Tesla to Face Nearly 6k Black Workers in Factory Racism Lawsuit | Hacker News Reader

Tesla to Face Nearly 6k Black Workers in Factory Racism Lawsuit

time.com

23 pointsVeserv7 comments

For context, a similar case, Di-az v Tesla [1] also about circumstances in the Tesla Fremont factory in 2017 found Tesla guilty [2] of "(1) Tesla subjected Diaz to a racially hostile work environment, (2) Tesla was a joint employer of Diaz, (3) Diaz was subject to a hostile work environment caused by a supervisor, (4) Diaz was subject to a hostile work environment caused by a non-immediate supervisor or co-worker, (5) Tesla committed a civil rights violation in a contractual relationship, (6) Tesla failed to take all reasonable steps necessary to prevent Diaz from being subject to racial harassment, and (7) Tesla negligently supervised or negligently continued to employ Ramon Martinez and that action harmed Diaz. Id. at 1–2."

This directly contradicts Telsa's crafted PR response linked to in the article [3] attempting to silence criticism by baselessly and intentionally accusing the employee of making false claims of pervasive racism.

[1] https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/USCOURTS-cand-3_17-cv-06...

[2] https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-cand-3_17-cv-06...

[3] https://www.tesla.com/blog/hotbed-misinformation

> [Tesla] failed to protect [Black workers] from racism

Ironic that the police can't be sued for failing to protect people, but companies can. This legal quagmire of having to take ill-defined "reasonable" steps to preemptively prevent racism, and the chilling effect it has on behavior as companies avoid anything that might look bad, to avoid legal peril, could be prevented with clear rules and an OSHA-like agency that informs companies of any rules they're breaking and monitors correction.

But I suspect the chilling effects are a feature, not a bug.

Is the alternative "as a company, we don't care what happens to you" any better?

The reality is that their company HR failed. It's HR's duty to the protect the company and HR failed to determine which was more expensive, letting go of a number of employees for cause (slurs/harassment), or a class action as the result of not doing so.

> Is the alternative "as a company, we don't care what happens to you" any better?

I said "OSHA-like" - if the OSHA approach has not resulted in disregard of safety, why would it result in the disregard of discrimination and racism?

They’re pretty well defined. If someone is racist to you at work you report it. They take steps to make it stop up to and including firing the offending parties. Same for sexual harassment. The company only gets in trouble if they don’t take corrective action. 1) you report 2) the company investigates and remediates 3)racist behavior persists 4) offending parties get fired.

If that happens it’s all good! If the company doesn’t act on reports they’re the problem. It’s actually pretty easy.

In tesla’s case they have been found guilty multiple times of failing to follow the simple formula above.

There is failure to protect and then there is this sort of behavior as seen in the Di-az v Tesla case [1] where Tesla was found guilty of subjecting employees to a racially hostile work environment in the very same Fremont factory also in 2017:

"Diaz produced evidence that he complained to Tesla supervisors about many more incidents than the two Tesla references, including being called the N-word by Martinez. See Tr. at 511:17–512:17, 585:24–586:4. Then, in October 2015, Diaz testified that Martinez rushed at him, cornered him, was screaming racial abuse, and made threatening gestures. See id. at 450:6–452:11. Both Diaz and Martinez complained about the other’s behavior (Martinez’s complaint was that Diaz was unprofessional), but Tesla’s HR department declined to conduct a “formal investigation” and reprimanded them both. See Ex. 31. This was in spite of the fact that there was surveillance footage to examine, see Tr. 452:8–11, and in spite of the fact that Diaz’s complaint was, even without referencing the use of a racial slur, more serious than Martinez’s."

Di-az complained about their manager, Martinez, using the N-word and threatening Di-az and then the company reprimanded Di-az.

By the way [2]: "Martinez, a Tesla supervisor and the main perpetrator of racist conduct, still works at Tesla, nearly a decade after he forced Diaz to endure repeated cruelty and shame. Not only did the company turn a blind eye to the racism, but the jury also could have interpreted the evidence to show that Tesla knew what it was supposed to do and affirmatively chose to not carry out the proper responses."

[1] https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-cand-3_17-cv-06...

[2] https://casetext.com/case/diaz-v-tesla-inc-7

Yes, of course, everyone except the black people are the victims here.

'Reasonable' is actually well defined in case law and the common law, but the really stupid thing is that it gives Tesla some latitude as to their response. In this case Tesla made it very easy for the jury by being really blatant.

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