No. It was arbitration, not a case first off. Secondly berry's allegations may be backed up by actual proof, which is not discussed in this article. Thirdly, almost all cases (short of DNA proof) are they-said, and it's up to an independent third party to find out where the truth lies.
>caps years of complaints from Black workers that Tesla turned a blind eye to the commonplace use of racial slurs on the assembly line and was slow to clean up graffiti with swastikas and other hate symbols scrawled in common areas
Is this a shitty middle school or a company? I would imagine it's not very easy to get a job at Tesla, including for assembly line work. I'd be shocked if it happened once, let alone repeatedly, and let alone with a slow clean-up response.
If it were one employee making the accusation, I'd believe it, and since it's allegedly multiple employees, I especially doubt it's false.
Musk’s tweets include a lot of memes, including drugs memes, yes.
However, I have not seen even one thing from Musk personally which is a racial slur I’m familiar with[0], nor anything politically authoritarian — if anything, he seems anarchic.
All that said, I’m glad this person got justice, and it’s shameful it took so long.
[0] racial slurs vary from place to place, so perhaps I’m just blind to them?
I'm no musk expert but he once got into a twitter fight where he called the guy a pedo. Which he later categorized as a "generic insult." To be clear, pedo is not racial, but it is certainly a slur. When you have a CEO publicly calling someone a pedo as a generic insult, it's easy to see how that desensitizes workers towards other slurs being used casully.
Not saying that Musk should be personally blamed for whatever racist hotbeds exist in Tesla. But as a CEO, you really need to be a role model, because anything you do will be magnified 10x by others.
Slightly off topic, but the biggest eye opener in this article for me was this:
> Three-quarters of the $1.02 million award is for Berry’s attorneys’ fees and legal costs. Rushing also directed Tesla to pay the ex-employee $266,278.50 in damages, including $100,000 to compensate for emotional distress.
People here on HN can be very quick to make the claim "it's illegal to do X" as though that solves the problem.
This appears to be about as clear cut a case as you could imagine (for it to be granted against Tesla in arbitration). Could you imagine spending 4 years and $750,000 for a _chance_ at being told you were right, and rewarded less than you souos have made if you had just continued working for them over that time.
Back on topic, this man was treated horrifyingly, and Tesla's defense of "is absolutely against any form of discrimination, harassment, or unfair treatment of any kind" is laughable, it must be such a slap in the face for Mr. Berry to be told that by an army of lawyers after going through what he did.
> Could you imagine spending 4 years and $750,000 for a _chance_ at being told you were right
Did Berry spend $750,000? A $750,000 attorneys' fees award doesn't imply that he paid them anything, or that he would have had to pay them anything if he'd lost the case.
You're right there's some subtlety in the wording, and my simplification of the figures doesn't help. It doesn't change the fact that he didn't get a 1 million dollar award personally, and that legal fees of 750,000 were paid from that award. We don't know what he wouls have had to pay if he lost, but it I was reading this as someone going through an abusive workplace and considerih arbitration, the fear of even being asked for 10% of that 750k legal bill would push me to not do it.
> We don't know what he wouls have had to pay if he lost
These cases are taken on contingency, so if they lost, the lawyer gets nothing. This is compensated by the large percentage of fees in the case of a win.
> is absolutely against any form of discrimination, harassment, or unfair treatment of any kind
It's truly bizarre that any company that spews this PR canned response implies that their (likely thousands) supervisors/leaders universally uphold the company values. You can have corporate policies and virtues until you're blue in the face, it doesn't mean shit if those policies aren't aggressively enforced.
The truth is that Tesla doesn't stand for a single thing, apart from their bottom line.
This is ridiculous. The CRA overreach starting from the 60s is reaching reduction-ad-absurdum levels now.
Do progressives realize this stuff makes things worse for all parties involved?
Why would anyone hire women or URMs in 2021, unless forced to by the state at gunpoint?
Race/gender relations are worse than they were in the 50s-60s. I wonder how the activists would’ve felt to see their hard-fought gains squandered by immature cynics 60 years later. Utterly tragic.
The author is sharp policy wonk, he traces the evolution of the abuse of CRA from the 60s onwards, explosion of HR bureaucracies, and the wide ranging consequences in academia and industry.
2. Even if the allegations are 100% true, the financial aspects are disgusting. This doesn’t merit $1M, and the lawyer pocketing most of it makes it worse.
This little case is being covered on national media. Now Tesla can handle the PR, but what if this happened at a startup? There is no sense of proportionality to the woke justice system.
