California sues Tesla over Black workers’ allegations of

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: The Tesla logo is seen on a car in Los Angeles, California, U.S., July 9, 2020. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

By Daniel Wiessner and Hyunjoo Jin

(Reuters) -A California state agency has sued Tesla (NASDAQ:) Inc over allegations by some Black workers that the company tolerated racial discrimination at an assembly plant, adding to claims made in several other lawsuits against the electric car maker.

The lawsuit filed in state court late on Wednesday by the state’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) said Tesla’s factory in Fremont, California, is racially segregated and that Black workers claim they are subjected to racist slurs and drawings and assigned the most physically demanding jobs.

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment. The company said in a blog post https://www.reuters.com/business/tesla-says-california-dfeh-sue-company-over-alleged-discrimination-2022-02-09 on Wednesday it was expecting the lawsuit, which it called misguided.

The DFEH said working conditions at the plant are so intolerable that many Black employees have been forced to quit.

“Workers referred to the Tesla factory as the ‘slaveship’ or ‘the plantation,’ where defendants’ production leads ‘crack () the whip,'” the agency said in the complaint.

Tesla said in the blog post that over the past five years, DFEH had concluded that nearly 50 individual discrimination complaints against the company lacked merit, contradicting the agency’s claims of widespread discrimination. The company said it does not tolerate harassment and has disciplined and fired workers who engaged in misconduct.

“A narrative spun by the DFEH and a handful of plaintiff firms to generate publicity is not factual proof,” the company said.

As Tesla has grown to become the world’s most valuable automaker https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-shares/tesla-becomes-most-valuable-automaker-in-latest-stock-rally-idUSKBN2426E8, it has faced mounting claims involving pervasive racial and sexual harassment at its flagship Fremont plant and other facilities.

A federal jury in October awarded $137 million to Owen Diaz, a former employee at the Fremont plant who said managers ignored his complaints about constant racial harassment including slurs and swastikas scrawled on bathroom walls.

A judge in that case is considering Tesla’s bid for a new trial or to lower the award, which is one of the largest in a discrimination lawsuit by a single worker.

The company is also defending against similar claims in a proposed class action https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-lawsuit/tesla-hit-by-class-action-lawsuit-claiming-racial-discrimination-idUSKBN1DD2RS on behalf of factory workers in California state court. A judge last year rejected Tesla’s bid to dismiss the claims.

Tesla has denied wrongdoing in those cases, and has said it has implemented various policies in recent years to prevent racist conduct and punish it when it does occur.

While the allegations in the DFEH…