Vehicles pass the Tesla Inc. assembly plant in Fremont, California, U.S., on Monday, May 11, 2020.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is taking legal action against Tesla. They accuse Elon Musk’s electric car company of violating federal law by allowing widespread and persistent racial harassment of its Black employees, as well as retaliating against those who opposed the harassment.
Tesla has not yet responded to the allegations.
The EEOC, the federal agency responsible for enforcing civil rights laws in the workplace, announced the lawsuit on Thursday.
In their complaint, the EEOC claims that non-Black employees at Tesla openly used racial slurs and insults in high-traffic work areas, including the vehicle production lines. Supposedly, supervisors and managers witnessed this offensive behavior but failed to intervene.
According to the EEOC, when Black workers reported the harassment to Tesla’s human resources department and managerial personnel, the company did not take appropriate measures to address the issue.
This is not the first time Tesla has faced accusations of racial discrimination. In a previous case, a state civil rights agency in California sued Tesla, and a jury awarded about $3.2 million in damages to a Black former worker named Owen Diaz, who experienced racist discrimination while working at the company in 2015.
In a financial filing from Tesla last year, it was revealed that the EEOC had already found cause to pursue legal action against the company. Tesla engaged in a conciliation process with the EEOC, but it was unsuccessful, leading to the current lawsuit.
The EEOC is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, back pay for the affected workers, and injunctive relief to prevent future discrimination at Tesla.
The lawsuit (EEOC v Tesla, Inc., Case No. 4:23-cv-04984) has been filed in a U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
Read the lawsuit below:
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