An ex-Tesla manufacturing unit employee took the stand following a lawsuit he filed towards the corporate for racial discrimination from mid-2015 via 2016. Owen Diaz, a Black former escalator employee on the Tesla manufacturing unit in Fremont, California claims he was subjected to racially discriminatory feedback and actions from his coworkers over the 9 months he labored on the firm’s manufacturing unit.
Diaz took the stand on Wednesday and according to Reuters grew to become emotional as he testified that the hostile working surroundings made him query his value, and mentioned quote, “I used to be residing from paycheck to paycheck and I wanted the job.”
Diaz first filed the criticism towards Tesla in 2017, claiming he was recurrently addressed in methods “harking back to the best way slave homeowners referred to their slaves,” the lawsuit says.
Valerie Capers Workman, Tesla’s former vice chairman of individuals, issued a statement in October 2021, saying that Diaz was a contract employee for Citistaff, not a Tesla worker. She additionally mentioned whereas witnesses testified that they heard the usage of “racial slurs (together with the n-word),” they had been utilized by employees in a “pleasant” method and claimed two contractors had been fired and one was suspended in response to Diaz’s racial discrimination claims.
The trial started in San Francisco federal court docket on Monday and Diaz’s lawyer advised the jury Black employees had been handled as second-class residents on the Tesla manufacturing unit. “You’ll conclude that Tesla’s conduct … is a aware choice to not defend African American workers inside their office,” the lawyer, Bernard Alexander, advised the jury, Reuters reported.
Diaz’s trial will get underway as Tesla faces a separate class-action lawsuit in California from former workers who equally declare they had been racially discriminated towards on the Fremont manufacturing unit. The lawsuit was filed by the state’s Division of Honest Employment and Housing, claiming the manufacturing unit is racially segregated and the therapy of Black workers is so insupportable that many had been compelled to give up.
Tesla mentioned in a statement final 12 months that nearly 50 people made claims to DFEH of racial discrimination on the Tesla manufacturing unit, however mentioned: “on each single event … it didn’t discover misconduct towards Tesla.” The company filed a counter-lawsuit against the DFEH in September, calling the division’s criticism “misguided.”
“Attacking an organization like Tesla that has achieved a lot good for California shouldn’t be the overriding purpose of a state company with prosecutorial authority,” Tesla mentioned within the assertion. “The pursuits of employees and basic equity should come first.”
The corporate’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, advised the jury on Monday, that whereas racial discrimination performed on the Fremont manufacturing unit was indefensible, he mentioned the claims had been exaggerated and questioned whether or not Diaz had suffered psychological harm, Reuters reported. “There may be nearly no proof of something you simply heard aside from a lawyer saying it occurred eight years later,” Spiro mentioned.
A jury awarded Diaz $137 million in damages throughout a 2021 trial, making it one of many largest in U.S. historical past for office discrimination circumstances. Nevertheless, final 12 months, a judge significantly reduced the award to $15 million and Diaz’s legal professionals rejected the decreased quantity, as an alternative choosing a brand new trial.
Diaz’s trial is predicted to final 5 days.
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