacking our company in the press," ...

Some of them expect special treatment even, and then bitch about it, or in this case, try to milk some money out of the company.. because .. women harassment, and "wage gap" is hip nowdays.

Plain bullshit, is what it is.

Re:Entitled

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, she sounds like the second coming of Ellen Pao. Speaking of which, I wonder what ever happened to her deadbeat ponzi scheming beard who owed exactly the amount of money she tried suing Kleiner for.

Re:Entitled

[markdavis]

+1 Bingo

Just because she says or thinks she is harassed or paid less doesn't make that true. And to make it a media circus doesn't help the situation. No doubt there are PLENTY of people who do this now just to get what they want. It is a shame because there are legit issues that need to be addressed at places that will get overlooked when things are made-up by others and found to be unjustified.

Re:Entitled

[TWX]

I've seen both in tech circles. I've seen women that were harassed, and I've seen women that got special treatment where they were good at deflecting the work that was supposed to be assigned to them to others, or faced no punitive action for severely underperforming to the point that it became obvious to outsiders.

I've also seen men that were bullied in the workplace and did not have any advancement, and men that also managed to underperform for extended periods of time. Gender doesn't really dictate this.

Frankly we're not going to ever know the particulars of this case. Basically none of us were there, and it would behoove anyone that was to not say anything unless it's part of any legal proceedings and behind closed doors, or potentially in-court. At the moment there's only a single datapoint, so there isn't enough information for us to make any real conclusions. She may well be right, and could have been the target of specific harassment that was covered-up by some element of management, or she could be making false claims. There just isn't enough information for us to conclude anything.

Re:Entitled

[deek]

That's very true, but from the actions taken, we can conclude that Tesla are very confident that they're on solid ground here. Hence the chances of her being the type to game the system are pretty high. Not conclusive, certainly, but still quite high.

Re:Entitled

[R3d M3rcury]

Just because she says or thinks she is harassed [...] doesn't make that true.

Actually, I'm not so sure about that.

Years ago, I went through "Sexual Harassment Training" (No, it wasn't what you think). And, as the lawyer basically said, there are really no guidelines in the law for what is and isn't sexual harassment. What the courts have pretty much done is said that, "If you think you were harassed, you were." The defense usually boils down to whether or not you communicated your feelings to the company and whether or not the company acted appropriately. There's no "That's not sexual harassment" defense.

This is why we have things like "harassing environments" and people not being allowed to have a picture of their wife in a bikini on their desk.

Re:Duh

[HornWumpus]

Hint: Search Youtube for 'Fred Garvin male prostitute'

The lawsuit

[Areyoukiddingme]

We might actually get to hear all the nitty gritty details on this one, rather than the usual handful of accusations in the press followed by the company settling the lawsuit with a gag clause. If Tesla's lawyers think they're on firm enough ground to fire her after she filed suit, they must also think they're on extremely firm ground regarding the suit itself, in which case they should fight it out to a conclusion. Which is damn rare. We're going to get an unusually detailed look at the HR practices of a billion dollar company. Should be fascinating.

I wonder what the market will think of it tomorrow... Their stock hit a new 52 week high today of $344.88. Which happens to also be an all-time high. The previous high was $342.89.

Re:The lawsuit

[Areyoukiddingme]

Tesla has yet to turn a profit, claiming growth - yet every other firm manages to grow while it is profitable. Tesla has significant governance issues, so it isn't being managed well at all.

Firms which are profitable while growing are typically growing at single digit percentages per year, while not being in one of the most capital intensive industries in the world. Did you know there's a battery factory in Nevada now? It was empty desert a few years ago. Do you think that was free? Or even cheap? They spent half a billion dollars on capital expenditures in the fourth quarter of 2016 alone, then did it again in the first quarter of this year. They expect to spend an additional $1.5 billion on capital expenditures by September. The incumbent car companies thought they were completely safe from new competition because they knew how much money somebody would have to spend in order to actually compete with them. They believed that everybody was just like you, too cowardly to spend that money in order to build factories. Turns out they were wrong, just like you.

I read your links. They're both a year old, and almost totally obsolete. The SolarCity buy is a done deal. There is no SolarCity anymore. It's all Tesla now. I'm not so sure it was a good purchase, but all "will they/should they" analysis is irrelevant. They did. Meanwhile they made $2.7 billion in GAAP revenue in the first quarter of this year, up almost triple what they made a year ago. They did it by producing cars 64% faster than they did a year ago. And that's with zero ZEV sales in the quarter. Nobody has to buy the zero emissions credits from them anymore. The whining about the board of directors is nothing more than a naked attempt at a power grab. I consider Tesla's ability to tell the usual suspects to go to hell a serious strength, not a weakness. Those people only know how to fuck up old companies by gutting them, not grow new ones.

