Slashdot Mirror
Tesla Faces Lawsuit For Racial Harassment In Its Factories (mercurynews.com)
Three former Tesla factory workers have filed a lawsuit against the company, claiming they were subject to constant racial discrimination and harassment in the electric car company's factories. "The men, who are African-American, claim in a new complaint filed Monday in state court that Tesla supervisors and workers used racial epithets and drew racist graffiti on cardboard boxes," reports The Mercury News. From the report: The new suit is the second by black employees charging Tesla failed to address racial antagonism at its factory. The electric vehicle maker also has a hearing before the National Labor Relations Board over claims it illegally tried to silence workers promoting a union. The complaints come as the Tesla heads into a crucial ramp-up of Model 3 production, its lower-cost electric vehicle. A Tesla spokesman denied the suit's allegations and said the men never raised the complaints to the company during their brief time at the plant. "Given our size, we recognize that unfortunately at times there will be cases of harassment or discrimination in corners of the company," the spokesman said. "From what we know so far, this does not seem to be such a case." The suit, filed in Alameda County Superior Court, claims Owen Diaz and his son, Demetric, were called the N-word while they worked at the Fremont factory, and supervisors did little to stop it. A third man, Lamar Patterson, also claims he was subjected to insensitive racist remarks.
In present times, being subjected to racial epithets is totally unacceptable. The fact that Tesla did little or nothing to address or curb this behavior is astounding so they will have to pay the piper for what they failed to do. Tesla assumes the ultimate responsibility for making its employees conform with a code of conduct that prevents discrimination in the workplace and did not do so. It is a shame that we live in times where people on the far right and hate groups are becoming emboldened because of the poor example our country's leadership is setting. I hate bringing politics into this, but leadership that encourages hatred emboldens subordinate people who might already feel they have an axe to grind against minorities.
And when are the political narratives constantly being pushed now on this site going to end? I thought this was a tech site.
Elon Musk is a hypocrite. He claims to support the good of the workers, advocating for ideas like universal basic income. However, Tesla is suppressing the formation of unions that would represent the workers and ensure their rights are respected. And now Tesla is alleged to have allowed racial harassment to have occurred in its factories. Musk doesn't truly care about the good of workers. He's grandstanding because doing so presents a favorable image of himself that helps boost sales. He doesn't actually want to take any action to protect his own workers by allowing them to unionize or even eliminating ethnic slurs in his factories. Musk should be exposed for the hypocrite that he is.
Musk is South African and white South Africans love their racism.
Wouldn't it have been easier to be racist by NOT hiring minorities than to have to train them to do a skilled job & also train their supervisors to treat them badly?
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
>"Musk is South African and white South Africans love their racism."
That is a completely unfair statement on many levels. In fact, it probably, itself, is a racist statement.
For example, to claim that all or even most European Americans are racist is a racist statement (it is hatred and slander based on race generalization). It is also fact that all races have within them, people are are racist (and the number will vary wildly depending on how you define "racist" and who you put into groups, and geographical area, and sociology-economic status, and a zillion other factors).
This whole ordeal is likely to be a stunt by the unions; but without actual facts, ANYTHING is speculation. But throwing out such accusations about Musk and certainly about all South Africans of European decent is intolerable.
What are you even talking about?
I tried to read the article. Couldn't get past the site loading ads. So all I know is three people had a complaint but failed to mention it while they were on the job and now they want some legal remedy.
There is no way the CEO or anyone who wasn't at the factory every day would even know about this. Blaming them is just stupid. And contrary to what many seem to believe, a CEO or even a POTUS can't just instantly impose his values on every one in the organization. Managers and employees with inappropriate behavior can only be identified by complaints and only then can action be taken - to give them a chance to improve or just fire them depending on the situation.
And those consequences need time to circulate so that everyone will learn what is expected of them and what happens if they act differently than that. Blaming the company or CEO is only reasonable if they have repeatedly failed to act on complaints or are actually encouraging the illegal behavior.
This makes no sense, Tawana Brawley et al?
Wouldn't it make sense that the middle managers being racist weren't evolved in the hiring process?
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
It suffice that the lower management is complicit and do not carry the information up (which seem to be the case here). After all discipline is often seen as the lower level management job, herd the cats, while the middle management often see themselves as the planner strategist and not responsible for discipline - from my own experience - and the staff has relatively few bar no contact with middle/high level management. If the lower management stops your complaint.... Then the higher echelon never get a word of it if you follow procedure, or you look like a maverick disturbing their peace if you spring an echelon or two.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
The Dems DO spend a ridiculous amount of time talking about race...
