Former workers claim Tesla sacks employees for using maternity and sick leaves

American automotive corporation Tesla is no stranger to controversies and as per the latest reports, the company has once again been giving their workers a hard time.

As per a report by Guardian, Devon Beccera, a former worker at the Tesla Giga factory in Sparks, Nevada was fired for taking a maternity leave.

“Nevada is a right-to-work state, so they didn’t need any sort of reason for firing me, but it was very convenient to fire me two weeks before Christmas, and about 50 days before my maternity leave started,” she said.

Twenty-eight weeks pregnant, Beccera was left without medical insurance and no money coming in as the to-be father had also been unemployed.

However, the allegation by the former employee were refuted by Tesla as a spokesperson revealed the termination had been owing to Beccera’s performance issues.

The report by the leading publication, however, after a thorough probe revealed that Beccera had not been the only one claiming to have been unfairly sacked by the corporation.

Jennifer Peercy who worked as a customer care agent was also cited to be given the same stance as she stated: “If I knew that, I never would have taken it. I’m 22 weeks pregnant without a job or income and four girls to care for.”

Tesla’s spokesperson said in response: “While we’re sympathetic to her personal situation and work hard to do the right thing by our employees, using another employee’s personal information to obtain their benefits – with or without their permission – violates the benefit policy, jeopardizes employee’s access to those benefits and is not appropriate behavior we can support.”

On the other hand, people were also getting sacked for attaining their sick leaves as Maggie Aranda who worked for the company for 19 months before facing the same fate, revealed: “I had permission from my supervisor to use my phone to help my husband and myself. My husband was very sick at that time. My supervisor then told me two hours into a shift to clock out and go home. They did an ‘investigation’ and then fired me for cellphone usage.”