The suit, filed in Alameda County Superior Court, was
sparked by hundreds of worker complaints, said Kevin Kish, head of the state's
Department of Fair Employment and Housing.
The department, which enforces state civil rights laws,
“found evidence that Tesla's Fremont factory is a racially segregated workplace
where Black workers are subjected to racial slurs and discriminated against in
job assignments, discipline, pay, and promotion creating a hostile work
environment,” Kish said in a statement reported by the Wall Street Journal and
Bloomberg.
Details of the lawsuit have yet to be released and Tesla
didn't immediately issue a response to the lawsuit, which the electric carmaker
had warned was coming several days earlier in an annual filing to the US Securities
and Exchange Commission.
However, in a blog post before the filing, Tesla called the
suit misguided and said the agency “has never once raised any concern” about
its workplace practices following a three-year investigation.
The posting said the lawsuit appears to focus on accusations
by production associates at the factory, who said misconduct took place between
2015 and 2019. The post also said it will ask the court to “pause the case and
take other steps to ensure that facts and evidence will be heard.”
“Attacking a company like Tesla that has done so much good
for California should not be the overriding aim of a state agency with
prosecutorial authority," the blog said.
Last October, a San Francisco jury awarded nearly $137
million to a Black contract worker who said that he faced “daily racist
epithets,” including the “N-word,” at the plant in 2015 and 2016 before
quitting
Owen Diaz said employees drew swastikas and left racist
graffiti and drawings around the plant and that supervisors failed to stop the
abuse.
Tesla is appealing that verdict and has denied any knowledge
of racist conduct that Diaz said took place at the plant, which has about
10,000 workers.
Tesla's blog post said it “has always disciplined and
terminated employees who engage in misconduct, including those who use racial
slurs or harass others."
In recent years, Tesla has been hit with numerous
allegations by former workers of sexual harassment and racial discrimination at
the Fremont plant. However, many don't reach the courts because Tesla requires
its full-time employees to agree to private arbitration of employment-related
disputes.
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