One reason why American corporations have shipped so many factory jobs overseas is because of civil rights laws that put the corporation on the hook for “hostile environment” discrimination damages whenever low-brow blue- collar guys quote their favorite raps songs to each other.
Remarkably, Tesla runs a giant factory employing 22,000 auto workers in the expensive San Francisco Bay area.
Tesla is now extremely deep-pocketed, with a market capitalization of $750 billion compared to $300 billion for mighty Toyota, $75 billion for Daimler-Benz, and $50 billion for Ford. Not surprisingly, when a Latino worker says something to a black worker that might sound racist out of context, lawsuits are filed. One black elevator operator sued and won $137 million dollars in damages. Tesla offered to settle for $15 million or appeal. The lucky stiff pressed his luck and was awarded $3 million on appeal.
Now the Biden Administration is piling on. From the New York Times news section:
Federal Lawsuit Accuses Tesla of Racial Discrimination
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit accusing the carmaker of mistreating Black employees at its factory in California.
By Jack Ewing
Sept. 28, 2023A federal agency on Thursday filed a lawsuit that accuses Tesla of discrimination against Black employees who it said were bombarded with racial epithets, given worse work assignments than white workers and fired when they complained.
Tesla managers were aware of the discrimination and verbal abuse, the lawsuit filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission argues, but failed to do enough to stop it. …
The lawsuit is the latest to accuse Tesla of pervasive racism at its factory in Fremont, Calif., near San Francisco. …
A group of about 240 Black men and women who have worked at Tesla since 2016 have asked a judge to grant them class action status to pursue claims of racial discrimination, which included being routinely addressed as “slave,” “you people” and much worse.
California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing, which is now called the Civil Rights Department, the state’s agency responsible for enforcing anti-discrimination laws, has also sued Tesla, claiming among other things that Black workers are “severely underrepresented” in management positions.
Reading Walter Isaacson’s biography Elon Musk (which I reviewed here), my impression was that Musk employs across his many companies a lot of engineers with amazingly European names, like the young Twitter engineer from France Ben San Souci (Sans Souci—“Without Care”—is the name of Frederick the Great’s rococo summer palace in Potsdam), who explains to Musk which of his reforms are feasible without driving Twitter into a ditch.
The suit by the E.E.O.C. accuses Tesla of violating federal law by “engaging and continuing to engage in discrimination against Black employees at the Fremont factory by subjecting them to severe or pervasive racial harassment and by creating a hostile work environment because of their race.”
Has any woke company ever been successfully sued for creating a hostile work environment against whites?
… Tesla managers witnessed the behavior and failed to stop it, according to the suit. Employees who complained were punished with unpleasant work assignments or fired, the lawsuit said.
One Black employee said he had been disciplined for playing music after complaining about the misconduct.
It’s interesting how dependent the Biden Administration is upon Elon Musk. His SpaceX launched 64% of the world’s rockets into space in 2022 and Musk’s provision of Starlink satellite communications may have saved Ukraine from losing its war in the early weeks. And Biden’s aggressive plan to push America to going to all electric new cars in the 2030s is heavily dependent upon Tesla continuing to push the envelope by driving down manufacturing costs.
And yet, the Biden Administration also seems out to get Musk at the same time.
Why is the Biden Administration shoveling huge sums into Musk’s pockets at the same time it’s attempting to pester Musk’s enterprises like Lilliputians trying to tie down Gulliver?
I’m sure I will be informed by commenters that it’s all part of a complex and deviously brilliant master plan of evil hatched by the shadowy figures behind Biden.
Or then again, it could be that there is no master plan, just stupidity.
