An African-American worker on Tesla's assembly line in Fremont (Photo: manufacturer's website)
Allegations of abusive behavior toward African-Americans at Tesla's assembly plant in Fairmont, California, are escalating, with Marcus Vaugen, an employee of the automaker, adding another 2017 workers to his 240 lawsuit who allege that they, too, experienced inappropriate behavior toward them and that the plant was a "hotbed of racist behavior." Marcus said the company had failed to stop what he called a pattern and practice of "racial discrimination" and a hostile work environment.
Shortly after the affair began, in November 20177, Tesla published a lengthy blog post titled "Incubator of Misinformation," in which it did not deny, but unequivocally stated its opposition to any manifestation of racism and condemned any behavior that discriminates against a person on the basis of his race, and even clarified that it conducted a thorough investigation and that the employees involved in this behavior were fired.
The factory in Fremont (Photo: manufacturer's website)
And while the case has been going on for 6 years with no real progress, Wogan decided to add more employees who had a similar experience to his lawsuit in order to give the case more weight to the authorities by turning from private to class. He said he had sworn testimony from all employees describing how things went, including the use of derogatory words for black people, graffiti and more.
Among the testimonies is that of an African-American worker who received a comment about her "monkey toes" and was nicknamed "Nikki Manyaj" after the African-American star — just because of her ethnicity. Another employee wrote that he felt unwelcome and unsafe after the company ignored his complaints that he had been called a "."
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Joins previous lawsuits, one of which concerns Musk's alleged statement about Autopilot capabilities (Photo: manufacturer's website)
If the lawsuit by Marcus and the 240 employees is accepted, it wouldn't be the first time Tesla has found itself forced to defend its name in court. However, unlike previous cases in which the lawsuits revolved mainly on technical aspects of its products, in which the manufacturer managed to repel the claims, here the charged public atmosphere in the United States may put it in a very problematic light.
The lawsuit, scheduled to go to court on July 14, joins two other high-profile lawsuits the automaker is facing. The first concerns an alleged privacy violation, according to which company employees shared private videos from inside the cars. The second lawsuit is from the family of a Tesla driver who died in an accident in 2016 and claims he relied on Elon Musk's statement about the Autopilot system's driving capability — statements previously falsified in his name.
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- Tesla
- claim
- Class Action Lawsuit
- discrimination