How do we know if this is unique to tesla or that Tesla is just a magnet for media coverage. Likely, this is a problem for all companies, but Tesla is just a favorite target of the media.
If it turned out to be an endemic, it should be known and treated as such. All companies that are proven to fall into this should be pressured to fix it.
Why would you even assume it would change the burden of responsibility and guilt?
We don’t know. Well, we can pretty well assume it’s not unique, but less common than when I was a kid.
Regardless: what you’re asking is a good topic for a different article. The allegations are that Tesla management ignored the complaints and in fact took action to continue the problem (e.g. when VIPs showed up). Some of those issues are criminal, and either way, if true, require reform on the part of the company.
That being said, this isn't the first time in the last few years there's been a suit against Tesla. Either this isn't been a focus for management, or their remediation has been deficient in preventing this sort of toxicity from flaring up out in the open.
Thanks for this context. I was disinclined to believe the story because it sounded so unusual (especially with the context being "silicon valley company"), which seems like a reasonably good filter for predicting that a news story will turn out to be fake. But from this it seems plausible that there's just a very different culture going on on production floors. This is pretty awful.
The fact that they've got enough evidence to take Tesla to court on a systemic level is a big red flag.
A lot of middle-management level racism exists across the country. But the court-case is suing Tesla, the entire organization, for high-level systemic racism.
This is the difference between "murderer kills at High School" and "the entire upper management, from principals and superintendents and teachers are involved in a murder".
Both involve murder, but one is worse since it includes leaders. Similarly, this Tesla case isn't just some "low level" typical racism we see all the time in this country. This is a systemic issue, where black people work at "The Plantation" (literally called out in the court case documents).
> she would hear Latino and white workers, and their supervisors, casually refer to Black workers with the N-word. “You would hear n— this and n— that,” she said. ”It was the norm. It was Tesla’s tradition.”
> Chatman didn’t hear Asian workers use the N-word, she said, but they “would make chicken jokes,” a stereotype mocking of Black Americans’ diet.
I seem to remember this from one of the previous cases, all I could find now is:
"An ex-Tesla employee who worked at the Fremont factory for about two years said in a sworn declaration in the Vaughn case that he had heard the “N-word” used at least 100 times by co-workers and that Black and White employees alike referred to the factory as “the plantation” or “slaveship.”"
> "An ex-Tesla employee who worked at the Fremont factory for about two years said in a sworn declaration in the Vaughn case that he had heard the “N-word” used at least 100 times by co-workers and that Black and White employees alike referred to the factory as “the plantation” or “slaveship.”"
There are two parts to the sentence.
first-part: "the “N-word” used at least 100 times by co-workers"
second-part: "and that Black and White employees alike referred to the factory as “the plantation” or “slaveship.”"
People referred to in the first part need not have an overlap with those referred to in the second part. Yes, it doesn't preclude an overlap but it doesn't also exclude the possibility of the two groups being mutually exclusive.
Everyone now has a recording device on them at all times nowadays. It would have been easy recording them and make a lot of cash with a well placed lawsuit. Somehow they decided not to.
After last December's Amazon warehouse collapse, it was publicized that Amazon "prohibited workers from carrying their phones on warehouse floors". Not saying Tesla had the rule at the time, but it is not inconceivable
The N word as an unsayable totem is one of the big white collar/blue collar divides in the bay area. It's almost an um depending on the group of people you're with.
If this was their engineering office I would agree.
Unless the bay area is somehow more accepting of casual racism than the deep south I find that hard to believe. All of the blue collar jobs I had in Georgia and Tennessee would fire you on the spot for dropping an n bomb on company time. Hell, it's more likely to get you fired there than in white collar in the south since HR is way more likely to immediately just immediately jump to staffing changes in any compliant; it's cheaper than dealing with the subset that'll then into lawsuits.
That's interesting. What were the demographic breakdowns in Georgia and Tennessee where you worked?
