Eight former SpaceX employees who were fired after circulating an internal letter criticizing Elon Musk have filed charges claiming they were unlawfully fired. Unfair labor practice charges for the "retaliatory firings" were filed yesterday with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the former employees' law firm said in a press release.
"The charges allege that SpaceX violated the National Labor Relations Act by terminating the employees for engaging in protected concerted activity," the Lieff Cabraser law firm said. "Specifically, the employees were fired for being part of a larger group that drafted a letter to SpaceX's executive team expressing concern about recent allegations of sexual harassment by CEO Elon Musk, and his harmful behavior on Twitter that hurt the company's reputation and also the company culture."
The letter urged "SpaceX to take appropriate remedial action, including condemning Musk's harmful Twitter behavior, holding leadership accountable, and seeking uniform definition and enforcement of SpaceX's 'No Asshole' policy. The letter was shared internally within SpaceX only, and called for other employees to sign on to endorse the recommendations," the press release said.
We wrote about the firings in June. At the time, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell wrote in an email to staff that the "letter, solicitations and general process made employees feel uncomfortable, intimidated and bullied, and/or angry because the letter pressured them to sign onto something that did not reflect their views."
Culture problems “created from the top level”
The employees' letter said SpaceX executives should "publicly address and condemn Elon's harmful Twitter behavior" and that the company "must swiftly and explicitly separate itself from Elon's personal brand." The letter called out "recent allegations against our CEO and his public disparagement of the situation," in reference to a report that SpaceX paid a flight attendant $250,000 to settle a sexual misconduct claim against Musk in 2018. Musk denied the claim, and Shotwell wrote in an email to staff that "I believe the allegations to be false."
The employees' letter also said that "Elon's behavior in the public sphere is a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment for us, particularly in recent weeks." The letter accused the company of not applying its policies equally to executives and employees, writing that "SpaceX must establish safe avenues for reporting and uphold clear repercussions for all unacceptable behavior, whether from the CEO or an employee starting their first day."
The charges filed with the NLRB "allege that SpaceX fired five employees the day after the letter came out, and four more over the course of the following two months," the law firm said. The complaints cover eight of the nine employees. "Two employees—Tom Moline and Paige Holland-Thielen—filed charges on their own behalf. Attorneys Anne Shaver and Laurie Burgess filed charges on behalf of six other employees who are proceeding anonymously," the press release said.
Holland-Thielen issued this statement:
As a woman engineer at SpaceX I experienced the deep cultural problems firsthand and spent countless hours comforting my peers and colleagues going through the same things and worse. It was clear that this culture was created from the top level. Part of what was supposed to be so great about SpaceX was that any person at any level could escalate issues to leadership and be taken seriously and treated with respect. We drafted the letter to communicate to the executive staff on their terms and show how their lack of action created tangible barriers to the long term success of the mission. We never imagined that SpaceX would fire us for trying to help the company succeed.
Moline said SpaceX management used an "'ends justifies the means' philosophy to turn a blind eye to the ongoing mistreatment, harassment, and abuse reported by my colleagues, much of which was directly encouraged and inspired by the words and actions of the CEO. We drafted the open letter to bring these issues to the forefront and start the hard work of building a culture that was worthy of these lofty goals."
reader comments
413