On Monday, automaker Tesla was ordered to pay $ 137 million in damages to Owen Diaz, a black ex-employee. According to the American media, the leaders turned a blind eye to the racism suffered by the employee in a factory of the American firm.
TESLA GOES TO CHECKOUT AFTER A RACISM SCANDAL
Owen Diaz worked as a freight elevator operator in a Tesla factory between June 2015 and July 2016. During the trial, the former employer of the American firm explains that African-Americans were regularly victims of racist nicknames and denigration in the ‘Fremont plant in California. “Tesla’s progressive image was a facade to hide the backward and demeaning treatment of its African-African employees,” Owen said in the complaint. He also said employees drew swastikas and scratched off a racial epithet in a toilet stall and left derogatory cartoons of black children around the factory.
Diaz says his complaints were not taken seriously by the hierarchy. His officials did not react to end the racism he experienced on a daily basis.
“We’re just happy that the jury has seen the truth and set a sum that will hopefully push Tesla to act.”
Lawrence Organ, one of Owen Diaz’s lawyers
On the side of the American manufacturer, Valerie Capers Workman, the vice president in charge of human resources, explained that several employees in the California plant reported having “regularly heard racist insults”, including the word nigger. For her, these employees declared that “most of the time, they thought that this language was used in a friendly way and in general by Afro-African colleagues”.
According to Bloomberg News, the jury in federal court ordered Tesla to pay $ 136.9 million to compensate Owen Diaz.
