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A federal court in San Francisco decided that Tesla should pay former worker, Owen Díaz, around $ 137 million dollars after he suffered racist abuse while working for the company.
The Bloomberg agency reported that Díaz, a former worker who was hired at the electric vehicle company of Elon Musk through an employment agency in 2015, faced a work environment hostile in which, he told the court, his colleagues used insults to denigrate him and other African-American employees by saying “go back to Africa”, in addition to leaving racist drawings in the bathrooms and in his workspace.
According to Díaz’s lawyers, his case could only advance because the worker had not signed one of the company’s binding arbitration agreements .
Tesla uses arbitration to force employees to resolve disputes behind closed doors rather than through a public trial.
The jury awarded more money than the attorneys asked for their client , including $ 130 million dollars in punitive damages and $ 6.9 million for emotional distress .
Like other companies that use binding arbitration, Tesla rarely faces significant damages or takes corrective action after the arbitrators resolve a dispute.
However, Tesla had to pay a million dollars to another former worker, Melvin Berry, who also endured racist insults at his workplace.
According to information released by CNBC, Tesla has a pending class action lawsuit in Alameda County which alleges that the company is rife with discrimination and racist harassment.
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