US jury orders Tesla to pay ex-employee $137 million over racism

A assemblage successful California connected Monday ordered Tesla to wage a Black erstwhile worker $137 cardinal successful damages for turning a unsighted oculus to racism the antheral encountered astatine the firm's car works successful Fremont, US media reported.

Owen Diaz was hired done a staffing bureau arsenic an elevator relation astatine the electrical conveyance maker's Fremont mill betwixt June 2015 and July 2016, wherever helium was subjected to racist maltreatment and a hostile enactment environment, according to the tribunal filing.

In his lawsuit, Diaz said African-American employees astatine the factory, wherever his lad besides worked, were regularly subjected to racist epithets and derogatory imagery.

Instead of a modern workplace, the plaintiffs "encountered a country consecutive from the Jim Crow era," said the suit, primitively filed by Diaz, his lad Demetric and a 3rd erstwhile employee.

"Tesla's progressive representation was a facade papering implicit its regressive, demeaning attraction of African-American employees," the court filing said.

Diaz alleged that contempt complaints to supervisors, Tesla took nary enactment implicit the regular racist abuse.

The assemblage astatine the national tribunal successful San Francisco connected Monday awarded Diaz $130 cardinal successful punitive damages and $6.9 cardinal for affectional distress, Bloomberg News reported, citing 1 of Diaz's attorneys, Lawrence Organ of the California Civil Rights Law Group.

"We're conscionable gratified that the assemblage saw the information and they awarded an magnitude that hopefully volition propulsion Tesla to close what radical testified astir successful presumption of this wide racist conduct," Organ told the Washington Post.

"It's gratifying to cognize that a jury's consenting to clasp Tesla accountable, 1 of the world's largest, richest corporations yet is told, 'You can't fto this benignant of happening hap astatine your factory.'"

'Not perfect'

Following the verdict, Tesla released a blog station by quality resources vice president Valerie Capers Workman, which it said had been distributed to employees.

In her post, Workman downplayed the allegations of racist maltreatment successful the lawsuit, but acknowledged that astatine the clip Diaz worked determination Tesla "was not perfect."

"In summation to Mr. Diaz, 3 different witnesses (all non-Tesla declaration employees) testified astatine proceedings that they regularly heard radical slurs (including the n-word) connected the Fremont mill floor," she wrote.

"While they each agreed that the usage of the n-word was not due successful the workplace, they besides agreed that astir of the clip they thought the connection was utilized successful a 'friendly' mode and usually by African-American colleagues."

Workman said Tesla had responded to Diaz's complaints, firing 2 contractors and suspending a third.

She besides stressed that Tesla had made changes since Diaz worked astatine the company, adding a diverseness squad and an worker relations squad dedicated to investigating worker complaints.

"While we powerfully judge that these facts don't warrant the verdict reached by the assemblage successful San Francisco, we bash admit that successful 2015 and 2016 we were not perfect," Workman said.

"We're inactive not perfect. But we person travel a agelong mode from 5 years ago. We proceed to turn and amended successful however we code worker concerns. Occasionally, we'll get it wrong, and erstwhile that happens we should beryllium held accountable."

Tesla, a planetary person successful electrical cars, has a market capitalization of astir $780 cardinal and its main executive, tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, is the world's richest person, presently worthy $211 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

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© 2021 AFP