A female factory worker has sued Tesla for 'rampant sexual harassment' in Chicago. The worker claimed that her colleagues commented on her body and groped her while the supervisor turned a blind eye to the complaints. She even called the working conditions at Tesla's factory in Fremont nightmarish.
The lawsuit stated 'rampant sexual harassment at Tesla,' and claimed that the Fremont factory floor 'resembles a crude, archaic construction site or frat house than a cutting-edge company in the heart of the progressive San Francisco Bay area.'
Suits of such kind are rare at Tesla as the workers are required to agree to private arbitration with the company outside of court. Under the arbitration agreement, the workers are required to file disputes with a private arbitration panel, and most claims are kept out of public court.
Jessica Barraza, 38, filed the lawsuit in California Superior Court in Alameda County on Thursday, November 18. Barraza told the Washington Post that she worked as a production associate on the Tesla Model 3. She noted that a few months into her job, she began to face harassment nearly on a daily basis with colleagues making lewd remarks on her body.
Lewd comments
Barraza, a Modesto, California resident, claimed that co-workers would comment 'coke bottle figure' and 'onion booty,' as well as suggest her having a 'fat a**' and 'fat a** t***ies.' The suit further claimed that a male co-worker once held Barraza by her waist and pressed against her torso under her breasts.
Barraza noted that on September 28, a male co-worker snuck up behind her and put his leg between her thighs as she clocked in from her lunch break. He then giggled as she jumped away. She claimed that despite filing numerous complaints with the Tesla Human Resources department in September and October, the company neither acknowledged nor addressed the alleged assault. She also added that the company's human resource department disabled her hr@tesla.com email address after she raised her voice.
The lawsuit is filed under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, citing sexual harassment and failure to prevent sexual harassment under the law. Tesla hasn't released a statement on the lawsuit yet.
Elon Musk is not setting a good example
She also added that the CEO Elon Musk 'doesn't set a good example for the factory' with his suggestive tweets, referring to one tweet in particular where he joked he was thinking of starting a new university called Texas Institute of Technology. The acronym of the name in this tweet suggests a commonly used name for a part of female anatomy used in jokes.
