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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.
If the company HR was stupid enough to fire him because he was "handicapped", that's a different lawsuit entirely.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
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.
no place for handicapped people is not just a law suit that is a labor law issue as well.
Well, just offhand, I would say it's because the story submission validation does not rely on pleasing a random Anonymous Coward.
Also, that this involves a Tesla factory, and a huge discrimination lawsuit, coming on the heels of other discrimination lawsuits might have an adverse effect on the company's bottom line, stock value, and ability to produce electric cars.
But hey, whatever floats your boat.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
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.
Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
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.
Granted these allegations may not be true or entirely honest; that is for the courts to decide. However, if they are true and Musk's business plan did not in fact include fair treatment of employees, unless he tuns a business taht doesn't need employees, then he isn't much of a business leader at all is he? Visionary perhaps, but business hack.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
To remind people living in a high tech fantasy land that in a functioning society some people have to do actual work? Hope it wasn't too much of a shock.
The Guardian (why not just link to the source, instead of an article about the article?) elaborates:
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.
If that it true then there should be some hard evidence, i.e. documentation of the reason he was fired. Tesla could be in real trouble if it turns out to be true.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
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).
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.
I'm LGBTDVORAK you insensitive clod!
A family? Read the summary.
That's just an obvious example that there are many factors involved. Sorry for confusion. If you want me to relate to TFA, then read below because it is an allegation. Still, a whistle blower WILL have a hard time getting a new job especially in the same industry.
Ferro, 35, began as an assembly line production worker in April 2016 at the Tesla manufacturing plant in Fremont, California. Soon after he started, a supervisor who trained him, Jamar Taylor, began harassing him and mocking his sexuality, according to a lawsuit. Taylor allegedly told Ferro his clothes were “too tight – gay tight”, repeatedly taunted him about his outfits and later said he was not “welcome” because he is gay. Taylor also “went on to suggest that [Ferro] had a lot of enemies because ‘everyone suspects that [he is] gay’”, the suit said.
Ferro became fearful when the taunts escalated to threats of violence, including “be careful” and a warning that “something might happen to his car”, according to the complaint. Ferro told plant manager Dave Rebagliati that he was gay and was facing harassment, and HR later removed Taylor from Ferro’s assembly line, the suit said.
The harassment didn’t stop, he said. Taylor allegedly began outing Ferro to other co-workers and continued to approach Ferro in the factory, at one point saying a new employee should not learn anything from “someone like” Ferro.
After his second complaint to Rebagliati, on 2 August 2016, the manager decided to transfer Ferro to another assembly line row, according to the complaint.
...
While training for his new job, Rebagliati noticed a scar on Ferro’s wrist from an injury 16 years ago, and although Ferro said it had no effect on his job, the manager sent him home without pay, saying he needed a doctor’s note before returning to work, the complaint alleged. An HR official who took away his badge said he was “handicapped” and that no accommodations could be made, and three days later, before Ferro could have a doctor’s appointment, he was officially terminated, according to the suit.
A doctor later confirmed that he was able to perform his duties. Regardless, it was illegal for Tesla to fire Ferro for a perceived disability, according to Dolan. “This was just a BS reason to kick him out of the workplace.”
Speaking as the spouse of an employment lawyer, public companies are hit by discrimination lawsuits all the time. The primary reason is that discrimination is the only cause of action most employees have if they feel they've been unjustly terminated. Even if they are really upset because they thought their boss unfairly evaluated their work, they may allege discrimination because they can't sue over anything else.
In other words, I wouldn't make too much of this. People are only paying attention because it's Tesla.
None of the above is to say that discrimination or harassment can't be a serious problem, and that the suits are never meritorious- just that the mere fact of the suit occurring doesn't mean much.
After my 6th marriage, I began to think the problem might be me.
-poorly quoted from some rock star or another
Seriously, they moved me from line to line and i kept getting bullied. Is the whole company bigoted? They've hired 10,000 people from around Fremont. Is the population of Fremont this bigoted? I don't see the employees of most places treating an individual like this. I think it is more likely the guy was an asshat troublemaker.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
I'd be genuinely shocked if you couldn't find some examples of LGBTQ and racial harassment at Tesla, especially if they didn't already have strong controls in place to deal with it. It just sorta comes with the territory. Heck, in small non-corporate shops where there's no women (think small help desks) the stuff that goes on would get you fired in any major corporation on the planet.
/. realize. Even if you're not a snowflake you should still be wary of flame throwers.
Thing is, some of this stuff is probably the sort of thing you can laugh off if you're not LGBTQ. But imagine you spent your entire childhood getting the shit kicked out of you because you were a little on the effeminate side or got kicked out by your parents because you're a bit too 'tom boyish'. Or heck, if you're black and come from the South jokes about lynching aren't just in poor taste they're terrifying because, well, you might have actually feared being lynched enough not to know when somebody's joking.
What I'm saying is America is a _hell_ of a lot more fucked up than most of us on
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