The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against Tesla over allegations that the company had systematic racial discrimination and harassment at its Fremont factory, while Tesla denied all of the claims and pledged to fight on court.
Kevin Kish, director of the DFEH, was quoted by the NBC News on Thursday as saying that the agency sued the electric vehicle giant which moved its headquarter from the Golden State to Texas recently after receiving hundreds of complaints from workers regarding Tesla's factory in the Northern California.
After investigating those allegations, officials found evidence that the Fremont factory "is a racially segregated workplace where Black workers are subjected to racial slurs and discriminated against in job assignments, discipline, pay, and promotion creating a hostile work environment," according to a statement from the department that is in charge of protecting the basic rights of workers in the state,
Tesla also released a statement on Wednesday, saying the DFEH's move is both unfair and counterproductive, especially because it focuses on alleged misconduct by production associates at the Fremont factory that took place between 2015 and 2019 and the agency never raised any concern about workplace practices at the company in the latest three years.
"Over the past five years, the DFEH has been asked on almost 50 occasions by individuals who believe they were discriminated against or harassed to investigate Tesla. On every single occasion, when the DFEH closed an investigation, it did not find misconduct against Tesla," the statement noted, adding that these results gave no credibility for the agency's current allegations.