White people are more circumspect with the magic word generally, it was the American-born children of immigrants who would really get wild with it, along with the black dudes who wanted to be or seem more street adjacent. Such an awkward way to phrase all of this.
That'd require you to predict when it occurs. As for baiting, you assume the input-output mapping is obvious rather than more random. Anyway, they apparently do have enough evidence to take them to court.
Why would there be hours of audio/video, and why would the employees be recording this? Presumably they're working, not holding up their phones recording. Or are you referring to security camera footage? But that wouldn't have audio, right?
This might seem unbelievable to us, most of whom work in comfy (home) offices where even the slightest hint of racism would be a fire-able offense, but blue collar work is different. People are much rougher around the edges. I'd like to believe this is false, or at least exaggerated, but I also don't have much trouble believing it's true. Human nature, left to itself, is not a pretty sight.
>Why would there be hours of audio/video, and why would the employees be recording this? Presumably they're working, not holding up their phones recording.
I don't understand why you think you have to hold the phone like you're interviewing the person to get a recording. You can just turn the recorder on and leave it in your pocket/bag.
That’s illegal in many states unless both parties consent, and nationwide if nobody taking part consents.
Nevada is a one party consent state, but you would need to turn your phone on specifically for that conversation rather than just leaving it on all day.
That might be illegal. One of the many dangers of trying to defend your rights in the US is that the more powerful side in any civil case has much better access to prosecutors.
Speaking of audio and video, this is what people said about US soldiers committing war crimes in Vietnam or Iraq, or police brutality against minorities in the US.
Then we get pictures of the My Lai massacre, or Abu Ghraib, or video of Rodney King and George Floyd. Actually your fringe tends to argue nothing wrong happened with Rodney King or George Floyd, or they were asking for it, fueling fires of the inevitable upheavals that follow.
> Then we germt pictures of the My Lai massacre, or Abu Grain, or video of Rodney King and George Floyd.
And most people said it was horrible.
What you're saying, to me, sounds like people were skeptical when there was no evidence but then evidence came out. Then you leave out that a lot of people's minds were changed with evidence.
That's not what u/VictorPath wrote or meant. Their point is that no amount of proof is sufficient for some people (the fringe).
Whereas you and I can watch the Rodney King footage and see the plain truth that the cops beat the shit out of King without cause, there will always be quislings spreading FUD.
> Their point is that no amount of proof is sufficient for some people (the fringe).
But how is that relevant to this conversation? Some amount of proof is sufficient for most people. Where does convincing the "fringe" come in? Is he accusing his parent of being "fringe" for noting a lack of evidence in a context where it should be trivial to gather?
There's also been plenty of times when some report of an awful story with a cop completely falls apart with sufficient video evidence. The cop who "planted evidence" when it turned out he was just returning something to the car if you see more context. The cop who shot a teenage girl who turned out to be mid-stab about to potentially kill someone. Etc.
Especially these days with social media, so many outlandish stories turn out not to be true. Not having doubt creates incentives to lie more.
But I'd agree that you don't want to be extreme in disbelief either.
> This is so unbelievable it can't be anything else than pure propaganda, especially when proof is absent and providing proof was trivial.
What world do you live in where this is unbelievable?
Is a $1 million arbitration win enough for you to believe them?[0] Or do you think that was also just based purely on hearsay?
Or maybe the lawsuit filed by the state of California is also propaganda?[1]
Surely, if this was all made up propaganda, Tesla would be the first to say so - and in front of an arbitrator or judge, no less. Their many well-compensated lawyers would find it out in discovery and tear the state to pieces, and win all of these cases.
$1M is a trivial amount of money for Tesla. They could easily have decided that it was better to yield to blackmail at that price than risk a PR disaster because, apparently, people can be quite credulous about these things.
I'm not saying that these allegations are false, but the apparent absence of any recordings of the alleged abuses seems hinky to me.
