At a crowded Fremont Factory meeting, female employees shared stories of sexual harassment, mistreatment by male managers, unfair promotion decisions and more, sources told The Guardian.
One of the women there was AJ Vandermeyden, the female engineer who sued the company for pervasive harassment and pay discrimination. Shortly after this town hall took place, Vandermeyden was fired.
“They just want to absolutely crush anyone who speaks up,” Vandermeyden told the news outlet. “I spoke up, and I was made a sacrificial lamb for it. It’s a scary precedent.”
Tesla has rejected Vandermeyden’s claims, saying she was terminated for “falsely attacking our company in the press.”
CEO Elon Musk did not attend the meeting of about 70-100 people. More than 20 women talked about their experiences, according to Vandermeyden and another attendee, with one woman describing parts of the company’s Fremont factory as a “predator zone” for harassment.
Vandermeyden also said that a number of women raised their hands when asked if they had been catcalled in the factory.
Some women allegedly talked about feeling unsafe and facing sexist remarks from superiors, while others talked about being dismissed and talked over in meetings with no other female employees.
One male leader spoke up and said it was unacceptable, and noted that he had daughters, according to Vandermeyden
A former female manager, who was present but no longer works for the company, told The Guardian she was offended by that comment: “It’s insulting. You shouldn’t have to have daughters to know this.”
Tesla countered by saying that “executives attended because they wanted to hear directly from employees about their experiences and learn about how to improve the workplace,” in an email obtained by The Guardian.
Tesla further disputed the news outlet’s characterization of the event by saying, “Employees stood up to ask the executives questions, share their experiences at Tesla — both positive and negative — while others spoke of things that they believed Tesla was doing right and some came with suggestions. In some instances, employees were only looking for better collaboration with their HR business partners in general and had nothing to do with any allegations of harassment.”
The company statement said that when an employee referenced an area of the factory as a “predator zone,” it “surprised many in the room who had never heard of this term.”
Tesla said that immediately after the meeting, a factory-wide message to supervisors about its “strict policy against any kind of harassment” was sent, adding, “Any complaints of catcalling in the factory are thoroughly investigated and action is taken where necessary.”
According to The Guardian, Tesla also said that “there was a lot of energy around ensuring we are proactively sourcing diverse talent and ensuring that we have an interview and assessment process that is free from bias.”
Vandermeyden said she spoke at the meeting because “it was finally giving women a venue to voice what was going on. It felt like Tesla had been saying I’m making all this up. And here were all the women saying, ‘No, it’s happening.’ It’s too big to deny.”
AJ Vandermeyden sits in her Tesla outside her family’s home in San Carlos, California. (Source: Ramin Talaie for the Guardian)
Vandermeyden first got national attention when she went public with her lawsuit in February of this year, although the lawsuit was filed in September 2016.
She had been with Tesla since April of 2013, and alleged that during her time there she was subjected to behavior including “inappropriate language, whistling, and cat calls” at the hands of the mostly male staff. She further claims that she was paid less than her male colleagues despite performing work “equal in skill, effort, and responsibility.”
Vandermeyden also says that her attempts to raise concerns about the quality testing of cars and office behavior toward women were ignored by male superiors.
Tesla confirmed Vandermeyden’s firing at the time saying:
“Despite repeatedly receiving special treatment at the expense of others, Ms. Vandermeyden nonetheless chose to pursue a miscarriage of justice by suing Tesla and falsely attacking our company in the press,” a spokesperson said. “After we carefully considered the facts on multiple occasions and were absolutely convinced that Ms. Vandermeyden’s claims were illegitimate, we had no choice but to end her employment at Tesla.”
This follows cases of alleged harassment at other tech companies, with Uber’s CEO Travis Kalanick recently resigning amid a reportedly turbulent office culture.
As for not working at Tesla anymore, Vandermeyden had the following to say:
“I was never your enemy,” she said. “I still believe in the importance of transitioning the world to sustainable energy, but now I don’t get to be a part of it.”
Top Rated Comments (view all)
Discuss: News
Log in with:
Or sign up with TESLARATI:
I think this is the depth we are going to get on this. You are right though. Is The Accuser a SJW Snowflake that wants special treatment? Or are women subject to degrading behavior routinely at Tesla? These are questions we don't have answers to.
I can see Tesla has no patience for snowflakes of any variety, so her being let go is not surprising.
What we know from independent 3rd party investigation
1. The woman had no formal engineering degree
2. The woman was promoted several times over others, despite her lack of qualifications
3. The woman complained she was not paid as much as her male counterparts when in fact, she was paid more than most and the highest paid employee in her area was another woman
Based on these facts, her complaints of sexism were unjustified. Not satisfied she took her complaints public.
