Lawsuit: Tesla employees stiffed on overtime
Tesla and a contracting company failed to pay contract workers fully for overtime and denied them legally mandated meal and rest breaks, a contract employee at Tesla’s Fremont auto-assembly plant said in a lawsuit that also claims she was fired for complaining about employee-payment practices.
Dorley Nezbeth-Altimore, who said in a court filing that she worked at the plant for just over two months in 2016 and 2017, is seeking class-action status for the lawsuit, which targets Tesla and the contractor.
Tesla said it “goes above and beyond the requirements of California and federal law in providing workers meal and rest breaks and appropriate overtime pay,” according to automotive-news website Jalopnik, which spotted the lawsuit.
“This is a dispute between a temporary worker and her employer staffing agency, which is responsible for payment of her wages,” Tesla said in a statement, according to Jalopnik.
“There is no specific wrongdoing alleged against Tesla. Regardless, whether Tesla or a staffing agency, we expect employers to act ethically, lawfully and do what is right.”
While the suit blames the contracting firm’s overtime and break policies for alleged improprieties, it claims Tesla and the firm worked “in concert.”
Nezbeth-Altimore is seeking unspecified damages and compensation.
The Palo Alto electric car maker, troubled by delayed production of its Model 3 sedan, is under federal investigation over a fatal Model X crash in Mountain View linked to its “Autopilot” automated-driving system. In March, it recalled 123,000 Model S cars.
Nezbeth-Altimore’s lawsuit, filed April 19 in Alameda County Superior Court, is not the only contractor-related legal action facing the company. A lawsuit by three African American men, hired through workplace-staffing agencies to work at the Fremont factory, alleges that the company led by CEO Elon Musk oversaw a work environment hostile to black people, featuring racial epithets and racist graffiti. Tesla has denied such discrimination took place.
“Given our size, we recognize that unfortunately at times there will be cases of harassment or discrimination in corners of the company,” a Tesla spokesman told this news organization in October 2016. “From what we know so far, this does not seem to be such a case.”
The suit has entered the discovery phase of the parties obtaining evidence from each other, with depositions scheduled for later this month and a federal trial set to start next year, Bloomberg reported April 12.