Tesla is being sued by California authorities for racial discrimination and harassment, alleging that the electric car maker operates a “discriminatory workplace”.
The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing said it had received “hundreds of complaints” from workers at the company’s Fremont plant.
Tesla called the lawsuit “misleading.”
She said she “strongly opposes all forms of discrimination and harassment” and will ask the court to dismiss the case.
Tesla said this would allow it to “take further steps to ensure that facts and evidence are heard.”
Kevin Kish, director of the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, said the agency “found evidence that the Tesla plant in Fremont is a segregated workplace in which black workers are subjected to racial humiliation and discrimination in work assignments, discipline, pay, and promotion.”
The agency claimed that employees refer to areas, where black or African American employees work, with racist historical names such as “the farm”.
The lawsuit, filed after an agency investigation, also alleged that one of the workers heard racist insults “on average 50 to 100 times a day.”
But Tesla said that over the past five years, individuals from the Fair Employment and Housing Administration have asked to investigate the company on nearly 50 occasions.
picture released, Getty Images
The lawsuit centers on the Tesla plant in Fremont, California
“Each time the Fair Employment Administration has closed an investigation, it has found no misconduct against Tesla,” the company said in a blog.
“Thus, it undermines the agency’s credibility to now allege, after a three-year investigation, that there is somehow systematic racial discrimination and harassment in Tesla.”
It also said the allegations “focus on alleged misconduct by production colleagues at the Fremont plant, which occurred between 2015 and 2019”.
Last year, a federal jury ordered Tesla to pay $137 million in damages for failing to protect a former black worker at its Fremont plant from abuse.
The company has since appealed against this massive settlement that awarded millions of dollars to former elevator operator, Owen Diaz.
The company, led by CEO Elon Musk, said on its blog that it is “the last remaining automaker in California”, has a “predominantly minority workforce” and provides well-paid jobs to 30,000 people.