A new proposed class action lawsuit against Tesla accuses the electric vehicle maker of committing a series of wage law violations against workers at its flagship factory in Fremont, California.
The lawsuit was filed in federal court in California on Thursday by two ex-Tesla employees. They seek more than $5 million in damages on behalf of Tesla employees in the state. More than 20,000 people are employed at Tesla’s Fremont factory.
The plaintiffs are Shannon Brown, a material handler, and Tami Okada, a production associate. Both worked at warehouses in Fremont for varying times between 2022 and 2023, according to the lawsuit.
Brown and Okada said they “regularly” worked more than eight hours a day and 40 hours per week and were not provided with meal or rest breaks as required by California state law. The plaintiffs say Tesla did not properly compensate them — and other potential class members — for overtime, sick pay, vacation pay, and meal and rest breaks.
Tesla is also accused of failing to reimburse employees for work-related expenses and failing to provide written descriptions of quotas that workers must meet.
A representative for Tesla did not immediately respond a request for comment Friday afternoon.
The latest accusations come as Tesla is fending off a series of claims related to discrimination and harassment at its facilities, including Fremont. There have been at least a dozen lawsuits against Tesla over allegations of racial discrimination or sexual harassment in recent years.
In September, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) sued Tesla for violating “federal law by tolerating widespread and ongoing racial harassment of its Black employees and by subjecting some of these workers to retaliation for opposing the harassment” at the Fremont factory. A federal judge last week declined to dismiss the EEOC’s lawsuit.
In February, a California state judge ruled that almost 6,000 Black factory workers can sue Tesla over alleged racial discrimination and harassment in Fremont. The named plaintiff, Marcus Vaughn, filed the lawsuit in 2017.
And in 2019, 15 former or current Black employees sued Tesla, saying they were subject to racial abuse and harassment at its factories, with most of the accusations taking place in Fremont. Last month, Tesla settled a race discrimination lawsuit with Own Diaz, a Black man who worked as an elevator operator at the California factory in 2015. He had previously been awarded $3.2 million in damages by a federal jury.
“I don’t believe that is true,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk told former CNN anchor Don Lemon last month, referring to the EEOC’s allegations. “I never saw [any racist behavior]. … Did I see any situations that I thought were improper? I did not.”
Tesla is also grappling with claims that Musk — who is notoriously anti-union — violated workers’ labor rights in 2018 when he suggested that employees would lose stock options if they organized. The United Auto Workers union has named Tesla as one of its targets as it tries to organize auto factories across the U.S.
Tesla stock was down more than 3% in Friday afternoon trading, primarily due to reported changes to its plan for a cheaper electric vehicle.