Badly managed? Not even close. You just don't have any idea how to evaluate them because what they're doing hasn't been done in your lifetime. They're spinning up a global car company from scratch. Fifteen years ago they didn't exist. Of the top 15 car companies in the world (by manufacturing volume), 7 of them are over a century old and 2 of them aren't global (neither SAIC nor Peugeot Citreon sell into the US market). None of them were founded less than 40 years ago. Groupe PSA, formerly Peugeot Citreon, is the youngest, founded in 1976. The rest date from the 1940s or earlier. Two of them, Fiat and Renault, date from the 1800s. When Tesla is a century old, maybe you'll be able to understand them.

Tesla Motors isn't one of the top 15 in the world and may never be, but they're competing directly with those top 15. That's expensive. Really expensive.

I can't deny that markets are delusional though...

Re:Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Hiring quotas result in employees that take their jobs for granted, don't produce, and cause trouble....and they get away with it because the company can't fire them due to the quota.

It IS true that some places tolerate harassment and pay women unfairly. It is ALSO true that some women make these accusations when they aren't true, to get EVEN MORE pay and EVEN MORE special treatment. Abuses exist on both sides, and so we should not try to fix them with a one-sided solution.

Engineer?

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.linkedin.com/in/aj-vandermeyden-89a90163

Some how she is an MRI aide then a sale rep then without any gap in work she becomes an engineer, I guess she could have gone into sales straight from engineering school but this seems unlikely. Can we please stop calling everyone who works in the Bay area and engineer. Are the homeless there street engineers?

Re:Engineer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Found more:

https://electrek.co/2017/02/28/tesla-allegations-discrimination-female-engineer-review/

This is why

[slashmydots]

This is why you don't hire SJW feminist snowflakes.

I couldn't help but notice...

[hyades1]

...Vandermeyden's attorney is Therese Lawless.

Trust deterioration.

[DrYak]

Whenever some people are really discriminated against, you find others that are just trying to get a free ride on this. Pretty bad.

The free rider are pretty bad indeed. Even more so, because they contribute to reduce the trust in actual victims.

The couple of stupid women claiming "rape" just to get some money, will make it all more difficult for all the *actual real* rape victims out-there to speak, because the victims will fear they won't be believed.

It's a sort of Girl who cried wolf, except that the consequences of "excessive wolf-crying" will fall on someone else.

Re:Trust deterioration.

[gweihir]

Just my thought. Unfortunately, the truth is often not easy to find here. That makes it easier for the scum that makes false claims and far, far harder for the real victims that already have to struggle with what was done to them. Apparently, there are countries in Europe where the police does not follow-up on more than half of the rape complaints because they have absolutely no credibility. It seems to be quite common in child custody cases as well and the criminals (yes, criminals) that make these false claims usually get away with it without being punished because the police just does not investigate obviously bogus claims, apparently to not make it even harder for real victims. While I can understand that, this encourages false claims even more.

Personally, I think making a false claim of rape is about on the same moral level as raping somebody. I think that if proven beyond a doubt, people doing this should go away for the same time that a rapist does.

Promote as an engineer WITHOUT a degree

[Anonymous Coward]

“Tesla is committed to creating a positive workplace environment that is free of discrimination for all our employees. Ms. Vandermeyden joined Tesla in a sales position in 2013, and since then, despite having no formal engineering degree, she has sought and moved into successive engineering roles, beginning with her work in Tesla’s paint shop and eventually another role in General Assembly. Even after she made her complaints of alleged discrimination, she sought and was advanced into at least one other new role, evidence of the fact that Tesla is committed to rewarding hard work and talent, regardless of background. When Ms. Vandermeyden first brought her concerns to us over a year ago, we immediately retained a neutral third party, Anne Hilbert of EMC2Law, to investigate her claims so that, if warranted, we could take appropriate action to address the issues she raised. After an exhaustive review of the facts, the independent investigator determined that Ms. Vandermeyden’s “claims of gender discrimination, harassment, and retaliation have not been substantiated.” Without this context, the story presented in the original article is misleading.”

Re:Promote as an engineer WITHOUT a degree

[PPH]

Time to repeal the states' industrial exemptions for engineering licensing.

