Electric car maker Tesla is being sued after fifteen Black employees alleged that they were subjected to racial abuse and harassment at its factories.
According to the lawsuit filed in a California state court, the workers were subjected to offensive racist comments and behavior by colleagues, managers, and human resources employees regularly.
Some of the plaintiffs were assigned to the most physically demanding posts in Tesla or passed over for promotion.
The lawsuit also claimed that a production associate at Tesla’s Fremont factory was immediately demoted upon returning to the company after taking an authorized leave of absence for contracting COVID-19.
The automotive company is facing at least 10 lawsuits alleging widespread race discrimination or sexual harassment, including one by a California civil rights agency.
Reporters have reached out to Tesla for comment but did not return the request.
In related news, a former Wells Fargo executive last May alleged that the company held “fake” job interviews for “diverse” candidates for positions that had already been filled
Joe Bruno, a former executive in the wealth management division at Wells Fargo’s corporate offices in Jacksonville, Florida, told The New York Times that the company would interview minority candidates to comply with an informal policy promoting diversity.
However, he later noticed that the candidates were often interviewing for jobs that had been promised to someone else.
Bruno also claimed that he was fired for bringing attention to the matter after telling his superiors that the interviews were “inappropriate” and “ethically and morally wrong.”
In response to his claims, Wells Fargo released a statement addressing the allegations.
“We researched all specific claims the reporter shared with us in advance of the story’s publication and could not corroborate the claims as factual,” a spokesperson for the company said. “We will continue our internal review and if we find evidence of inappropriate behavior or shortcomings in our guidelines or their implementation, we will take decisive action.”
Raschelle Burton, a Wells Fargo spokeswoman, also dismissed reports about the company holding “fake interviews” for minorities.
“To the extent that individual employees are engaging in the behavior as described by The New York Times, we do not tolerate it,” Burton told reporters.
In August 2020, amid widespread protests following the death of George Floyd, Wells Fargo agreed to pay nearly $8 million to settle a claim from the Department of Labor alleging the multinational bank discriminated against thousands of Black people applying for the company.
