By Kate Dennett For Mailonline and Afp
A California agency has filed a discrimination lawsuit against Tesla after finding evidence that Tesla had a hostile working environment and segregation at its factory in San Francisco.
The complaint alleges that black employees at Tesla’s Fremont facility were frequently subject to offensive racial remarks and jokes from co-workers, managers and supervisors. It was filed in California late Wednesday.
Kevin Kish (director of California Department of Fair Employment and Housing) said that the agency has received hundreds of complaints by workers from the facility.
According to Wednesday’s filing, one employee heard “racial” comments. Slurs up to 50-100 times per day”; however, there were allegedly racist graffitis that included Nazi swastikas, and references to the Ku Klux Klan.
The DFEH ‘found evidence that Tesla’s Fremont factory is a racially segregated workplace where Black workers are subjected to racial slurs and discriminated against in job assignments, discipline, pay, and promotion’, Kish said in a statement reported by the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg.
He added that “the facts of this case speak loudly for themselves.”
Tesla releases the following information ahead of filing A statement was released Wednesday by the organization stating it “opposes all forms discrimination and harassment” and is dedicated to providing a safe, respectful and fair workplace.

According to one complaint, Tesla Fremont workers (pictured) suffered from racial jokes and slurs by their coworkers.
DFEH says that workers in the factory will be “taunted” by racist slurs, and then baited to verbal and physically confrontations by non-black employees. They would then face discipline action.
The complaint also claimed non-black workers would regularly call areas where many black or African-American workers were stationed with racist historical names, including ‘the plantation’.
Before the middle of the 19th century, black slaves worked on North American agricultural plantations. They produced crops such as sugar and cotton.
According to the filing, non-black workers received preferential treatment at plant. They were often given easier jobs and more leniency in disciplinaries than their Black counterparts.
One worker ‘heard these racial slurs as often as 50-100 times a day’ and workers with racially incendiary tattoos of the Confederate flag would make them visible to intimidate Black employees, the DFEH said.
Some of the racist graffiti found in the factory’s toilets included Nazi swastikas (referring to white supremacist group, the Ku Klux Klan), and “go back to Africa” (referring to Racist graffiti).

Wednesday’s filed claimed that one worker had heard “racial insults as frequently as 50-100 a days”, while there was also alleged racist graffiti in the factory.
According to the filings, racism was used against Black workers with the use of the term “porch monkey” and jokes claiming they are ‘out from the hood’ and the ghetto.
“The harassment was so severe that it caused stress, the possibility of physical abuse and escalation, the discrimination, the excessively harsh discipline and futility of complaining to make the work conditions unbearable,” the complaint stated.
Elon Musk is the billionaire owner of this company. In recent months, he has faced several lawsuits alleging that there was discrimination in California at his factory.
Many don’t make it to the courts, however. Tesla demands that all full-time employees agree to private arbitration for employment-related disputes.
Tesla posted a blog entry before the filing calling the suit misleading and claiming that DFEH “has never once raised any concern” about workplace practices. This was after three years of investigation.
The company stated that it has taken all appropriate disciplinary actions and fired employees who have committed professional misconduct. This includes those who use racial slurs against others or harass other people in different ways.
Tesla stated that the lawsuit would focus on allegations made by factory associates, who claimed misconduct occurred between 2015-2019.
It also stated that it would ask the court for a ‘pause in the case’ and to take other measures to make sure the facts and evidence are heard.
Blog stated, “Attacking Tesla should not be the main goal of a state agency with prosecution authority,”
This lawsuit comes just over one week after Kaylen Barker (a former Tesla contractor) filed a suit alleging that she was subject to shocking discrimination while working at a Lathrop assembly plant.

Elon Musk is the billionaire owner of this company. In recent months, several lawsuits have been filed against it alleging discrimination at the California plant.
‘I feel like I have been tortured and sent back in time before African Americans had civil rights,’ Barker said in a statement, adding that ‘being a black worker at a Tesla’s renowned California factory, is to be forced to step back in time and suffer painful abuses reminiscent of the Jim Crow Era.’
Barker, 25, said she was ‘violated physically, mentally and emotionally’ while working for Tesla because she’s ‘an African American lesbian.’
The suit, filed on February 1 in California Superior Court in Alameda County, alleges that a white coworker struck Barker with a hot grinding tool while calling her the N-word, ‘stupid,’ ‘dumb’ and ‘a b***c.’
Barker claims that although the incident resulted in the firing of the coworker, Barker says the employee was “shockingly” rehired two weeks later.
Tesla’s press relations department has been abolished and it refuses to answer questions from the media. DailyMail.com inquired on Tuesday morning.

After Owen Diaz, an ex-Tesla contractor sued for racial harassment at Fremont’s Fremont plant, a California jury convicted him and awarded $137 million.
Six women filed a lawsuit against Tesla in December. They alleged that Tesla was promoting sex harassment at Fremont’s plant and other sites.
In October, a California jury decided that Tesla had to pay $137million in damages to an ex-employee of color for not paying attention the the racist remarks made at Fremont.
The contract worker, Owen Diaz, said he faced ‘daily racist epithets’, including the ‘N-word,’ at the plant in 2015 and 2016 before quitting.
Diaz claimed that employees left racist graffiti around the plant, and that they had drawn swastikas. Supervisors were not able to stop them.
Tesla appeals the verdict. Diaz claimed that Tesla knew of any racist behavior at the plant that Diaz claimed occurred. The plant employs approximately 10,000 people.
Musk fought with the authorities last year over the reopening of his factory under coronavirus restrictions. He threatened to relocate his headquarters from the state.
Musk then informed investors in October about Musk’s plans to relocate its headquarters from California to Texas. Texas is where the plant is being built.
After the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, more Americans are reporting instances of systematic racial discrimination at work.