But that still requires you to believe that the arbitrator was either fooled or corrupt, which seems like it would also require some pretty clear evidence to be believable, no? Especially since these arbitrators are typically biased in favor of the company who wrote them into the employment agreement, if anyone. And Tesla would then have a history of these judgments - you go to arbitration to avoid legal precedent, sure, but in the court of public opinion that's an awful thing to have.
Overall this is an interesting response, but you missed the main point of my comment. Why is there no hard evidence of the claims made in the article?
> What world do you live in where this is unbelievable?
A world where if this ever happened there would be dozens standing up and objecting these comments, making a scene, and stating this is unacceptable. A world where this is so outrageous no one would even think about making such comments nor any comments orders of magnitude less offensive. A world where people are so afraid of being perceived as racist that they could never conceive of saying something like this, and when heard if it ever happened couldn't believe they were hearing it.
> Is a $1 million arbitration win enough for you to believe them?[0] Or do you think that was also just based purely on hearsay?
Are you're aware this is the salary of highly paid software engineer? This is peanuts and a minimal prize to get rid of the issue.
> Surely, if this was all made up propaganda, Tesla would be the first to say so
Why? Do you know Tesla's strategy? This is a public trial as well and a difficult situation for Tesla. Is denying the issue going to make it go away faster? Is anyone going to believe Tesla were they to claim it's all lies?
> What world do you live in where this is unbelievable?
A world where the demand for racism far outstrips the supply leading to a deluge of fake accusations. Some of these are elaborate hoaxes - Jussie Smolett comes to mind - while others are simply unfounded claims which evaporate when proof is demanded.
I would presume that phones are not allowed on the factory floor - if only for safety reasons around machinery. That would reduce the probability of having records.
I'm not negatively predisposed to this kind of news, I'm just asking to be provided with the same kind of evidence we'd require if it was a less inflammatory topic.
I find it very unlikely this evidence is going to appear, however if it does, I'll change my mind. But now, my default hypothesis is this is not true or terribly exaggerated.
> I'm just asking to be provided with the same kind of evidence we'd require if it was a less inflammatory topic.
So, if someone said they were verbally abused at their job but didn't provide recordings, would you default to calling it "so unbelievable" and "pure propaganda", as you have called this? And calling it that somehow doesn't amount to being negatively predisposed?
> So, if someone said they were verbally abused at their job but didn't provide recordings, would you default to calling it "so unbelievable" and "pure propaganda", as you have called this?
This is a bad analogy because presumably if my coworkers were reporting the same stories as the workers in the article I'd would've witnessed the allegations first hand. If they were reporting not so overt aggressions as the one reported in the article in any case I'd still be able to better judge the situation other than purely by their word. So you'd have to give me more specifics.
I can guarantee you though if someone was calling my coworkers what the workers in the article were allegedly being called I would've spoken up on the spot and I'd be supporting them in that same article. How many of their coworkers are openly supporting them? Are all of them racist?
It's also a bad analogy because the likelihood of something being true changes if you hear it has happened to someone in millions and if you hear it has happened to someone you know.
So I do think you're skeptical although I don't see a rational basis for it.
Understood, I still don't fully buy the analogy though, if someone said they were being verbally abused at their job I would give this a higher probability of being true than being verbally abused, for racial reasons, in front of everyone, using slurs from a different era, etc.
As you add more conditions the probability tends to zero :). Once you say it was happening in front of more people who weren't reacting, and this was happening on a regular basis, and this was happening in one of the biggest car companies of a country, where a big percentage of the population would never tolerate anything remotely like this, then I'm going to ask for that evidence which you surely already have, since at the very least there must've been many witnesses.
Is a recording that was made illegally admissible as evidence in court at the state level? If you're accusing your employer of a culture of racist abuse, I think the "you might be fired" ship has already left the dock.
I'm not sure you know how it is to be at the receiving end of harassment, it's not a good place to be, you're just trying to survice the day - fighting back at your bosses and coworkers, openly or covertly, is incredibly hard.
> especially when proof is absent and providing proof was trivial.
