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Tesla Is a 'Hotbed For Racist Behavior,' Worker Claims In Lawsuit (bloomberg.com)
An African-American employee has filed a lawsuit against Tesla, claiming their production floor is a "hotbed for racist behavior" and that black workers at the electric carmaker suffer severe and pervasive harassment. "The employee says he's one of more than 100 African-American Tesla workers affected and is seeking permission from a judge to sue on behalf of the group," reports Bloomberg. "He's seeking unspecified general and punitive monetary damages as well as an order for Tesla to implement policies to prevent and correct harassment." From the report: "Although Tesla stands out as a groundbreaking company at the forefront of the electric car revolution, its standard operating procedure at the Tesla factory is pre-Civil Rights era race discrimination," the employee said in the complaint, filed Monday in California's Alameda County Superior Court. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Marcus Vaughn, who worked in the Fremont factory from April 23 to Oct. 31. Vaughn alleged that employees and supervisors regularly used the "N word" around him and other black colleagues. Vaughn said he complained in writing to human resources and Musk and was terminated in late October for "not having a positive attitude."
I'm glad to live in a country where a guy like this can sue the Tesla. Hopefully, he had the presence of mind to record them or get some hard evidence. EEOC complaints can be an effective avenue, so can a discrimination lawsuit. The only way to stop this kind of behavior is to bow-up and fight back.
So was an Air Force Academy recently until it was found out that the very same person who was pitching a fit about " racism " was also the same person who wrote the slur on the wall to begin with.
Tossing off any racial epithet around here in the silicon valley is likely to make half of the people within earshot fall down in a swoon, and the other half going apeshit over it on twitter within milliseconds. The odds of this allegation turning out to be utter bullshit is approaching unity.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Society itself is a "hotbed for racist behavior".
Bullshit. Racism is not tolerated in polite society, and nearly all of the racists you can still find are either the handful of nazi wannabes or they're tenured leftards in taxpayer-dependent institutions.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
was this man simply layed off because of poor performance
The article says he was let go in October, which is when the layoffs occurred for "performance reasons", so that could be the case.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/1...
If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
As a human being, I hang my head in shame for the fact that, in the 21st century, we still have to deal with racism. I just wish we could all grow up and behave like the advanced species we claim to be.
One aspect of this story particularly interests me - and it might be a subtle, legal point - which is: what is/are the responsibilities of "Tesla the Company", with respect to tackling and preventing racism in the workplace?
I am not for one moment suggesting that the claims of this plaintiff are anything less than genuine. What interests me is: as an employer, where do Tesla's responsibilities stop? Do they have to have anti-racism training for their staff? Do they have to have a grievance procedure? Do they have to have an anonymous whistleblowing program? Are there other things that an employer needs to demonstrate in order to avoid accusations of institutional racism?
The reason I ask the original question is that it seems to me that we need to understand the difference between "Tesla the Company" and "Tesla's Other Employees". I would be willing to accept the words of the complaint that suggest that some employees at Tesla are out-and-out racists. I would hope that Tesla are doing all they can to identify and expel such people. But does the presence of one or more racist employees at any company mean that the company itself is racist?
If not, how do we make the differentiation? Is it when 10% of employees are racist? 20%? Is it if the company fails to handle accusations of racism appropriately - and, if so, what does "appropriate handling" need to include?
This is a sensitive, emotive and hugely important topic for us as a society: it is, perhaps, one of the defining aspects of human history over the last few hundred years, so I think that our response to this - as individuals, employers, colleagues and friends - is hugely important.
But much as I'm concerned by these claims and would want to see some solid evidence of a reasonable response to them, I'm struggling to make the leap from "a number of employees at Company X demonstrated racist behaviour" as being equal to "Company X is racist".
Is this reasonable skepticism, or is this splitting hairs that an unethical company would hide behind? Is it fair to make the distinction? What would be the indicators you would look for, in a case like this, before you would conclude that a company was racist?
>"Society itself is a "hotbed for racist behavior".
Um, not at all, at least not in the USA. That is a horribly inaccurate generalization. Racism is real, for sure. But it is nowhere near as prevalent as many would assume, and saying otherwise is really just irresponsible. And much of what people label as "racism" isn't at all, it is dislike of observed BEHAVIOR.
And in the case of Tesla, we have yet to see any real proof of racism. There is a HUGE force (the union) trying to create problems that might not even exist. We need to keep an open mind and not jump to conclusions.
Yes but as a white male you're not entitled to anything, not to mention being offended. Being offended "ist verbotten", so to speak.
