{"id":2347,"date":"2022-03-26T14:37:16","date_gmt":"2022-03-26T14:37:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2022\/03\/26\/go-read-former-tesla-employees-experiences-with-racism-in-their-own-words\/"},"modified":"2022-03-26T14:37:17","modified_gmt":"2022-03-26T14:37:17","slug":"go-read-former-tesla-employees-experiences-with-racism-in-their-own-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2022\/03\/26\/go-read-former-tesla-employees-experiences-with-racism-in-their-own-words\/","title":{"rendered":"Go read former Tesla employees\u2019 experiences with racism in their own words"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/3\/25\/22996954\/go-read-interview-former-tesla-employees-racism-discrimination-retaliation\">https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/3\/25\/22996954\/go-read-interview-former-tesla-employees-racism-discrimination-retaliation<\/a><br \/>\n<code><br \/><\/br><\/code><\/p>\n<div readability=\"92.794219499201\">\n<p id=\"RD4rAk\">The <em>Los Angeles Times<\/em> has a great piece that interviews three former Tesla employees about their experiences with racism, discrimination, and retaliation at the company, which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/business\/story\/2022-03-25\/black-tesla-employees-fremont-plant-racism-california-lawsuit\">is well worth a read<\/a>. The story acts as a way to contextualize <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/2\/10\/22926851\/tesla-sued-california-racially-segregated-workplace-dfeh\">a lawsuit that the automaker is currently facing<\/a>, where the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing alleges that the company has a \u201cracially segregated workplace.\u201d <\/p>\n<p id=\"ecLdLM\">While the experiences described in the lawsuit and in the <em>Times<\/em>\u2019 story are similar (and equally disturbing), being able to read actual interviews helps connect names, faces, and individual experiences to the situation at Tesla\u2019s facility in California. <\/p>\n<div class=\"c-float-right\">\n<aside id=\"V4GWQV\"><q>\u201cThey were waiting for me to make a mistake\u201d<\/q><\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<p id=\"rokNQa\">The workers have unique stories, but they share disturbingly similar through-lines. Two employees describe being \u201cblacklisted\u201d or \u201cblackballed\u201d after reporting racist behavior to supervisors or HR. One of them describes being given a job usually done by two people \u2014 another recalls asking a supervisor \u201c\u2018You\u2019re telling me to do a four-man job by myself?\u2019\u201d She says the supervisor told her to do it, or she would be fired. All of them report constantly being called the n-word \u2014 sometimes by managers, and often with the word \u201clazy\u201d attached.<\/p>\n<p id=\"Kg5xxI\">One of the employees says that going to HR did put a stop to the harassment from coworkers \u2014 but that for months afterwards, she wasn\u2019t given a performance review, raise, or promotion. She was later fired for an accident where she hit a sprinkler with a forklift. Another worker, she said, hit five sprinklers and got to keep his job. \u201cThey were waiting for me to make a mistake,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n<p id=\"ZEe8H1\">The other workers echoed similar sentiments. One said Tesla \u201cbegan looking for a reason to fire him\u201d after he reported his racist treatment to HR. The other said she felt like she was forced out of the company after being \u201cbadgered by supervisors.\u201d Here\u2019s an example she gave:<\/p>\n<blockquote readability=\"16\">\n<p id=\"4s8da5\">HR emailed her that she was \u201cunder investigation for supposedly threatening someone,\u201d she said. Baffled, she asked whom she had threatened, and was told it was someone on the day shift.<\/p>\n<p id=\"XBveKr\">But she had worked the night shift.<\/p>\n<p id=\"Is93zD\">\u201cPeople on the day shift told them, \u2018We don\u2019t know her,\u2019\u201d Romby said. \u201cIt was just a bunch of B.S.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div class=\"c-float-right\">\n<aside id=\"8XOIUz\"><q>\u201cInstead of attacking the victims of racism at their facility, Tesla should focus on taking remedial actions designed to end the racist conduct.\u201d<\/q><\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<p id=\"9B3acx\">The company\u2019s lawyers (it <a href=\"https:\/\/electrek.co\/2021\/04\/28\/elon-musk-no-new-tesla-pr-department-manipulating-public-opinion\/\">doesn\u2019t have a PR department anymore<\/a>) largely denied the allegations to the <em>Times<\/em>, and listed off reasons why it treated the employees the way it did. But this isn\u2019t the first time Tesla has faced scrutiny for having a hostile workplace. Last year, a jury in California ruled that the company <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2021\/10\/5\/22710279\/tesla-racism-fremont-plant-137-million-judgement-owen-diaz\">would have to pay a former worker $137 million<\/a> in damages, after supervisors failed to do anything about his reports that he was harassed with racist graffiti and constant use of racial slurs. <\/p>\n<p id=\"x1c4wF\">The company also had to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2021\/8\/5\/22611725\/tesla-paid-1-million-black-former-employee-racist-slur\">pay another former employee $1 million<\/a> after he won an arbitration suit \u2014 he reported that his supervisor called him the n-word, and retaliated again him after he confronted him for using the slur. Other employees have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2017\/11\/14\/tesla-class-action-lawsuit-alleges-racism-unsafe-factory-conditions.html\">accused the company of having a racist culture<\/a>. (Again, Tesla denied many of the allegations from these cases.)<\/p>\n<p id=\"7I2AEv\">But while reading about court cases can certainly be enlightening, it\u2019s important to also see what employees have to say about the situations they were in for themselves. It provides more context, as well as insight we might not otherwise get into how discrimination can emotionally affect people, and their lives going forward. That\u2019s why the <em>Los Angeles Times<\/em> piece is important, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/business\/story\/2022-03-25\/black-tesla-employees-fremont-plant-racism-california-lawsuit\">well worth a read<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><code><br \/><\/br><\/code><\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/3\/25\/22996954\/go-read-interview-former-tesla-employees-racism-discrimination-retaliation\">https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/3\/25\/22996954\/go-read-interview-former-tesla-employees-racism-discrimination-retaliation<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: The Los Angeles Times has a great piece that interviews three former Tesla employees about their experiences with racism, discrimination, and retaliation at the company, which is well worth a read. The story acts as a way to contextualize a lawsuit that the automaker is currently facing, where the California Department of Fair Employment [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2348,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,8],"tags":[16],"class_list":["post-2347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-policy","category-technology","tag-policy"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Go read former Tesla employees\u2019 experiences with racism in their own words - Science and Nerds<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2022\/03\/26\/go-read-former-tesla-employees-experiences-with-racism-in-their-own-words\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Go read former Tesla employees\u2019 experiences with racism in their own words - Science and Nerds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Source: The Los Angeles Times has a great piece that interviews three former Tesla employees about their experiences with racism, discrimination, and retaliation at the company, which is well worth a read. 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