Amazon

[mykepredko]

For the most part I agree with you regarding markets, but I should point out that for years Amazon didn't make any money, Mr. Bezos put out a ton of promises and ... Look at where they are now. Maybe they're the exception that proves the rule.

Tesla might not be making any money right now, but I would think it's a pretty safe bet to invest in long term.

Re:Amazon

[queazocotal]

It was a pretty safe bet to invest in tesla, when their stock price was, and a reasonable premium over a 'normal' company might not be unreasonable.
But - a market cap over Ford, ...

There are some sane reasons that this might be still a good investment.
Tesla is planning to have their autopilot in a state that it can do driveway to driveway from one coast to the other by the end of the year.
At this point, there will be some tens of thousands of autopilot-hardware-capable vehicles on the road.
It could be that they can get autodrive rolled out and working properly before any competitor.
Which could have obvious benefits.
Autopilot in a $30K car somewhat kills other vendors which might have tried to launch it only at a superpremium price point.

Re:Fuck yeah

[bytesex]

I know it's not a popular opinion in this day and age, but cat-calling is also just banter. Take it in stride.

Re:Fuck yeah

[thegarbz]

Actually I don't think I've ever seen a cat-caller who had power in their favour.

Re:Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

You get paid what you negotiate for when you get hired. Want more? Ask for more at the start.

If you are an engineer that agreed to $90k a year and I'm an engineer that held out for $125k a year (numbers are for illustration, I have no idea what she makes), and the company decided they needed us both, that isn't discrimination.

If you accepted $90k a year and were asked to take over the job I was doing, same job as you by your own admission, why should the company raise your salary?
You're doing the same work that you agreed to do when you were hired and accepted $90k.

Most companies have an across the board merit increase pool each year, 3-5% seems most common, so you and the guy next to you likely both go up the same percentage unless you either get promoted or do an above and beyond job.

Now if you requested $125k and I requested $125k and they said yes to me and no to you, but our backgrounds were equivalent, then maybe you have a case

Re:Fuck yeah

[parkinglot777]

I also don't believe that she was being harassed or catcalled after seeing a picture of her.

I'm not sure that the harassment was specifically on her according to what she told TG back in February. Who knows?

Vandermeyden recounted to the Guardian an incident in 2015 when she said a group of roughly 20 men standing on a platform above her and a female colleague began taunting as they walked past.

Though, why did she expect that the company would keep her when she was actually damaging the company's image whether or not it is true. Companies are always companies; especially when they are big (e.g. corporation)...

Vandermeyden recently took out a hefty loan to buy the cheapest version of the Model S Tesla car and has a reservation for the upcoming Model 3. She is hopeful her lawsuit and public comments won’t end her career at a company she loves: "I think they’re a revolutionary and innovative company."

Its a toss-up

[JustNiz]

I don't know which I find most likely:

1) That a Californian feminist would get self-righteously offended at anything/everything and conveniently mislabel it all as sexual harassment.

2) That Elon Musk is screwing his own workers as hard as he can.

I mean there are already plenty of real-world examples of both.

Re:Duh

[Frobnicator]

Yes, at will employment (which is the default in every US state, unless the employee signs away the rights) means both sides can end at any time; employers can fire at any time for "any reason or for no reason". Employees can also quit at any time for "any reason" or "no reason". Laws and lawyers are tricky in the details. The "any reason" and "no reason" actually have some limits that make it illegal. The law allows for several reasons which people cannot be fired.

Even if the company gives a totally different reason or gives no reason, people cannot be fired based on several factors:

