Rampant racism alleged by Black workers at California Tesla factory
Tesla may face a class-action lawsuit after 240 Black factory workers in California described rampant racism and discrimination at the electric automaker's San Francisco Bay Area plant, including frequent use of racial slurs and references to the manufacturing site as a plantation or slave ship.
The testimonies filed Monday in Alameda County Superior Court come from contractors and employees who worked on the production floor of the factory in Fremont, roughly 40 miles southeast of San Francisco. The vast majority worked at the site between 2016 and now.
Lawyers suing Tesla, Inc. say class action status is being sought and estimate at least 6,000 workers could be part of the class.
The individual testimonies are part of a 2017 lawsuit brought by Marcus Vaughn, who complained in writing to human resources and to Tesla CEO Elon Musk of a hostile work environment in which he was called slurs by co-workers and supervisors. No investigation was conducted and he was fired for "not having a positive attitude," according to his lawyers.
In April, a federal jury awarded another former Tesla employee $3.2 million for racial abuse he suffered. Owen Diaz alleged he was called the "n-word" more than 30 times, shown racist cartoons and told to "go back to Africa" during his roughly nine-month tenure at Tesla that ended in 2016.
Bryan Schwartz, one of Vaughn's lawyers, said the case has dragged on for years as Tesla sought to force the lawsuit into arbitration. Instead, the California Supreme Court in April allowed Black workers to seek a public injunction in court that would require Tesla to change its work environment.
"To have this scope of egregious harassment right here in Silicon Valley, it's disgusting," Schwartz said, adding that it's shocking that "Tesla has allowed this kind of pervasive harassment to go on as long as it has."
Attorneys for Tesla did not respond to emailed requests for comment.
All of the declarants said they heard use of one particular racial slur, with more than half saying they heard supervisors and managers use that word, according to a declaration summarizing the statements.
Dozens also said higher-ups direct the racial slur toward them, the summary stated, and nearly half said they experienced or saw other Black workers tasked with more physically laborious work and disciplined more frequently.
Production associate Albert Blakes said in his statement that it was difficult to go to work knowing he would face racist slurs, references to slavery and offensive graffiti for 12 hours at a time. He said he made a verbal complaint to human resources in late 2021 but never heard back and nothing changed.
"Something needs to be done to hold Tesla accountable for the racism that takes place at the Fremont factory to set an example that this racism is not tolerated in workplaces in California," he said.
The Fremont plant is the subject of several suits alleging racism, harassment and discrimination.
Among them: a wide-ranging racial discrimination case brought last year by California regulators.
The suit filed by the California Civil Rights Department (formerly known as California Department of Fair Employment and Housing) alleges Tesla turned "a blind eye" to rampant abuses that included likening Black employees to slaves and monkeys.
Tesla has adamantly denied the allegations made in state court and lashed back by accusing the agency of abusing its authority.
Musk, Tesla's CEO and largest shareholder, moved the company's headquarters from Silicon Valley to Austin in 2021, partly because of tensions with various California agencies over the practices at the Fremont factory.
Despite the strife, Musk, with California Gov. Gavin Newsom by his side, in February announced that an office complex in Palo Alto will be Tesla's engineering hub.