3. About hiring URMs/women: it’s obvious that such a hire is a ticking time bomb. The media is shameless in exaggerating even the tiniest issues. Both the laws and the cultural norms are massively in favor or minorities/women.
On top of this one has to work extra hard to find qualified candidates due to downstream issues.
At some point it’s natural to ask: why?
And the only answer is: the state is forcing you to.
I am not sure I understand: What is ridiculous about
> when he confronted a supervisor for calling him the “N-word” he was forced to work longer hours and push a heavier cart.
?
The supervisor let him know he considers him a lesser human being and then retaliated by working him harder.
Is that not the exact thing that activists from the 50s-60s fought hard against ?
> Why would anyone hire women or URMs in 2021, unless forced to by the state at gunpoint?
Your viewpoint seems to be that the only people who are hiring are not women and not "URM". This is not true anymore, but that you think that it is, shows that we have not reached a point where things are "ad absurdum"
I'm failing to see the connection between your comment and the article. What is the overreach here?
We don't know the details because it was discussed behind closed doors, but allegedly "when he confronted a supervisor for calling him the “N-word” he was forced to work longer hours and push a heavier cart." That's clearly workplace abuse, even without the racial tone.
This incident has nothing to do with "CRA overreach". Not only was the employee addressed w/ the "n-word" by his supervisors, the plant was scrawled with swastickas and "other hate signs" and supervisors did nothing to address this. There are ways that this could be considered illegal, even beyond the CRA itself.
You didn't write anything that's actually relevant to the case, besides your opinion that a $1M award is unmerited. Why do you think so? What about the blatant dereliction of loyalty Tesla has shown towards their employee? Shouldn't that concern you, as someone who seems to have broadly conservative views? Or must this kind of concern be left to the "woke" and the CRA-overreach crowd?
Depends on your point of view. It's certainly not synonymous with whites. It originates as a slur against rural people and retains some of that sense -- you wouldn't talk about "Seattle rednecks". But you could interpret it as an ethnic slur against certain specific groups that are white, e.g. Appalachians.
Perhaps but lets remember why it is rightfully separated from other more controversial slurs. Call me a redneck and I would mostly be confused as I am not a 1. uneducated, 2. rural, 3. from the American south, 4. poor. It is an insult for sure, and is mostly (perhaps exclusively) directed towards white people. Though it has a lot of qualifiers that in my view make it more of a classist insult rather than a racial slur.
I'm not condoning its use, just pointing out why it is in an entirely different ball park than the N-word, which when used implies an inherent racial inferiority that is simply not present in the term redneck. In fact, the classist connotation of 'redneck' implies that there are different types of 'whites' that take into account their background and behavior. The n-word, or similar slurs, reduces a person to only their race. I mean, the word simply means black. Even if redneck as a term applied to me I'd rather be insulted over my socioeconomic status rather than some unavoidable defect inherent to my pigmentation.
I subscribe to a descriptive rather then a prescriptive view of language. It is "reasonable" to use a term if the usage conforms to how the term is understood by the people using it.
In Sowell's case he uses the term to make a point. The white connotations of "redneck" is apparent as it conveys his thesis that blacks in America got their culture from rural whites.
My point is not that "redneck" is not a racial slur because it could hypothetically be used against non-whites. I guess it can but I have never heard it in practice, save for Sowell's rhetorical use. My point is rather that a white person can use it against another white person, in a derogatory manner, without invoking statements about racial inferiority. In the majority of cases that I've heard someone use the term "redneck" it is one white person insulting another white person's behaviour or background. Clearly this implies something like classism rather than racism.
Speaking of Thomas Sowell, I think he is mistaken regarding black culture. James B. Stewart has formulated a good critique of his stance, if you are interested.
> In fact, the classist connotation of 'redneck' implies that there are different types of 'whites' that take into account their background and behavior. The n-word, or similar slurs, reduces a person to only their race.
Some years ago I had a (US) southerner explain the same distinction between their using both the terms "n---ers" and "black".
You mean that he asserted that his use of the n-word only had behavioural and socioeconomic implications and not racial?
He might honestly intend it that way but I feel like he is very misguided. He could use the n-word to target someone with a PhD and see if his assertion holds. Would the targeted person respond with confusion as he does not fit the bill? Or would he interpret the slur for what it is, a word most often used to denigrate someone for their skin tone.
I assume you are using this anecdote as a counterargument against my claim that redneck is more classist than racial. My response would be to point out that white people frequently call other white people rednecks. Surely it would be absurd to think that white people do this to disparage whiteness. There is, in my mind, a racial qualifier when using redneck but the racial qualifier is not the insult.
