Electric Vehicles

Rogers had never experienced sexual harassment from a coworker or supervisor, not even when she worked in a prison. So she asked her lead—a staff member who oversaw her team—to say something so that the supervisor would stop. As far as she could tell, the lead didn’t address the issue with the supervisor. Instead, she started getting threatened with write-ups for things that weren’t her fault. So she escalated the situation, first up the chain of command and then to human resources. But human resources “sent me right back around to the same people giving me problems,” she said. “They direct you to go back to your abuser. They won’t fix anything.” People in charge of her team took her aside to tell her that it was only going to hurt her if she talked to anyone other than them about what was happening.

Two other women complained about the same behavior, and still, nothing was done, she said. Then the man sexually harassing her started to write her up for “everything that I did,” she said. “He just made life miserable.” Tesla policy, she and other workers have told The Nation, is that someone with a write-up on their file can’t be promoted or receive a raise or bonus, which prevented her from moving somewhere else in the plant. “He wrote me up so I could not leave the department,” she said. “It was a nightmare.”

That’s not a nightmare. That’s a gift. Talk to a lawyer, document and wait, then get paid and take some travel and some time to find a better job using your settlement money.

HR is not on your side. HR is to protect the company from fortune-eating lawsuits. If they’re not doing their job properly, that’s the company’s problem. It’s not a problem for you.