Yeah yeah dems pubs partisan blah blah, but no not all things are equal Whatever the dems have done[*] the Republican party have a much worse record on race. This whole "both sides are equal no matter what" attitude has pretty much poisoned all rational discourse. Not being American, I don't really have a horse in that race except that hyper-partisan political discourse is the cause of far too many problems.
TL;DR stop drawing false equivalences.
[*]Yes the parties entirely swapped a while back. That's irrelevant now.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
If there has been a formal complaint that got ignored, there'd be a pretty clear case.
From TFA:
Demetric Diaz complained about the regular use of epithets to the staffing agency and another supervisor, the suit said. The supervisor told him he was just a replaceable temporary worker. Diaz was dismissed less than a week later in October 2015.
Owen Diaz continued to work as an elevator operator. But over time, the suit claimed, the harassment grew worse. A co-worker regularly used the N-word. Diaz found an offensive “pickaninny” cartoon with the caption “Boo!” drawn on a bale of cardboard.
Owen Diaz also got into a heated argument with the supervisor who drew the cartoon, the suit said. He complained about the incident, and started to receive poor work evaluations. Diaz left Tesla around May 2016.
I'm not sure what you definition is of a "formal" complaint, but the employees own stories indicate that supervisors were aware of the harassment, and even took part in it. This despite the complaints to other supervisors and the employment agency.
Missing in all of this is Tesla's policy for reporting such behavior in a way that it does not jeopardize the reporter's position in the company. Anyone care to share that?
Even so, it seems implausible that nobody in middle management or upwards knew this was going on.
I remember when this kind of shit happened to my father and I when we worked at a factory in Burbank (when I was working to make ends meet while trying to get into college). The snarks, the racial remarks, the shit thrown to your face from afar, but no one knew who, the offensive pieces of papers left in the assembly lines for us to pick.
In the case of Tesla, if supervisors were aware of it, and if employers actually complained directly to them, multiple times, that's all the "formality" needed.
Though I predict quite a few assholes (here and elsewhere) will twist the conversation into something else, that nothing was formally filed, fake news or whatever.
People are so fucking invested in their Andy Griffit/Mayberry identity that will do anything to cast doubt to any allegations of racial wrong doing. Everything is fined, we moved on a long time ago, and so and so on.
ntr
the Republican party have a much worse record on race.
Yeah, those pesky Republicans who ended slavery in the United States, and then proceeded to massively outvote Democrats on the Civil Rights act of 1964.
Yeah, much worse record... Like do you people ever do any research or do you just regurgitate media talking points ?
Not being American
Oh nvm, just an uneducated twit with no knowledge of what he speaks of.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
i got harassed by a little black shit not too long ago, thinking he can do all that simply cos he's black and too young to be responsible i hadnt used your favourite word as an insult in over 30 years, now im all game again good thing it wasnt the muslims huh fuck that shit, where's MY rights, a bit more and i'm gonna move to america and vote for trump next time
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
I had my friend help me hack my ex’s email cause i suspected he was cheating. all he asked for was his phone number. Contact him now, his email is hacksolution7 AT gmail dot com..IF u need help tell him i referred you to him and he’ll help. at first i did not give much thought, but my mind was still bothered .so i decided to contact the hacksolution7 AT gmail dot com to help catch my cheating spouse,he delivered as was promised he is really a genius,he also does P.I jobs, clears your record, passwords,I love him and his work. you should try it. Good luck.bbb
I've worked on the line for 7 months with a quarter of the people being black and more than half of the people being commuters from Oakland. Where is this racism? I doubt their story and I'm disgusted by the people in the comment section acting like their opinions on the state of things matter.
Wouldn't it make sense that the middle managers being racist weren't evolved in the hiring process?
So racist South Africans use HR people to hire minorities they despise & also racist middle managers to abuse them?
Who's hiring the racist HR people?
I'd love to hear how those various job interviews go. Do you think "kaffir-lover" is ever mentioned during the hiring process?
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Get a brain moran, and read the entire post including the footnote you so carefully snipped.
Anyway you've certainly proven you're partisan.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
How is it not possible to you that lower tier management has members that happen to end to up being racist but the upper tier that does the hiring isnt? It's not as if there's a fool proof interview question like, "are you racists. No? Oh good, you're hired then!". Lower tier management is where you figure out who works for future management and who doesnt. You seem to have a real disconnect with reality in regards to how general employment works.
Also, it's great you have a great big racist boogy-man like South Africa to bring out but that has nothing to do with the conversation.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
"Also, it's great you have a great big racist boogy-man like South Africa to bring out but that has nothing to do with the conversation"
Where did you fail reading comprehension?
Go look at the title of the comment that started this thread
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
So if South Africa is what we've been talking about then you're agreeing that "White South African" equals "racist"?
I was pretty much just ignoring dumb bigoted claims and addressing your point about management.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.