The CRD alleged that “black workers were relegated to labor-intensive jobs, segregated and paid less than non-black workers” and “faced retaliation in the form of overly harsh performance reviews, reprimands, and firings” when they complained. The agency accused Tesla of failing to stop racial harassment and discrimination despite knowing about the problem.
Tesla’s evidence is not enough to avoid trial
Superior Court Judge Peter Borkon said in yesterday’s mistake that at this stage of the procedure, “the court evaluates the evidence in the manner most favorable to the plaintiff and resolves doubts or evidentiary ambiguities in his favor.” Tesla, the defendant, requests a motion for summary judgment and, as such, must present undisputed facts that are sufficient to invalidate the claims.
The allegations include racial harassment, discriminatory assignments, unequal pay, retaliation, failure to prevent discrimination and harassment, and disparate treatment in areas including discipline, promotions, layoffs, and constructive discharges. Borkon denied Tesla’s attempt to dismiss the claims, saying the automaker failed to present indisputable evidence that would shift the burden of proof to the CRD.
Borkon’s analysis was more extensive about allegations of harassment, discriminatory assignments and retaliation. About the harassment, he wrote:
The evidence indicates that “Of the 240 statements filed by plaintiffs, all stated that they heard the n-word at Tesla’s Fremont factory” and “Of the 228 statements filed by Tesla, 99 heard the n-word at Tesla’s Fremont factory.” That suggests that out of 12,000 black workers at least 339 (2.8%) heard the n-word at work. Tesla’s evidence did not shift the burden to plaintiff CRD. First, CRD’s claims allege statewide harassment, but Tesla’s evidence appears to be limited to the Fremont factory. Second, the Tesla evidence appears to be a non-representative sample of the Tesla factory, so it cannot reasonably be extrapolated to the entire Tesla factory. Third, Tesla’s evidence defines the minimum number of black workers who heard the n-word at work rather than the total number of black workers who heard the n-word at work.
According to Borkon’s ruling, Tesla asserted that its written policies and procedures and its training and orientation programs show that there was no pattern or practice of harassment, and that Tesla took immediate and appropriate action in response to incidents of harassment. Borkon said he is “not convinced that the existence of written policies alone is sufficient to establish a prima facie case that harassment or discrimination did not occur.”