Were you convinced with that defence? In any case, he must understand that his usage of the word is inflammatory and will be perceived as mainly racially contingent. As long as he is aware that people will assume racist intent when he uses the n word his claim is entirely invalidated.
I mean, if I called a disabled person retarded and claimed that I am simply referring to his declining state of acceleration I doubt anyone will let that pass. Two people are involved in an insult, the insulter and the insulted. The insulter can't define the meaning as if words exist in a vacuum. The insulted is free to take offence at perceived intent if this perception falls within the realm of reasonable possibility.
Maybe you can do it if you're black yourself and have a lot of familiarity with the person you called that name. But even if it was the case, justice is blind
That's unlikely to be the case given the lawsuit. Also, that's the difference between the hard "r" and the "a". You will be hard pressed to find a black person using the hard "r".
I used to work for a credit card company. There was an employee that ran his mortgage business on the side during most of the day at work.
So, the company went to fire him. He claimed racism (he was Indian) and sued for $1M. The credit card company not wanting any bad publicity settled giving him nearly that entire amount.
47 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 122 ms ] threadSo this was a he said/she said case?
Is this a shitty middle school or a company? I would imagine it's not very easy to get a job at Tesla, including for assembly line work. I'd be shocked if it happened once, let alone repeatedly, and let alone with a slow clean-up response.
If it were one employee making the accusation, I'd believe it, and since it's allegedly multiple employees, I especially doubt it's false.
However, I have not seen even one thing from Musk personally which is a racial slur I’m familiar with[0], nor anything politically authoritarian — if anything, he seems anarchic.
All that said, I’m glad this person got justice, and it’s shameful it took so long.
[0] racial slurs vary from place to place, so perhaps I’m just blind to them?
Not saying that Musk should be personally blamed for whatever racist hotbeds exist in Tesla. But as a CEO, you really need to be a role model, because anything you do will be magnified 10x by others.
> Three-quarters of the $1.02 million award is for Berry’s attorneys’ fees and legal costs. Rushing also directed Tesla to pay the ex-employee $266,278.50 in damages, including $100,000 to compensate for emotional distress.
People here on HN can be very quick to make the claim "it's illegal to do X" as though that solves the problem.
This appears to be about as clear cut a case as you could imagine (for it to be granted against Tesla in arbitration). Could you imagine spending 4 years and $750,000 for a _chance_ at being told you were right, and rewarded less than you souos have made if you had just continued working for them over that time.
Back on topic, this man was treated horrifyingly, and Tesla's defense of "is absolutely against any form of discrimination, harassment, or unfair treatment of any kind" is laughable, it must be such a slap in the face for Mr. Berry to be told that by an army of lawyers after going through what he did.
Did Berry spend $750,000? A $750,000 attorneys' fees award doesn't imply that he paid them anything, or that he would have had to pay them anything if he'd lost the case.
These cases are taken on contingency, so if they lost, the lawyer gets nothing. This is compensated by the large percentage of fees in the case of a win.
Do you have a source for that?
It's truly bizarre that any company that spews this PR canned response implies that their (likely thousands) supervisors/leaders universally uphold the company values. You can have corporate policies and virtues until you're blue in the face, it doesn't mean shit if those policies aren't aggressively enforced.
The truth is that Tesla doesn't stand for a single thing, apart from their bottom line.
Do progressives realize this stuff makes things worse for all parties involved?
Why would anyone hire women or URMs in 2021, unless forced to by the state at gunpoint?
Race/gender relations are worse than they were in the 50s-60s. I wonder how the activists would’ve felt to see their hard-fought gains squandered by immature cynics 60 years later. Utterly tragic.
EDIT:
1. CRA-woke connection: https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/woke-institutions-is-j...
The author is sharp policy wonk, he traces the evolution of the abuse of CRA from the 60s onwards, explosion of HR bureaucracies, and the wide ranging consequences in academia and industry.
2. Even if the allegations are 100% true, the financial aspects are disgusting. This doesn’t merit $1M, and the lawyer pocketing most of it makes it worse.
This little case is being covered on national media. Now Tesla can handle the PR, but what if this happened at a startup? There is no sense of proportionality to the woke justice system.
3. About hiring URMs/women: it’s obvious that such a hire is a ticking time bomb. The media is shameless in exaggerating even the tiniest issues. Both the laws and the cultural norms are massively in favor or minorities/women.
On top of this one has to work extra hard to find qualified candidates due to downstream issues.
At some point it’s natural to ask: why? And the only answer is: the state is forcing you to.
I don't understand. Are you saying women or URMs are not currently being hired?
