San Francisco, Aug 23 : The California’s Office of Administrative Law (OAL) has denied the Elon Musk-owned Tesla’s petition to the nation’s civil rights regulator.The regulator claimed the company was guilty of discrimination against racial groups in its manufacturing facilities.The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing or DFEH (now known as Department of Civil Rights) filed a lawsuit against Tesla in February in which it claimed racial discrimination and discrimination at the Fremont, California manufacturing plant.
Tesla later filed the complaint with the California’s OAL in June of this year and claimed that the Department of Civil Rights didn’t provide the electric car manufacturer with “fair information of an investigation”.
OAL has rejected Tesla’s request to be the civil rights watchdog of the state, TechCrunch reported late on Monday.
The OAL confirmed that Tesla will continue to assert its rights in the courts.
The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has also started an “open investigation” into Tesla for alleged discrimination against employees in its facilities.
In October of last year, Tesla was ordered to pay $137 million in damages to the Black former employee who accused Tesla of disregarding discrimination and racial sexism.
The US District Judge reduced the damages for punitive to $15 million.
In February the DEFH filed an action against Tesla and Tesla, claiming that it has committed discrimination based on race and gender within its Fremont manufacturing facility in the state of.
The agency’s regulatory office stated that it had received numerous complaints about the workplace in Tesla’s Fremont factory.
“After being contacted by hundreds of complaints from employees, DFEH found evidence that Tesla’s Fremont factory is a workplace that is racially segregated in which Black workers are subjected racist slurs and are discriminated against in the assignment of jobs as well as pay, discipline and promotions, creating an unwelcoming work environment,” the agency’s director Kevin Kish had said in an announcement.
In an article on its blog, Tesla had said that the lawsuit was the result of an investigation lasting three years that concluded that the DFEH — whose purpose is to safeguard workers “has never raised any concerns about the current workplace practices employed by Tesla”.
“Rather the lawsuit seems to be centered around alleged misconduct by workers at the Fremont factory, which occurred between 2015 and the year 2019.” the electric car manufacturer had stated.
na/dpb