Firing was justified
My first thought was "Gwen Shotwell", the amazing and inspirational COO at SpaceX. Her TED Talk about the passion she has for her work and promoting women to enter the engineering field is wonderful. Based purely on her running the day to day operations of Musks other big company alone, I would doubt this is a top down problem in the same way it appears to be at other Silicon Valley firms. But it should be investigated thoroughly and gender equality is another way Tesla should work for a "better tomorrow."
I am a Male Nurse and I have come to believe that any workplace with a strong imbalance of one gender is unhealthy. Numerous Female Nurses have told me having at least one Male Nurse on a Ward improves the overall culture. And we only have to look at Garages and other "blokey" workplaces to see what all male workplaces can descend into.
Medicine is far more gender equal these days with roughly equal male and female doctors coming out of Medical Schools. But areas that are strong Alpha personality draws like Surgery still have widespread problems with bullying, with sexual harassment being a natural extension (as it is not about sex, it is about power).
I am sure engineering has similar problems, with Tesla not being immune. They should not cover up or deny problems, they should embrace the challenge of working to change what is a societal problem and make sure bullying of all kinds is not undermining the potential of all of its' employees.
Tesla is committed to creating a positive workplace environment that is free of discrimination for all our employees. (...) Without this context, the story presented in the original article is misleading.
-Tesla
For clarification, since this looks like a quote from T≡SLA, would you mind sharing where you found this?
Unless you are actually a spokesperson for the company... in which case it is intriguing you are located in India. Yet ok, could be something we don't know. :)
Thank you.
I allready told you that more women would be harrassed, but they were afraid to speak out. Now you see, mw. van der Meyden was right.
When only one person speaks out, all managementlevels know something is happening. Nobody wants to speak about it because it can damage the company, they think. At the meantime nobody wants to take action, because when you do take action you admit things bad are happening. So all think: "as long you keep things quiet it'll fly away." That is the most stupid management behavior, there is; even in management book-theory. The law of Murphy tells.....the longer you wait and do nothing, the harder the bomb goes off.
Best is to accept the problems, solve them in all openess and then after things have been changed and talked over, the whole issue is over. Now it is coming back again every few weeks or months. Not good for Tesla.Tesla better hire Mw van der Meyden again and apologies to her and to all other female staff. Then things will calm down.
Nobody should say quite easy it is a storm in a cup of tea. Cause it realy isn't. How would you, men, all feel when every girl or woman would say to you day after day: " Ohh, I don't want to have sex with you, cause it looks like you have a small weenie. You are not man enough to get me pregnant"?
Tesla is committed to creating a positive workplace environment that is free of discrimination for all our employees. Ms. Vandermeyden joined Tesla in a sales position in 2013, and since then, despite having no formal engineering degree, she has sought and moved into successive engineering roles, beginning with her work in Tesla’s paint shop and eventually another role in General Assembly. Even after she made her complaints of alleged discrimination, she sought and was advanced into at least one other new role, evidence of the fact that Tesla is committed to rewarding hard work and talent, regardless of background. When Ms. Vandermeyden first brought her concerns to us over a year ago, we immediately retained a neutral third party, Anne Hilbert of EMC2Law, to investigate her claims so that, if warranted, we could take appropriate action to address the issues she raised. After an exhaustive review of the facts, the independent investigator determined that Ms. Vandermeyden’s “claims of gender discrimination, harassment, and retaliation have not been substantiated.” Without this context, the story presented in the original article is misleading.
-Tesla
And I would like to comment about the new positions Mw van der Meyden got. In The Netherlands it is quite common that people who speak out, even when it is internally, are transferred all the time, being promoted away so finally people cannot speak out anymore.
Who has the evidence that this did NOT happen to mw van der Meyden as well, in The States???????????
To all who read this thread and think it is too much of a deal.(...)
I allready told you that more women would be harrassed, but they were afraid to speak out. (...)
Nobody should say quite easy it is a storm in a cup of tea. (...)[/QUOTE]
@Mergoscia , nobody here truly wants to downplay the inacceptable nature of sexual harassment. However, the fact of the matter is that nobody on this forum has all the necessary evidence to :
1. know what truly happened,
2. formulate an informed opinion, let alone,
3. make a judgement call on the merits of the case, for either party!
Besides, beyond being made aware of the recent developments to this case (which, IMHO, I questioned the value of here, as it actually belongs in a court of law), we are not a jury and further discussion therefore will get us outside of the focus of this forum.
