A former employee of Space Exploration Technologies Corp. has agreed to resolve his claims through binding arbitration. He asserts that the company unjustly terminated him in 2020 after he raised concerns to management about certain workers disregarding government COVID-19 mask mandates. Oscar Aguirre and SpaceX, represented by their attorneys, jointly submitted a request to Torrance Superior Court Judge Gary Y. Tanaka to transfer the case from the courtroom to an arbitrator. The motion was approved by the judge, leading to the suspension of the lawsuit and the scheduling of a post-arbitration conference on December 14.
In addition to wrongful termination, Aguirre’s lawsuit includes allegations of breach of contract and intentional infliction of emotional distress. He joined the Hawthorne-based company as a material handler in 2012 and was subsequently promoted to positions such as expedite, production coordinator, and non-destructive testing coordinator. Aguirre worked across multiple SpaceX facilities, serving as a liaison between floor technicians and engineers who tested materials on the plant floor. The lawsuit, filed on August 18, highlights the importance of his interactions with the engineers, whose work schedules partially overlapped with Aguirre’s.
However, when new management took over, Aguirre was instructed to no longer align his schedule with the engineers but to work with the floor technicians instead. This change in rules coincided with the observation that many floor technicians were not adhering to local, city, and state COVID-19 safety regulations by not wearing face masks. Aguirre repeatedly emphasized the necessity of mask-wearing to the floor technicians, but a significant number of them refused to comply.
Despite Aguirre’s efforts in reporting the floor technicians’ refusal to wear masks to his superiors, the issue persisted. Instead of addressing this concern, SpaceX’s human resources department issued Aguirre a written warning for tardiness that had occurred months earlier, during the previous management’s tenure when he was explicitly instructed to come in at a later time. Subsequently, Aguirre was terminated on the same day and informed about alleged negative feedback from floor technicians during his mid-year review, when he was actually occupied with work in other buildings.
The lawsuit claims that Aguirre’s dismissal was a direct result of his whistleblowing activities regarding the floor technicians’ non-compliance with COVID-19 mask mandates as communicated to SpaceX management.
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