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Tesla Is a 'Hotbed for Racist Behavior,' Worker Claims in Suit
- snapetom 9y agoSpaceX, at least in the Seattle office, is widely known as a ruthless, stressful workplace with high turnover. I'm not surprised at all that Musks' other ventures are similar.
- agumonkey 9y agoBut somehow the link between high stress and racism is thin.
- minitel 9y agoIt's simple. If you aren't White, and someone makes you stressed out or unhappy you can always accuse them of racism as a way of lashing out or getting some recompense. Similar thing works for women, but racism has much more stigma than sexism. I honestly don't blame people who try to get while the getting is good (by using their "oppression" to their advantage). You can thank popular culture's dramatic playing up of racial tensions over the past century for this crappy situation. In the end I think episodes like this will cement in our minds the truth that diversity is NOT a strength. Never was. Never will be. No matter how much we indulge in feel good "chicken soup for the soul" type narratives about it working out in some cherry picked instances.
- hughes 9y agoWhat does that have to do with racism?
- cirgue 9y agoHigh stress, ultra-competitive workplace culture brings out the worst in people. This is not exactly a secret.
- randyrand 9y agoOn top of that, often people say racist words not because they really care about skin color, but because its just an easy way to piss people off when they're mad and looking to piss people off. Whether or not that doesn't count as racism is up for debate. But its similar to the motivations behind trolling, which is more or less just to stir shit up.
- evanlivingston 9y agoI don't think whether that counts for racism is up for debate.
- SamReidHughes 9y agoA better example is how trash talk at the line of scrimmage used to be done in the NFL.
- evanlivingston 9y agoI would hope NFL game tactics wouldn't be used as a analogies for ethics.
- SamReidHughes 9y agoIt's not an analogy. It's a different example where they aren't mad while trying to get in somebody's head.
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- randyrand 9y agoI disagree. Therefore its up for debate and you're wrong =) I think to be a racist you actually need to dislike people for their race. Motivation matters. Saying something racially mean only because you want to make them upset and not because you actually care about their race is not racist. Why? Because you don't actually dislike them for their race.
- bsaul 9y agowonder how you can combine high turnover with rocket science disruption. There's a limited supply of people qualified enough to work in that company, so you would think that they make everything possible to keep them.
- bitL 9y agoTop positions/teams that actually matter for rockets have surely low turnover; the non-essential roles like internal software developer for moving a crane from point A to point B are likely the ones where most people won't last long.
- kamaal 9y agoNot surprising. If you are expected to do a lot of work for below or market standard pay, you are likely to quit soon.
- oceanghost 9y agoSpaceX sent me a rejection letter. Difficulty level? I didn't apply. Another time they called me for a very specialized position, I told them, "I'm not qualified for this." The recruiter assured me it wouldn't be a problem. I go through the rigamarole and a couple days later the same guy calls me back to tell me I'm not qualified. Weird. People.
- toomuchtodo 9y agoHaving gone through their HR pipeline, it seems highly dysfunctional. Not surprised by your experience.
- eropple 9y agoSame here. My bet is that their KPIs are top-of-the-funnel, not bottom.
- nooron 9y agoI got offered a job there. Then another HR employee called and said wait, they needed to find out my SAT/ACT scores before they could actually offer me the job. I had most of a master's degree at that point. I still got the offer, but it was really strange.
- bob_theslob646 9y agoThere is literally so much negative news on Tesla lately. I am not even a fan of the stock either, but damn their is a gigantic microscope on them. It would be rather useful to see how many articles are written about a company and then be able to see if they are negative or positive, b)c I beg the ration for Tesla would be way negative. >Tesla has roughly 33,000 employees globally but has never publicly released its diversity statistics. 100/33000 = 0.303% is representative of the company values. I bet their are a ton of lawsuits against other major corporations that we do not hear about, but anything related to Elon Musk will cause a commotion. This is poor journalism and sensationalism from Bloomberg. Maybe they will interview one of their analysts and ask them for their analysis on the issue. BLOOMBERG... Second.
- rdruxn 9y ago2/5 on your there/their/they're
- Insanity 9y agoHe might not be a native English speaker. It does irk me a tad as well though. But if he's not a native speaker, the odds are low that we'd be able to communicate perfectly in their language. (Though I'm not a native speaker either)
- bob_theslob646 9y agoOr maybe on mobile, my speech to text does not check the use case of " their/there/they're" It also easier to be an asshole on the internet, rather than look at the content of the post =)
- Insanity 9y agoha yeah, didn't even think of that reason! Well, either way, it's nothing to really complain about on the internet I suppose. Maybe mention it to a foreign speaker so they learn from it, otherwise just let it slide. Next time I'll try to remember maybe it's just text to speech :P
- yters 9y agoIt'd be interesting to know specifics.