[QUOTE="Mergoscia, post: 7520, member: 7425"]And I would like to comment about the new positions Mw van der Meyden got. In The Netherlands it is quite common that people who speak out, even when it is internally, are transferred all the time, being promoted away so finally people cannot speak out anymore.
Who has the evidence that this did NOT happen to mw van der Meyden as well, in The States??
This is precisely the point. No one.
And the last thing I want as moderator is for this to turn into an 'us versus them' debate, comparing the Netherlands to the USA, or any other country for that matter, on how effectively local legislators & courts deal with this (yes legitimately serious yet OUT OF SCOPE) issue...
Thread consequently closed. Thank you for your understanding & feel free to rate this post as you deem fit using optional ratings below. :cool:
Ouch, that's gotta hurt. Makes you wonder what "special treatment" she asked for and was given.
"...One woman describing parts of the company’s Fremont factory as a 'predator zone' for harassment."
That is scary. I wonder what predatory behavior was common enough to give it such a reputation?
“Despite repeatedly receiving special treatment at the expense of others...."
Ouch, that's gotta hurt. Makes you wonder what "special treatment" she asked for and was given.
"...One woman describing parts of the company’s Fremont factory as a 'predator zone' for harassment."
That is scary. I wonder what predatory behavior was common enough to give it such a reputation?
Folks, may I recommend we take this piece of news with a grain of salt. Not saying I'm taking sides here, yet, without in depth investigations of what really happened rather than going to far in judging on allegations we may not give either sides a fair deal.
This article is included for objectivity sake and this is good. Let's remember that from where most if not of all of us sit, we're not in a good position to opine... IMHO
...without in-depth investigations of what really happened...
I think this is the depth we are going to get on this. You are right though. Is The Accuser a SJW Snowflake that wants special treatment? Or are women subject to degrading behavior routinely at Tesla? These are questions we don't have answers to.
I can see Tesla has no patience for snowflakes of any variety, so her being let go is not surprising.
Suggest we keep it pretty much to that...
Beware, I'll keep an eye in where this goes, wouldn't want anyone to feel harassed here. ;)
What we know from independent 3rd party investigation
1. The woman had no formal engineering degree
2. The woman was promoted several times over others, despite her lack of qualifications
3. The woman complained she was not paid as much as her male counterparts when in fact, she was paid more than most and the highest paid employee in her area was another woman
Based on these facts, her complaints of sexism were unjustified. Not satisfied she took her complaints public.
Firing was justified
Hi SteveL, could you please post in the source of the third party info please, just to give more weight to this. That will be added value to the post I hope! Remi
“Despite repeatedly receiving special treatment at the expense of others...."
Ouch, that's gotta hurt. Makes you wonder what "special treatment" she asked for and was given.
"...One woman describing parts of the company’s Fremont factory as a 'predator zone' for harassment."
That is scary. I wonder what predatory behavior was common enough to give it such a reputation?
Tesla is committed to creating a positive workplace environment that is free of discrimination for all our employees. Ms. Vandermeyden joined Tesla in a sales position in 2013, and since then, despite having no formal engineering degree, she has sought and moved into successive engineering roles, beginning with her work in Tesla’s paint shop and eventually another role in General Assembly. Even after she made her complaints of alleged discrimination, she sought and was advanced into at least one other new role, evidence of the fact that Tesla is committed to rewarding hard work and talent, regardless of background. When Ms. Vandermeyden first brought her concerns to us over a year ago, we immediately retained a neutral third party, Anne Hilbert of EMC2Law, to investigate her claims so that, if warranted, we could take appropriate action to address the issues she raised. After an exhaustive review of the facts, the independent investigator determined that Ms. Vandermeyden’s “claims of gender discrimination, harassment, and retaliation have not been substantiated.” Without this context, the story presented in the original article is misleading.
-Tesla
I'm impressed with the measured tone of the comments in this article. It is refreshing and rare that readers in an Internet comment section are saying they do not have enough information and are not in a position to form or voice an opinion.
(...)
Daniel, glad you think so. As you can see in my post #3, this was my plea to forum members and I am please folks seem to be holding themselves to this sound request. :-)
For clarification, since this looks like a quote from T≡SLA, would you mind sharing where you found this?
Unless you are actually a spokesperson for the company... in which case it is intriguing you are located in India. Yet ok, could be something we don't know. :)
Thank you.
I read it a long time ago on the internet. Here you go:
https://electrek.co/2017/02/28/tesla-allegations-discrimination-female-engineer-review/
https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/28/tesla-responds-to-harassment-lawsuit-filed-by-female-engineer-in-2016/
http://www.businessinsider.in/Tesla-responds-to-allegations-of-pervasive-harassment-and-gender-discrimination/articleshow/57401974.cms