I don't think providing the proof is trivial. California is an all-party-consent-to-recording state [1]. Recording your co-workers and then posting it to the LA times might expose you to being charged with a crime.
Actually, I'm kind of surprised the article has so many allegations made in public, including quotes from the lawyer. IANAL but I thought standard operating procedure was to not talk to the media, because they're an unpredictable source of hassle and work that's ultimately irrelevant to winning the case. Maybe they involved the media because this is a class action suit, and they're trying to get the word out? Maybe someone actually familiar with this kind of stuff could clarify the strategic side of things.
I would be shocked if California of all places would prosecute someone for recording repeated racial slurs against them in the workplace regardless of recording laws. It would be another set of riots to try and do so.
> I've got tired of quoting, but if this was true, just imagine the mountain of evidence we'd have, we'd have hours of video and audio. These employees could even bait the alleged abusers by being rebellious and then filming their reactions. ...
This is not a good argument. Video and audio evidence is the exception, not the rule. Why would we be hearing this "pure propaganda" only about this one firm and industry? My own bet is that the claims about a fucked-up environment in that auto factory are mostly real. It's the simplest explanation.
The simplest explanation was that everybody was ignoring this all the time? What percentage of people do you think would ignore this?
I don't think regarding the allegations as real is the simplest explanation when there are many other facts that are hard to reconcile with that hypothesis. There's an obviously simpler explanation.
If you're ruled by the criteria "my default hypothesis is the simplest explanation" in this case you should be defending the allegations are most probably unfounded.
Congratulations, you’ve reached “how can I just trust any woman when she claims she’s been sexually assaulted” level of disconnect from reality. Yes, this stuff does happen. The tech bro summation of “facts” and “logic” is hilarious on this website.
You even say recording these abuses is “trivial” and should have been conducted. You have never been in an abusive environment, that much is clear.
The argument "you didn't believe this allegation therefore you won't believe any other allegation" I don't think works.
Just because I don't believe a story in which people are abused using racial slurs, in which this is happening in public, in which this is happening repeatedly, in which there should be many witnesses, in one of the most racially conscious countries in the world, in a country where a big percentage of the population would never put up with this if this happened in front of them, in a very famous big company that everybody knows about, in the absence of evidence like coworkers coming forward and supporting this was happening the whole time, doesn't mean I'm not going to believe every other allegation of abuse. Details are important.
So True. South African emerald scion Elon Musk isn’t capable of saying the n-word or promoting a culture of racism or misogyny. How would that be possible??
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[ 1.7 ms ] story [ 102 ms ] threadWhy would you even assume it would change the burden of responsibility and guilt?
I don't know how Fremont is, maybe there's high tension and rotten nationalism growing but still.
Regardless: what you’re asking is a good topic for a different article. The allegations are that Tesla management ignored the complaints and in fact took action to continue the problem (e.g. when VIPs showed up). Some of those issues are criminal, and either way, if true, require reform on the part of the company.
Ford: https://www.hometownstations.com/news/ford-employees-say-rac...
GM: https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/16/us/gm-toledo-racism-lawsuit/i...
Toyota: https://auto.hindustantimes.com/auto/news/toyota-says-it-no-...
Honda: https://www.courthousenews.com/honda-plant-accused-of-tolera...
That being said, this isn't the first time in the last few years there's been a suit against Tesla. Either this isn't been a focus for management, or their remediation has been deficient in preventing this sort of toxicity from flaring up out in the open.
A lot of middle-management level racism exists across the country. But the court-case is suing Tesla, the entire organization, for high-level systemic racism.
This is the difference between "murderer kills at High School" and "the entire upper management, from principals and superintendents and teachers are involved in a murder".
Both involve murder, but one is worse since it includes leaders. Similarly, this Tesla case isn't just some "low level" typical racism we see all the time in this country. This is a systemic issue, where black people work at "The Plantation" (literally called out in the court case documents).
The relevant court case document can be found here: https://www.dfeh.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/32/2022/02/...