It’s “ridiculous” that you can be sued by a black employee whose boss calls him “nigger” at work? What a sick hill to die on.
> Do progressives realize this stuff makes things worse for all parties involved?
Worse for who? The companies who want to call their black employees “niggers”? Who else does it make things worse for?
> Why would anyone hire women or URMs unless forced to by the state at gunpoint?
There are laws against gender and race discrimination in hiring. Essentially, the state does force them at gunpoint.
> Race/gender relations are worse than they were in the 50s-60s.
LOL.
> when he confronted a supervisor for calling him the “N-word” he was forced to work longer hours and push a heavier cart.
?
The supervisor let him know he considers him a lesser human being and then retaliated by working him harder.
Is that not the exact thing that activists from the 50s-60s fought hard against ?
> Why would anyone hire women or URMs in 2021, unless forced to by the state at gunpoint?
Your viewpoint seems to be that the only people who are hiring are not women and not "URM". This is not true anymore, but that you think that it is, shows that we have not reached a point where things are "ad absurdum"
We don't know the details because it was discussed behind closed doors, but allegedly "when he confronted a supervisor for calling him the “N-word” he was forced to work longer hours and push a heavier cart." That's clearly workplace abuse, even without the racial tone.
https://jalopnik.com/elon-musks-alleged-response-to-tesla-ra...
Building a manufacturing workforce free of idiot rednecks shouldn't be as difficult as it is today. :/
> Hurling racist slurs
Hmmmmm...irony
How employees treat each other should be the factory's business, but often is not. Or it just slips under the radar. As long as the job gets done.
I'm not condoning its use, just pointing out why it is in an entirely different ball park than the N-word, which when used implies an inherent racial inferiority that is simply not present in the term redneck. In fact, the classist connotation of 'redneck' implies that there are different types of 'whites' that take into account their background and behavior. The n-word, or similar slurs, reduces a person to only their race. I mean, the word simply means black. Even if redneck as a term applied to me I'd rather be insulted over my socioeconomic status rather than some unavoidable defect inherent to my pigmentation.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Rednecks_and_White_Lib...
In Sowell's case he uses the term to make a point. The white connotations of "redneck" is apparent as it conveys his thesis that blacks in America got their culture from rural whites.
My point is not that "redneck" is not a racial slur because it could hypothetically be used against non-whites. I guess it can but I have never heard it in practice, save for Sowell's rhetorical use. My point is rather that a white person can use it against another white person, in a derogatory manner, without invoking statements about racial inferiority. In the majority of cases that I've heard someone use the term "redneck" it is one white person insulting another white person's behaviour or background. Clearly this implies something like classism rather than racism.
Speaking of Thomas Sowell, I think he is mistaken regarding black culture. James B. Stewart has formulated a good critique of his stance, if you are interested.
Some years ago I had a (US) southerner explain the same distinction between their using both the terms "n---ers" and "black".
He might honestly intend it that way but I feel like he is very misguided. He could use the n-word to target someone with a PhD and see if his assertion holds. Would the targeted person respond with confusion as he does not fit the bill? Or would he interpret the slur for what it is, a word most often used to denigrate someone for their skin tone.
I assume you are using this anecdote as a counterargument against my claim that redneck is more classist than racial. My response would be to point out that white people frequently call other white people rednecks. Surely it would be absurd to think that white people do this to disparage whiteness. There is, in my mind, a racial qualifier when using redneck but the racial qualifier is not the insult.
No, I'm saying that similar to as you describe redneck usage, his n usage was contingent upon class & behavior, and not just the race.
Were you convinced with that defence? In any case, he must understand that his usage of the word is inflammatory and will be perceived as mainly racially contingent. As long as he is aware that people will assume racist intent when he uses the n word his claim is entirely invalidated.
I mean, if I called a disabled person retarded and claimed that I am simply referring to his declining state of acceleration I doubt anyone will let that pass. Two people are involved in an insult, the insulter and the insulted. The insulter can't define the meaning as if words exist in a vacuum. The insulted is free to take offence at perceived intent if this perception falls within the realm of reasonable possibility.
What? Co-workers bantering, maybe, but a manager or supervisor doing something like that in my country would make them virtually unemployable.
When would you ever call a subordinate something like that?
https://time.com/5706848/black-security-guard-wisconsin-n-wo...
https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/7/17/17581558/papa-john-...
https://variety.com/2018/film/news/jonathan-friedland-netfli...
So, the company went to fire him. He claimed racism (he was Indian) and sued for $1M. The credit card company not wanting any bad publicity settled giving him nearly that entire amount.