- bob_theslob646 9y agoExactly, the article is nonsense.
- jdoliner 9y agoUnfortunately, you may be in the wrong journalistic era for those.
- aurizon 9y agoI can not grasp why any company does this - I suspect that this is a union created kafuffle - for obvious reasons. Their fellow conspirators will all line up and swear, with no phone calls or e-mails to rat them out. Strange that there were not earlier complaints - the employees all seemed very happy for the past many years. Thus I vote for Musk's side in this argument.
- aurizon 9y agoI see lots of hate for Musk....
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- jkmcf 9y agoIn fairness, if someone is a jerk to you, but sincerely apologizes, it is important to be thick-skinned and accept that apology. I think this only works in isolated cases when the offending party accidentally says something offensive, or there was misunderstanding. I'm pretty sure everyone understands the meaning of the N word. Any prevalent behavior like this is unacceptable no matter how many "sincere" apologies follow.
- thereare5lights 9y agoYea but people that never had to deal with racism coupled with a distinct lack of empathy for or experience of a average person with little to no power, such as Musk, will never understand that.
- jdoliner 9y agoHow do you know Elon Musk has never had to deal with racism and has no empathy for the experience of an average person? My understanding is that he grew up as a fairly average person in South Africa.
- azinman2 9y agoWell that and my guess is race issues have a higher share of collective consciousness in SA. Obviously he’s in the ideal position in the US, however.
- thereare5lights 9y agoRead https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#Early_childhood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#Early_childhood and tell me that you think that is the "average" person.
- jdoliner 9y agoI did read that actually, there's nothing in there that really screams a non-average upbringing to me. Maybe above average in terms of wealth... but not ridiculously so.
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- nanistheonlyist 9y agoPretty transparent attempt at a UAW protection racket. All you need is two employees in protected classes to call each other names and you have generated a tort.
- dgossow 9y agoI see a lot of comments defending Tesla, but I get the feeling that this might have to do with Elon Musk's popularity. If you look at it soberly, this seems a lot like what happened at Uber - a super competitive corporate environment that values some success metric over anything else, which brings out the worst in people and does not filter out jerks efficiently. That leads to bad things happening, until someone decides to speak up publicly.
- jstewartmobile 9y agoI wish the media waited until they had more red meat before stirring people up with these he-said she-said stories. It turns everything into such noise that most people just don't pay attention or care. I remember years ago the media was doing the same thing to that poor old lady who got scalded by McDonald's coffee. They ballyhooed the initial $1M (edit: actually $2.86M) judgment as front-page news, but the little details--like having burns severe enough to require skin grafts, or the judgment being reduced to a few hundred grand on appeal that barely covered her hospital expense--was always tiny print published much later. The result? People were driven to the bogus conclusion that torts-gone-wild were root of all evil, and of course, we end up with the current scenario of arbitration-gone-wild (like in this article). We traded a non-problem for a serious one thanks to media disaster porn. Whatever awful things I can say about Facebook or Twitter, I have to concede some degree of gratitude to them for eviscerating the mainstream media.
- dasil003 9y ago> Whatever awful things I can say about Facebook or Twitter, I have to concede some degree of gratitude to them for eviscerating the mainstream media. Except Facebook is entirely driven by engagement with absolutely zero value placed on truth, it drives all posts towards a supermarket check-out lane tabloid sensibility. I'm not sure how that can be considered an improvement on any axis.
- jstewartmobile 9y agoBecause then there's one big enemy we can gang up on instead of a million little ones that scatter like roaches.
- codefined 9y agoI don't know, it might make the single target bigger. But monopolisation almost always hurts the consumer. At least where there were a million little crappy news sources, there were a few good ones.
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- whb07 9y agoHere’s what appears to be the actual suit in question[0]. Though can’t verify As it’s not straight from the source. At any rate, the allegations are pretty vague and seem like those of an ambulance chaser seeking. They are seeking a class action lawsuit on behalf of current and past African Americans who’ve ever worked there. From quick skimming the Vaughn alleges he’s “heard people and supervisors say the Nigga or Nigger”. It doesn’t say exactly at who it was directed to if at all. I know I’ll get downvoted for saying this, but the factory workers at Tesla for sure say those slang words and for sure listen to rap music. I don’t think though that Tesla’s managers and executives are out on the floor running a plantation like Roots[1] [0]www.civilrightsca.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/2017-11-13-Complaint-File-Stamped-Copy.pdf [1]https://vimeo.com/1816274 https://vimeo.com/1816274
- runesoerensen 9y agoTesla response: https://www.tesla.com/blog/hotbed-misinformation https://www.tesla.com/blog/hotbed-misinformation