Tesla Hit With Another Lawsuit, This Time Alleging Anti-LGBT Harassment (theverge.com)

Earlier this week, Tesla was hit with a lawsuit for racial harassment in its factories. Now, a newer lawsuit has been filed against the company alleging anti-LGBT harassment. An anonymous reader shares a report from The Verge: A former employee at Tesla's Fremont factory filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against the electric carmaker, alleging he was fired in retaliation after seeking protection from anti-gay harassment, The Guardian reported today. The defendant, an assembly line worker named Jorge Ferro, claims he was taunted for being gay and threatened with violence. "Watch your back," one supervisor told him after mocking his "gay tight" clothing, the paper said. After complaining to an HR representative, Ferro was repeatedly moved to different assembly lines, but the harassment didn't stop. Ultimately, HR told him there was "no place for handicapped people at Tesla" after noticing an old scar on his wrist, according to The Guardian. He was sent home, and eventually terminated. In a strongly worded statement to the paper, Tesla denied the allegations and defended itself against the charges. "There is no company on earth with a better track record than Tesla," a spokesperson said.

Comments

You know...

[Kierthos]

If the company HR was stupid enough to fire him because he was "handicapped", that's a different lawsuit entirely.

Mmmm Hmmmm.

[Jahoda]

So, the assertion here is that the HR department of _tesla_ told him that there was no room for disabled people at the company. If you're going to lie, try and make it plausible.

Re:Mmmm Hmmmm.

[jedidiah]

Yeah. That one just doesn't make any sense. You can induce a panic attack in an HR professional just by saying those three letters (ADA).

Although it makes for a nice juicy pleading. Suspiciously so in fact.

Re:Mmmm Hmmmm.

[AmiMoJo]

The Guardian has more detail:

The harassment didnâ(TM)t stop after he reported it to a manager, and days after he made a second complaint, Ferro was punished, according to his account. An HR representative took away Ferroâ(TM)s badge, claiming that he had an âoeinjuryâ that prevented him from working and saying thereâ(TM)s âoeno place for handicapped people at Teslaâ, he alleged.

So maybe the HR person said that, it will probably be impossible to prove, but if he was fired for having an injury (presumably on the grounds that it prevented him from doing his job) they are still quite likely to be in serious trouble. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a copy of the lawsuit available anywhere.

We should find out if this has merit pretty quickly because if there is no evidence it will get dismissed.

no place for handicapped people is not just a law

[Joe_Dragon]

no place for handicapped people is not just a law suit that is a labor law issue as well.

Re:Payback

[Anonymous Coward]

A succesfull business that haemorrhages money and has yet to deliver something on schedule for the first time?

The problem here is that Tesla is a toxic workplace due to incompetent management and sophomoric leadership that is only driven by stock valueation and the ego of its CEO.

Re:News for whom?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the editors love peddling social justice outrage.

Could be a scam... or not.

[WheezyJoe]

On the one hand, if these allegations are true, heads should damn roll.

On the other, Tesla is a great target for a he-said-he-said lawsuit. High profile, lots of cash, great timing right before the make-or-break moment where they have to make good on their affordable cars before GM and the other old guys power into the market.

Tesla's got to be a pressure-cooker company right now to get that production up. But if floor management is creating problems like this, there's a huge incentive to for senior management to give a beat-down to the floor managers. No workers, no Tesla 3's, no Tesla... and there goes Elon Musk puttering around dog-faced in a Bolt.

Who the fuck to believe. To my knowledge, these Tesla things are not sticking like the way they stuck on Uber. But who the fuck knows... news and lawsuits are full of bullshit these days, it's not easy to know truth from some Russian kid with a smartphone masquerading as a Texan. All that's reliably true is Tesla has money, and any cheap-suit lawyer would see an opportunity to make a quick settlement out of them, rather than risk more bad press and production delays as they try like mad to make their delivery date.

Re:no place for handicapped people is not just a l

[Anonymous Coward]

This is NOT something ANY HR person in the COUNTRY would say. And if they did, those fuckers need to burn in the fiery pits while having the company president publicly kick them in the ass repeatedly.

These fucking stories just hitting right as Tesla is offering a lower cost car seems very god damn suspect. And all of them are around SJW trigger keywords. The type of shit where it doesn't matter whether there's any truth behind them. The public (morons) will lap it up and turn rabid at each announcement.

It's entirely possible I'm wrong, but it just seems really, ridiculously suspect that all this supposed harassment has been happening all this time and just NOW it's coming out.

Re:Payback

[Anonymous Coward]

You're both wrong. What we have here is a very few highly publicized allegations against a company that half the world wants to fail for one reason or another. Only when actual data is shown and allegations are proven will I believe things either way (faked claims / systemic harassment / normal company).

Re:Payback

[Ritz_Just_Ritz]

They pre-sold 325k Model 3's within a week of opening up the reservation system. The incumbents in the industry and the oil/gas industry WANT Tesla to fail.

The marketplace seems to WANT to buy their product. Let the market decide.