> Chatman didn’t hear Asian workers use the N-word, she said, but they “would make chicken jokes,” a stereotype mocking of Black Americans’ diet.
So, no.
"An ex-Tesla employee who worked at the Fremont factory for about two years said in a sworn declaration in the Vaughn case that he had heard the “N-word” used at least 100 times by co-workers and that Black and White employees alike referred to the factory as “the plantation” or “slaveship.”"
There are two parts to the sentence.
first-part: "the “N-word” used at least 100 times by co-workers"
second-part: "and that Black and White employees alike referred to the factory as “the plantation” or “slaveship.”"
People referred to in the first part need not have an overlap with those referred to in the second part. Yes, it doesn't preclude an overlap but it doesn't also exclude the possibility of the two groups being mutually exclusive.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-12/deadly-co...
If this was their engineering office I would agree.
White people are more circumspect with the magic word generally, it was the American-born children of immigrants who would really get wild with it, along with the black dudes who wanted to be or seem more street adjacent. Such an awkward way to phrase all of this.
Just have your phone to be always recording?
This might seem unbelievable to us, most of whom work in comfy (home) offices where even the slightest hint of racism would be a fire-able offense, but blue collar work is different. People are much rougher around the edges. I'd like to believe this is false, or at least exaggerated, but I also don't have much trouble believing it's true. Human nature, left to itself, is not a pretty sight.
I don't understand why you think you have to hold the phone like you're interviewing the person to get a recording. You can just turn the recorder on and leave it in your pocket/bag.
Nevada is a one party consent state, but you would need to turn your phone on specifically for that conversation rather than just leaving it on all day.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...
Then we get pictures of the My Lai massacre, or Abu Ghraib, or video of Rodney King and George Floyd. Actually your fringe tends to argue nothing wrong happened with Rodney King or George Floyd, or they were asking for it, fueling fires of the inevitable upheavals that follow.
And most people said it was horrible.
What you're saying, to me, sounds like people were skeptical when there was no evidence but then evidence came out. Then you leave out that a lot of people's minds were changed with evidence.
He's responding to someone saying "I'm surprised there's not video/audio" and responds by saying "it won't change the fringe's mind"?
It will change a lot of people's minds, just like it did in all of those incidents he named.
Whereas you and I can watch the Rodney King footage and see the plain truth that the cops beat the shit out of King without cause, there will always be quislings spreading FUD.
But how is that relevant to this conversation? Some amount of proof is sufficient for most people. Where does convincing the "fringe" come in? Is he accusing his parent of being "fringe" for noting a lack of evidence in a context where it should be trivial to gather?
> It'd be cool if there was any evidence at all.
> You can't convince the fringe with evidence!
It's non-sequitur.
Especially these days with social media, so many outlandish stories turn out not to be true. Not having doubt creates incentives to lie more.
But I'd agree that you don't want to be extreme in disbelief either.
What world do you live in where this is unbelievable?
Is a $1 million arbitration win enough for you to believe them?[0] Or do you think that was also just based purely on hearsay?
Or maybe the lawsuit filed by the state of California is also propaganda?[1]
Surely, if this was all made up propaganda, Tesla would be the first to say so - and in front of an arbitrator or judge, no less. Their many well-compensated lawyers would find it out in discovery and tear the state to pieces, and win all of these cases.
That doesn't seem to be happening.
[0] https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2021-08-05...
[1] https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/e8/c4/932fafa44013b4e7a4b...
I'm not saying that these allegations are false, but the apparent absence of any recordings of the alleged abuses seems hinky to me.
> What world do you live in where this is unbelievable?
A world where if this ever happened there would be dozens standing up and objecting these comments, making a scene, and stating this is unacceptable. A world where this is so outrageous no one would even think about making such comments nor any comments orders of magnitude less offensive. A world where people are so afraid of being perceived as racist that they could never conceive of saying something like this, and when heard if it ever happened couldn't believe they were hearing it.