• * Discrimination of various protected classes. This is by far the most common. If a mass layoff had an unexpectedly high percentage of a protected group they could probably convince a judge it was discriminatory. On the individual scale, a job termination of an individual due to discrimination like pregnancy or childbirth, or a person becoming too old and slowing down at work, or becoming disabled, etc, are also subject to discrimination protections. (Unprotected classes can generally be used for discrimination so things like physical appearance and body weight, political views, and credit history, although some states are slowly adding protected classes.)
• * Retaliation for lawsuits. It is unfortunately rather common. Federal laws make this an illegal firing, even if the claims fail in the courts. A person has the legal right to sue their employer if they suspect wrongdoing. Retaliation rules strongly favor employees and they don't require intent; for example if there is a harassment claim so the person being harassed gets moved from day shift to night shift because that's what the company thinks is the best way to separate the two, if the harassed person doesn't want to work night shift that is retaliation against the employee and can result in enormous fines and penalties against the company. This is the reason Tesla is going to lose this fight and pay a huge settlement. Their public press releases keep stating it was because of the lawsuit. The one in the article stated "After we carefully considered the facts on multiple occasions and were absolutely convinced that Ms Vandermeyden’s claims were illegitimate, we had no choice but to end her employment at Tesla." That action is absolutely forbidden under federal law. If the PR person talked with the company lawyers first they probably would not have said it.
• * Similarly, complaining and reporting about safety violations and OSHA requirements are an illegal reason to fire people. The right to a safe workplace is legally guaranteed.
• * No firing for employees refusing to commit an illegal act, such as refusing to lie to the police/courts to protect the company, refusing to commit fraud, refusing to intentionally harm someone, etc. Just like contracts, you cannot hire someone to break the law for you, no murder contracts, robbery contracts, prostitution contracts, etc.
• * No firing for the person exercising legal rights and responsibilities. Employers MUST allow a person time to vote on election day, they MUST allow for medical leave, they MUST allow for jury duty, they MUST allow for someone with a summons to court. Most employers follow these, but when a company says a worker must to choose between jury duty and their jobs, or choose between going to the hospital or their jobs, government agencies are quick to intervene and the courts show no mercy to those companies. In some states this is extremely severe, a few states like New York if a company actively prevents even a single worker from voting the company can lose their business license in the state.
• * No firing for a person called to military service, allowing for up to five years of absence from the company. It is surprising to many companies, but someone may come back from service in Iraq or Afghanistan after several years and their job must be restored.
• * Refusal to take a lie detector test, except for certain government jobs. Science proved

Workplace ethics

[Anonymous Coward]

In the USA, it's been my experience in the workplace that males are generally VERY careful about what they say in the presence of females, to the point that males prefer to remain silent in their presence.

Re:Duh

[CylanR77]

If a man negotiates poorly with respect to his peers and consequently gets paid less than them, is he being discriminated against?

If it's not discrimination for him, why is it discrimination when this scenario plays out with a woman in the role?

Re:Fuck yeah

[Frobnicator]

Oops. She chose poorly. The even bigger issue is that she is now toxic. If she loses her case, it'll be a very hard sell to get hired again a la Ellen Pao.

Possibly, or maybe not. Certainly being in the news makes her name show up on searches, but that doesn't necessarily kill her career, especially if the courts agree with her on one or both lawsuits. And based on what both sides have publicly released so far, she has incredibly strong lawsuits.

The earlier harassment filings have some paper trails within the company. Under the law there are a few things that need to be satisfied, but the biggest is a clear communication that the actions are unwanted. Since she made sure there was a documented history, that will be very hard to fight if they actually reach the court. Yes, the company is in the process of putting her and her family through the wringer for that, but she did the absolute best thing she could: She left a paper trail with HR at the company, and she collected a ton of evidence while she was there.

The company then did what companies do. Even though they aren't supposed to fire in retaliation, they will make up other excuses and make the employee miserable. Bonuses were denied (and documented), she was not paid for overtime (which were documented as violating company policy) denied rest breaks and meal times. Then she was told her performance was unacceptably bad, a common tactic to get rid of employees companies don't like but can't readily fire. Still, she didn't leave.

But then the company finished it off and fired her. Unfortunately for Tesla, they opened their big mouth and made press statements.

The unlawful firing aspect has become an open-and-shut case thanks to Tesla's PR department. The press releases and spokespeople have clearly stated to multiple news outlets that they reviewed the complaints for the pending lawsuit, claimed they have no merit, and that was the reason they fired her. Not poor performance, not policy violations, but because the company didn't want to be sued for the alleged violations. The quote to The Guardian is right there in the story: "After we carefully considered the facts on multiple occasions and were absolutely convinced that Ms Vandermeyden's claims were illegitimate, we had no choice but to end her employment at Tesla." Under both federal law and California law, that action is illegal. I'm guessing the company's legal team is furious at the PR team right now, but it is out there in many public statements.

So at this point it doesn't matter if her harassment lawsuit is dismissed or not, that is irrelevant for unlawful firing. With the collection of public statements, there is no way any judge would find against her, Tesla's media statements are a textbook definition of an illegal retaliation.

Doubtless some companies won't hire her because she filed lawsuits, but if in the end the judge says she was right, or if they reach a settlement where Tesla is seen as losing, most employers won't care. It changes from being a troublemaker to someone who will stand up to bullies, which can be an asset in management, at least in smarter companies.