Former Tesla employed awarded $1m over racial slur

A rare discrimination award to a Black former employee of Tesla caps years of complaints by Black workers that the electric vehicle maker failed to stop racial slurs on the assembly line.

Tesla Inc. has paid more than $1 million to a Black former employee who won a ruling that the company failed to stop his supervisors from calling him the “N-word” at the electric-car maker’s northern California plant. The rare discrimination award by an arbitrator to Melvin Berry, which followed a closed-door proceeding, caps years of complaints from Black workers that Tesla turned a blind eye to the commonplace use of racial slurs on the assembly line and was slow to clean up graffiti with swastikas and other hate symbols scrawled in common areas. It ends a yearslong and emotionally grueling fight launched by Berry, who was hired by the company as a materials handler in 2015 and quit less than 18 months later. Arbitration typically keeps disputes between employees and companies secret, but court filings reveal that the arbitrator found Berry’s allegations more credible than Tesla’s denials, though she called it a “difficult” case after hearing from witnesses on both sides. Berry claimed that when he confronted a supervisor for calling him the “N-word” he was forced to work longer hours and push a heavier cart.