A California court has preliminarily allowed employees to file a class action lawsuit against Tesla on racism charges — the hearing is scheduled for October 2024.
As noted by BloombergThe complaint was first filed back in 2017 by Marcus Vaughn, who claimed that the Tesla factory in Fremont was a «hotbed of racist behavior». The company allegedly «created a hostile and offensive work environment for black and/or African Americans, which includes the regular use of the words «N****r» and «N***» and other racially derogatory terms», and the human resources department «ignored»’s complaints.
Tesla initially responded to the lawsuit with a blog post calling it a «hotbed of misinformation». The company denied wrongdoing and said it had fired three people after investigating alleged racist incidents.
If the case does go to trial (Tesla could appeal the decision until now), the process will be divided into two phases: during the first phase, a jury will decide whether the company took sufficient action to prevent discrimination and harassment; and if so, in the second phase, the plaintiffs (about 6,000 of them) will file their claims for damages.
Tesla’s Fremont, California, plant also has a troubled history with worker injuries — the injury rate there is higher than the US average. Musk himself has been accused of counteracting workers’ attempts to unionize.