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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."
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."
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
We need to keep an open mind and not jump to conclusions.
You must be new here - welcome to Slashdot!
#DeleteChrome
The reality is that we live in a world that every last lawsuit against Tesla (something that happens against all companies) will be extensively covered by the media, without any coverage of the outcome of the suits - which so far have all been in Tesla's favour.
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not âEureka!â(TM), but
Seven Spirals announced:
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.
I'm glad to live in a country where the legal system provides a means of redress for harassment in the workplace - which is not quite the same thing you seem to be happy about.
As one of those rare /.ers who actually reads TFA which TFS summarizes (ahem), let me point out a couple of key quotes that are not included in the clickbait summary, above:
A Tesla assembly line worker sued in March, claiming the company did little to stop co-workers from harassing him. In August, a judge sent the case to arbitration. A judge also partly granted Tesla’s request to compel arbitration in a case of a woman who sued in November 2016 complaining about pervasive harassment.
At a guess (and this is only a guess, because I haven't read the judge's order), the judge in the first case sent the case to arbitration because the evidence against Tesla was something short of compelling. But, let's continue:
According to Monday’s complaint, Musk sent an email to Tesla factory employees on May 31.
"Part of not being a huge jerk is considering how someone might feel who is part of [a] historically less represented group." Musk wrote in the email. "Sometimes these things happen unintentionally, in which case you should apologize. In fairness, if someone is a jerk to you, but sincerely apologizes, it is important to be thick-skinned and accept that apology."
"The law doesn’t require you to have a thick skin," [the plaintiff's attorney] said in an interview Monday. "Tesla is not doing enough. It’s somewhat akin to saying ‘stop being politically correct.’ When you have a diverse workforce, you need to take steps to make sure everyone feels welcome in that workforce."
The first two paragraphs make it pretty clear that Musk disapproves of casual expressions of racism. His general memos carry more than a little weight at his company. Ask any of his employees about that.
The third paragraph presents the plaintiff's attorney's opinion as fact. That's a commonplace lawyerly PR tactic designed to allow the barrister to define the bounds of the dispute. Any competent judge is going to ignore it, and instruct the jury to ignore it, as well, because, under the law, you do not have to "take steps to make sure everyone feels welcome in that workplace." What you have to do is take whatever steps are necessary to end racial harrassment of the plaintiff in your workplace - which is not quite the same thing.
The fact that the attorney in question has applied to the judge for class action status makes it quite clear that he, at least, understands that at least as well as I do. (IANAL) Whether the jurist who's hearing the case will grant that status is a good question. Unless I miss my guess, his decision whether to do so will depend heavily on the case the plaintiff's lawyer makes for pervasive racial harassment at Tesla during pre-trial hearings.
What we actually, verifiably know is that Marcus Vaughn, who worked at Tesla for six months, is suing Tesla in Alameda County Superior Court for allegedly failing to prevent racial discrimination against him, and that his lawyer, Larry Organ, an attorney at the California Civil Rights Law Group, has petitioned the judge to award his case class action status. That's it, that's all. Presuming culpability on Tesla's part is premature, to say the least, particularly in view of a previous case making the same general allegations having been referred by the judge to binding arbitration, rather than being permitted to g
Check out my novel.
Learn to read. Rei referred to the lawsuits against Tesla,meaning Tesla was the defendant.
And from context it's clear Rei is referring to all the harassment/ism-based lawsuits.
Its not like the National Automobile Dealers Association hasn't tried to get laws changed to prevent Tesla from selling their cars. I wouldn't put it past them to arrange some shit like this.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
Elon was born in Africa, now he's American. Wouldn't that make him an African-American as well?
Some of the items he is complaining about:
Having to show up to work on time.
Having to be productive at work.
Not being able to blame his poor work performance on "racist crackers"
Being openly hostile towards his co-workers and then not getting invited out for beer after going on daily rants about how racists everyone is around here
The fact that they actually expect him to come to work during Black History Month instead of attending "whitey is a racists workshops"
Oh wait I'm confusing this guy with guys that I had to serve with while I was in the Air Force.
Hey maybe he has a point or more likely he was told that his performance sucked and if he didn't shape up he would be let go during next year's round of low performer culling.
Tesla is such an SJW company.
What's amusing about all the "America, f*ck yeah!" folks complaining about Tesla being all "SJW" is the fact that of all the car companies, Tesla car are the 'most American-made' of any of the USA-based car companies.
So anyone who is a patriot who says "Buy American!" should skip over their F150 pickup (64% American made) and buy a Tesla (100% American-made).
Source: http://time.com/4677817/americ...
Sounds like it might be much simpler:
Aka, according to Tesla, there absolutely was racial language used - but the plaintiff was part of it, and his contract was ended as a consequence. Also, Tesla makes some pretty damning-if-true counterallegations - among them:
They also allege that the attorney hired has a long track record of taking on meritless lawsuits and using the threat of damage to a company's reputation in the media to get them to settle out of court.
I would say, "We'll see where this goes", except, well, we all know that while allegations get big headlines, unless there's a surprise ending and a court rules against Tesla, we'll never actually see an article covering the court dismissing the case. Just like each and every other time that something like this has happened.
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not âEureka!â(TM), but