Tesla, racism, abuse and multiple injuries at the Fremont factory

Racist insults. Swastikas, white supremacy and Ku Klux Klan acronyms on walls and in parking lots. Black workers were given heavier work and excluded from promotions. Widespread sexual harassment and HR indifference to employee complaints. Adequate training and hazardous workplaces. Managers who force people to return to the assembly line with broken bones or get fired.

Nationthe oldest surviving American newspaper, published an investigation rightful Tesla’s toxic culture on the working environment in the factory Tesla He is in Fremont, California. This article is based on an examination of approximately 50 legal documents, interviews with several current and former employees and their attorneys, and documents from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA, the US government agency responsible for occupational safety and health ) and the National Labor Relations Board (the agency that enforces collective bargaining and unfair competition laws). A material which, we read in the article, “gives a picture of a society whose factories have been abandoned for another century”.

The history of apartheid

The article tells, among others, the story of a 36-year-old woman who at the end of 2020 quit her hairdressing job and accepted a position at a Fremont conference to earn more ($20 an hour) . The woman reports that on the second day of training she read on the bathroom wall: “Black prostitutes must go home.” When he started working on the assembly line, he often heard words like ‘nigger’ and ‘coon’ (an offensive term used against black people, short for ‘raccoon’). He found the same words on the bathroom walls, along with the acronym ‘Kkk’ (Ku Klux Klan). Because she dressed “like a tomboy,” one of her supervisors and a co-worker began commenting on her alleged homosexuality.

The employee filed a complaint with human resources, which they ignored it. Peer harassment has increased since then. Until, after an argument, the woman was given another job: she had to collect the floor and car seats for a few minutes. As he is only 1.52 meters tall, he had to fit inside the car to do so. He complained because that way of working was not safe and was ignored again. One day he fell and broke his arm. He went to the infirmary, where he received painkillers and a hand splint. Then they have it returned to work. His boss, we read in his complaint, told him that if he didn’t keep working, he would “fire his black ass”.

Isolated workplace

Another former employee said he heard his white colleagues use words like ‘nigger’ and ‘monkey’ and that someone painted a black swastika where he entered. He added that the job of cleaning the work area fell to black workers only.

The first complaints against the environment in the Fremont factory, we read in the article, started in November 2014. In some documents we read that some workers called the factory a ‘tree plantation’ and a ‘slave ship’. Several employees reported that those who used racist language were never disciplined.

Some people describe the workplace as isolated environment. Part of the production, they said, takes place in tents behind the main factory: an environment that is poorly protected from the cold at night, with portable toilets and no indoor dining spaces. Several former workers say blacks are more likely to be foreclosed on. They would also be assigned more difficult jobs, while whites would be given more jobs such as quality control or clerical jobs. There would also be discrimination when deciding on promotions.

In April a jury ordered Tesla to do just that pay 3.2 million dollars to a former employee for failing to address workplace racism and creating a hostile environment. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (a federal agency that fights discrimination in the workplace) and the California Department of Employment and Housing (a similar agency in California) are suing Tesla for tolerating racial discrimination and retaliating against those who objected.

Sexual harassment

Nation he also writes that about 45 people have filed complaints against the working environment in which women are subjected to physical and verbal abuse on a regular basis. One girl, who started working in Fremont at the age of 18, said she received hundreds of sexual advances and was abused for nearly two years. Until, after a complaint against a colleague, he was fired because he did not meet the company’s “integrity standards”.

Another woman reported harassment from peers and superiors that led to a panic attack. When he requested medical leave, he was fired.

In one of the documents viewed by Nation we read that “Tesla’s factory looks more like a crude and outdated construction site or a frat house than a cutting company”. Some women described their experiences in Fremont as “shocking” and a “nightmare” and said they began to suffer from chronic anxiety.

In the sexual harassment cases, Tesla submitted several statements from managers and other employees who said they had never seen or heard of inappropriate behavior and would report it if they did.

Accident at work

One employee, in addition to confirming racial discrimination in the factory, also said that when his work caused him stomach problems and he had to stay at home, the company stopped paying him. Others reported that having to continue working despite injuries.

Between January 2019 and February 2024, Osha, according to documents seen by Nation, recorded 80 manufacturing violations at Tesla and fined the company half a million dollars. Between 2014 and 2018, according to the analysis of Forbesthe California division of OSHA issued fines of $236,730 for 54 violations.

More than the statistics themselves, perhaps, it is important that the restrictions greatly exceeded those imposed on other car companies with factories in the United States (the ratio remains even if we consider that Tesla has a large number of employees). In 2015 and 2016, we are still studying, number of accidents at work Tesla’s was higher than the industry average. It fell in 2017, but rose again in 2018.

In 2018 the newspaper Show it quoted a former Tesla safety expert, who according to him in Fremont’s dangerous areas were not surrounded by the usual yellow tape because the CEO, Elon Musk, does not like the color. Show it he also wrote that employee safety training was “Unfortunately not enough”.

It’s not just Fremont

The Fremont factory climate would spread to at least one other US Tesla plant. Some former employees also reported sexual harassment in Sparks, Nevada. A former employee said he found slogans such as ‘Bring back slavery’ and symbols such as swastikas and Confederate flags (southern states in the Civil War, against the abolition of slavery) in bathrooms and elevators. Even in Sparks, he said, blacks had to work harder and less secure jobs.

Elon Musk’s Duties

Nation claims that the origins of the company’s culture can be traced back to the CEO, Elon Musk. The CEO, who was also accused of sexual harassment, said he even slept at the Fremont factory several times. Therefore, he should know very well what is happening in the plant.

Musk has also gone to great lengths to prevent Tesla workers from organizing unions, which elsewhere have favored the passage of laws and processes to protect workers. The fiercest battle was at Fremont. In the summer of 2016, some workers tried to organize with the help of the United Automobile Workers (UAW), a labor union that represents, among others, the workers of the so-called Big Three of the American automobile industry (Ford, General Motors and Stellantis , which owns the Chrysler and Jeep brands). The company responded with a strong anti-union campaign.

In October 2017, Tesla laid off hundreds of people. According to some, it was an attempt to alienate pro-union workers. Among those fired was a man who, according to the National Labor Relations Board, was “forcefully” interviewed three times by management in the final months before he was fired. A few months later, in May 2018, Musk tweeted that “voting party” would mean “losing stock options.”

The workers and the UAW sued Tesla and accused it of violating the law’s protections for workers who want to organize a union. In March 2023, the court ruled in favor of the employees, ordered Musk to delete the tweet and the company to rehire the employee who was interviewed three times and pay him wages. Tesla contested the decision and the cases are still pending. Other lawsuits alleging illegal activities by the company against the union at other US plants are ongoing.

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