The Los Angeles Times recently interviewed three former Tesla employees about their experiences of racism, discrimination and retaliation at the company. The story provides a backdrop to the lawsuit the automaker is currently facing, with the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) accusing the company of having a “racially segregated workplace.”
While the experiences described in the lawsuit are similar (and equally disturbing) to the Los Angeles Times report, being able to read actual interviews helps connect names and personal experiences to what’s going on at Tesla’s California factory.
Workers have unique stories, but they have disturbingly similar experiences. Two employees described being “blacklisted” or “blackballed” after reporting racist behavior to supervisors or human resources. One of the employees described being assigned to work that would normally be done by two people. Another employee recalled that he asked the supervisor “‘You let me do the job of four people by myself?'” She said the supervisor told her to do it or she would be fired. All of these people reported that their supervisors frequently used the n-word – sometimes manager, and often accompanied by the word “lazy”.
One of the employees said that going to HR did stop the harassment from colleagues — but she didn’t get a performance review, raise or promotion in the months that followed. Later, she was fired for hitting a sprinkler with a forklift. Another worker, who hit five sprinklers, kept her job, she said. “They were waiting for me to make mistakes,” she said.
Other workers expressed similar sentiments. One worker said Tesla “started looking for reasons to fire him” after he reported the racist treatment he received to human resources. Another said she felt she was forced to leave the company after being “stalked by the executives”. Here’s one of her examples:
Human resources emailed her to say she was “under investigation because she allegedly threatened someone,” she said. Confused, she asked who she had threatened, and was told it was the day shift.
But she works the night shift.
“People on the day shift told them, ‘We don’t know her,'” Romby said. “It’s just a bunch of crap.”
Lawyers for the company essentially denied the allegations to the Los Angeles Times, laying out the reasons it treated employees in this way. But this isn’t the first time Tesla has faced scrutiny for hostile workplaces. Last year, a California jury ruled that the company must pay $137 million in damages to a former worker for failing to act on his report that he was harassed by racist graffiti and the constant use of racial slurs.
The company also had to pay another former employee $1 million after winning an arbitration case — he reported his supervisors used the n-word on him and again after he confronted him for using the stigma revenge. Other employees have accused the company of a racist culture. (Again, Tesla has denied many of the allegations in these cases).
The Verge believes that while reading court cases is certainly instructive, it’s important to also see what employees think about their own situations. It provides more context, and insight we might not otherwise be able to gain about how discrimination affects people and their lives emotionally.