> Is a $1 million arbitration win enough for you to believe them?[0] Or do you think that was also just based purely on hearsay?
Are you're aware this is the salary of highly paid software engineer? This is peanuts and a minimal prize to get rid of the issue.
> Surely, if this was all made up propaganda, Tesla would be the first to say so
Why? Do you know Tesla's strategy? This is a public trial as well and a difficult situation for Tesla. Is denying the issue going to make it go away faster? Is anyone going to believe Tesla were they to claim it's all lies?
A world where the demand for racism far outstrips the supply leading to a deluge of fake accusations. Some of these are elaborate hoaxes - Jussie Smolett comes to mind - while others are simply unfounded claims which evaporate when proof is demanded.
I find it very unlikely this evidence is going to appear, however if it does, I'll change my mind. But now, my default hypothesis is this is not true or terribly exaggerated.
So, if someone said they were verbally abused at their job but didn't provide recordings, would you default to calling it "so unbelievable" and "pure propaganda", as you have called this? And calling it that somehow doesn't amount to being negatively predisposed?
Color me skeptical.
This is a bad analogy because presumably if my coworkers were reporting the same stories as the workers in the article I'd would've witnessed the allegations first hand. If they were reporting not so overt aggressions as the one reported in the article in any case I'd still be able to better judge the situation other than purely by their word. So you'd have to give me more specifics.
I can guarantee you though if someone was calling my coworkers what the workers in the article were allegedly being called I would've spoken up on the spot and I'd be supporting them in that same article. How many of their coworkers are openly supporting them? Are all of them racist?
It's also a bad analogy because the likelihood of something being true changes if you hear it has happened to someone in millions and if you hear it has happened to someone you know.
So I do think you're skeptical although I don't see a rational basis for it.
As you add more conditions the probability tends to zero :). Once you say it was happening in front of more people who weren't reacting, and this was happening on a regular basis, and this was happening in one of the biggest car companies of a country, where a big percentage of the population would never tolerate anything remotely like this, then I'm going to ask for that evidence which you surely already have, since at the very least there must've been many witnesses.
I don't think providing the proof is trivial. California is an all-party-consent-to-recording state [1]. Recording your co-workers and then posting it to the LA times might expose you to being charged with a crime.
Actually, I'm kind of surprised the article has so many allegations made in public, including quotes from the lawyer. IANAL but I thought standard operating procedure was to not talk to the media, because they're an unpredictable source of hassle and work that's ultimately irrelevant to winning the case. Maybe they involved the media because this is a class action suit, and they're trying to get the word out? Maybe someone actually familiar with this kind of stuff could clarify the strategic side of things.
1: https://www.shouselaw.com/ca/blog/criminal-defense/is-it-ill...
https://ktla.com/news/local-news/its-illegal-to-secretly-rec...
I'm no aware of whether this applies in this circumstance (what is likely a civil case)
This is not a good argument. Video and audio evidence is the exception, not the rule. Why would we be hearing this "pure propaganda" only about this one firm and industry? My own bet is that the claims about a fucked-up environment in that auto factory are mostly real. It's the simplest explanation.
The simplest explanation was that everybody was ignoring this all the time? What percentage of people do you think would ignore this?
I don't think regarding the allegations as real is the simplest explanation when there are many other facts that are hard to reconcile with that hypothesis. There's an obviously simpler explanation.
If you're ruled by the criteria "my default hypothesis is the simplest explanation" in this case you should be defending the allegations are most probably unfounded.
You even say recording these abuses is “trivial” and should have been conducted. You have never been in an abusive environment, that much is clear.
Just because I don't believe a story in which people are abused using racial slurs, in which this is happening in public, in which this is happening repeatedly, in which there should be many witnesses, in one of the most racially conscious countries in the world, in a country where a big percentage of the population would never put up with this if this happened in front of them, in a very famous big company that everybody knows about, in the absence of evidence like coworkers coming forward and supporting this was happening the whole time, doesn't mean I'm not going to believe every other allegation of abuse. Details are important.