Tesla revealed on Monday that a U.S. federal agency that is responsible for enforcing civil rights laws against workplace discrimination has been added as one of the agencies investigating the automotive company.
GRUENHEIDE, GERMANY - MARCH 22: Tesla CEO Elon Musk during the official opening of the new Tesla electric car manufacturing plant on March 22, 2022 near Gruenheide, Germany.
During the courtroom meeting for an alleged racial discrimination case filed by the California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DEFH), Tesla said that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has already conducted an open investigation to them before the DEFH's complaints, as reported first by Bloomberg.
However, Tesla denied the alleged workplace discrimination claims of DEFH. Their lawyers asked the judge in a document dated April 18 to pause the lawsuit.
Read Also:Tesla Has Convinced Judge to Reduce the $137 Million Payment for its Racial Abuse Lawsuit
"Turf War"
Tesla claimed that the DFEH is exceeding its legal authority and "using litigation as a bullying tactic and to advance its "turf war" with EEOC, which was the first to investigate the company before the DFEH filed its lawsuit.
The turf war that the automaker is alluding to involved the EEOC's settlement over a sexual harassment lawsuit against the video game company Activision Blizzard.
DFEH said that they found evidence of segregation in the Fremont factory, where black workers were discriminated, and received "hundreds of complaints from workers" prior to filing their suit. However, Tesla responded through a blog in February, saying that the DFEH's lawsuit is misguided.
The automaker also said that the Californian agency didn't show worker complaints to them only until after they filed the lawsuit in February.
"DFEH ignored its statutory obligations and rushed to file suit against Tesla, perhaps for a quick publicity grab, perhaps out of fear that the EEOC would be the first to settle with Tesla," Tesla's lawyers said in the filing, according to Bloomberg's report.
Other Cases
In October 2021, a court ruled against Tesla in a lawsuit filed by former employee Owen Diaz, the automaker's contract worker from Fremont factory who served his tenure from June 2015 to May 2016. He said in his lawsuit that he was subjected to racial abuse.
Tesla was ordered to pay $6.9 million for emotional damages and $137 million in punitive damages.
Last year, six women also filed sexual harassment cases against the company after the initial outing of Tesla employee Jessica Barraza, a former employee who claimed that she had experienced inappropriate advancements toward her while working.
One of the six women, Jessica Brooks, also shared her story in The Washington Post recounting how the harassment began on her first day when male employees checked her out as the "new girl."
Back in 2017, the company also faced a lawsuit from a former employee for allegedly failing to investigate claims that he was repeatedly receiving racial slurs at the Fremont plant.
In the same year, another employee filed a lawsuit against the company for ignoring her claims of alleged discrimination, unethical workplace conditions, and pervasive harassment.
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Written by Joaquin Victor Tacla