As a Romanian guy, lacking insight into fine points of American culture, I wonder why can black people use the N word freely among themselves, but as soon as a white person uses it, they're screwed to no avail? Up until 2006-2007, I genuinely thought "What's up, N*?" was a normal and expected salute towards a black person, because I've seen it used in movies a lot of times. Boy, was I wrong.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
This is coming from the unions who want into the plant. Notice how they are checking every box with race, gender, sexuality? Tesla said no so now the unions file frivolous lawsuits.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
I wouldn't be surprised at all. Seriously, some of the most racist people I know are well intentioned liberal retards who think they are helping black people. Because obviously, black people don't know about cell phones or even where the DMV is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
We need to keep an open mind and not jump to conclusions.
You must be new here - welcome to Slashdot!
#DeleteChrome
That's simply not true in the vast majority of the country. It's just hidden. Or did you miss when being clearly racist doesn't even disqualify someone from being president?
>> Vaughn alleged that employees and supervisors regularly used the "N word" around him and other black colleagues.
I wonder what ratio of the employees and supervisors using the N word were also black?
Elon was born in Africa, now he's American. Wouldn't that make him an African-American as well?
You still trying to blame Democrats and liberals because lawsuits in Wisconsin, Alabama, North Carolina, Texas, and Pennsylvania resulted in courts finding the conservative Republican governments in each of those states committed willful and deliberate racial discrimination in order to deter blacks from voting?
Oh well, I guess you can blame Obama.
After all, nobody could imagine the DMV being a hotbed of obstructive bureaucracy.
I wouldn't be surprised at all. Seriously, some of the most racist people I know are well intentioned liberal retards who think they are helping black people. Because obviously, black people don't know about cell phones or even where the DMV is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I suppose you can hear that if you really want to... but there's some major slight of hand going on in that video.
Here's the actual facts:
1) Voter IDs laws are designed to disenfranchise black people because black people overwhelmingly vote Democrat.
2) This works because the process required to get a government ID is fairly complicated, and the things that make it complicated tend to correlate with being black, hispanic, poor, or elderly. 3 of those 4 groups that lean Democratic.
3) States looking to disenfranchise minorities tend to treat their black population worse in general. If they're trying to disenfranchise them with voter ID laws they'll try extra hard to avoid giving them IDs.
Now here's the first trick the Fox News reporter pulls:
1) He seeks out a bunch of white undergrads who understand that voter ID laws seek to disenfranchise minorities but they don't fully understand the mechanisms that make it difficult for minorities to obtain IDs for voting.
2) Next he primes them with answers, for instance one problem with getting ID over the Internet is you may not have the proper documentation. Other than the first guy who talks about access the reporter seems to prime them by talking about access, so predictably they run with the idea that some of the disenfranchised black people have trouble accessing the internet.
Now, here comes the second trick:
1) The white undergrads were talking about black people in states targeted by voter ID laws. New York is not one of those states. So many of the fundamental issues like access to ID aren't applicable. Basically he's "debunking" the assertions by talking to a completely different group of people.
2) Now this one is very subtle but very disingenuous. The white interviewees are talking about the specific subset of black people who are being targeted by the voter ID laws, ie people having trouble obtaining ID. Now the reporter repeats those statements back to individual black people as though they were meant to describe them, the reporter is the one who generalizes the statements and makes them racist.
And of course you have the fact that he's almost certainly cherry picking a very non-representative sample of interviewees. You should be very skeptical of accepting a heavily edited video as evidence from someone known for deceptively and unethically editing their videos.
I stole this Sig
Isn't this getting a bit old and lame? All we hear about Tesla here on /. is how they are keeping the unions out and how the are a hive of horrors for workers.
Can we stop with the propaganda and get back to the techie stuff that keeps us reading here.
2) This works because the process required to get a government ID is fairly complicated
This is pure racist bullshit. You are basically saying that it is so complicated only WHITE people can figure it out. That it is so complicated that Minorities can't figure it out. Queue up "Black people don't know where DMV is" level complicated.
I'd excuse you as being innocently mistaken... except I cited an entire article that explained the sense in which is was complicated and it certainly wasn't "Black people don't know where DMV is". Among other things they tend not to have the secondary documentation that makes getting an ID easy. It's also talking about the specific subset of people who have trouble getting IDs to vote.
And of course you have the fact that he's almost certainly cherry picking a very non-representative sample of interviewees.
Again, that is YOUR assumption. However based on your own response, you committed the very same infractions, you just dressed it up in progressive code language.
Here is the Progressive Trick, they use code language to call blacks and minorities "stupid" by labeling them all the same based on some hypothetical disenfranchised anecdotal reference.
This is boring, I've been clear in how the issue is about the specific subset of minorities who can't get IDs, not minorities in general. I've got better things to do they trying to convince you to stop obfuscating my point in a 2 person argument.
I stole this Sig
I don't have time to do a long response now, but okay there needs to be action for oppression, but are you really saying that speech does not often lead to action?
The law recognises this, e.g. incitement and conspiracy.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC