14 ms·
Black Tesla employees describe a culture of racism: ‘I was at my breaking point’
- paulpauper 5y agoHow do we know if this is unique to tesla or that Tesla is just a magnet for media coverage. Likely, this is a problem for all companies, but Tesla is just a favorite target of the media.
- jakelazaroff 5y agoDoes that matter? If this turned out to be endemic, would Tesla be exculpated in your mind?
- spicybright 5y agoIf it turned out to be an endemic, it should be known and treated as such. All companies that are proven to fall into this should be pressured to fix it. Why would you even assume it would change the burden of responsibility and guilt?
- agumonkey 5y agoThere's bad behavior everywhere, but this seemed to be a few leagues over the average. I don't know how Fremont is, maybe there's high tension and rotten nationalism growing but still.
- gumby 5y agoWe don’t know. Well, we can pretty well assume it’s not unique, but less common than when I was a kid. Regardless: what you’re asking is a good topic for a different article. The allegations are that Tesla management ignored the complaints and in fact took action to continue the problem (e.g. when VIPs showed up). Some of those issues are criminal, and either way, if true, require reform on the part of the company.
- ohsnapman 5y agoRacism in auto manufacturing seems to be as rampant as sexual harassment and discrimination in tech. Without even trying that hard: Ford: https://www.hometownstations.com/news/ford-employees-say-racial-discrimination-exists-protest-for-cultural-change-throughout-the-plant/article_81b2416e-b273-11ea-9ea3-c7486ae90b43.html https://www.hometownstations.com/news/ford-employees-say-rac... GM: https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/16/us/gm-toledo-racism-lawsuit/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/16/us/gm-toledo-racism-lawsuit/i... Toyota: https://auto.hindustantimes.com/auto/news/toyota-says-it-no-longer-employs-staff-shown-mocking-george-floyd-death-41594439702349.html https://auto.hindustantimes.com/auto/news/toyota-says-it-no-... Honda: https://www.courthousenews.com/honda-plant-accused-of-tolerating-racism/ https://www.courthousenews.com/honda-plant-accused-of-tolera... That being said, this isn't the first time in the last few years there's been a suit against Tesla. Either this isn't been a focus for management, or their remediation has been deficient in preventing this sort of toxicity from flaring up out in the open.
- orblivion 5y agoThanks for this context. I was disinclined to believe the story because it sounded so unusual (especially with the context being "silicon valley company"), which seems like a reasonably good filter for predicting that a news story will turn out to be fake. But from this it seems plausible that there's just a very different culture going on on production floors. This is pretty awful.
- dragontamer 5y agoThe fact that they've got enough evidence to take Tesla to court on a systemic level is a big red flag. A lot of middle-management level racism exists across the country. But the court-case is suing Tesla, the entire organization, for high-level systemic racism. This is the difference between "murderer kills at High School" and "the entire upper management, from principals and superintendents and teachers are involved in a murder". Both involve murder, but one is worse since it includes leaders. Similarly, this Tesla case isn't just some "low level" typical racism we see all the time in this country. This is a systemic issue, where black people work at "The Plantation" (literally called out in the court case documents). The relevant court case document can be found here: https://www.dfeh.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/32/2022/02/DFEH-vs-Tesla.pdf https://www.dfeh.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/32/2022/02/...
- temp8964 5y agoIf "Black workers were frequently called the N-word on the assembly line", I guess there should be some audio/video recordings of those posted online.
- smitty1e 5y agoEven then, in the era of Jussie Smollet, one still cannot preclude the possibility that this article is just a shot across Elon Musk's bow.
- emerged 5y agoNo matter how grey this comment is, it’s still true. This is statistically far far more likely to be bullshit than face value racism.
- rasz 5y agoDidnt it turn out to be "Black workers were frequently called the N-word on the assembly line" _by other black workers_?
- noisy_boy 5y ago> she would hear Latino and white workers, and their supervisors, casually refer to Black workers with the N-word. “You would hear n— this and n— that,” she said. ”It was the norm. It was Tesla’s tradition.” > Chatman didn’t hear Asian workers use the N-word, she said, but they “would make chicken jokes,” a stereotype mocking of Black Americans’ diet. So, no.
- rasz 5y agoI seem to remember this from one of the previous cases, all I could find now is: "An ex-Tesla employee who worked at the Fremont factory for about two years said in a sworn declaration in the Vaughn case that he had heard the “N-word” used at least 100 times by co-workers and that Black and White employees alike referred to the factory as “the plantation” or “slaveship.”"
- walkhour 5y ago
- noselasd 5y agoI'm not sure you know how it is to be at the receiving end of harassment, it's not a good place to be, you're just trying to survice the day - fighting back at your bosses and coworkers, openly or covertly, is incredibly hard.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- truffdog 5y agoThe N word as an unsayable totem is one of the big white collar/blue collar divides in the bay area. It's almost an um depending on the group of people you're with. If this was their engineering office I would agree.
- monocasa 5y agoUnless the bay area is somehow more accepting of casual racism than the deep south I find that hard to believe. All of the blue collar jobs I had in Georgia and Tennessee would fire you on the spot for dropping an n bomb on company time. Hell, it's more likely to get you fired there than in white collar in the south since HR is way more likely to immediately just immediately jump to staffing changes in any compliant; it's cheaper than dealing with the subset that'll then into lawsuits.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- truffdog 5y agoThat's interesting. What were the demographic breakdowns in Georgia and Tennessee where you worked? White people are more circumspect with the magic word generally, it was the American-born children of immigrants who would really get wild with it, along with the black dudes who wanted to be or seem more street adjacent. Such an awkward way to phrase all of this.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- neurobot123 5y ago
- greatpostman 5y ago
- KerrAvon 5y agoSo True. South African emerald scion Elon Musk isn’t capable of saying the n-word or promoting a culture of racism or misogyny. How would that be possible??
- greatpostman 5y agoI mean look, people are allowed to have nuanced opinions on this topic, and discuss when racism has occurred or not
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]