4 staff have sued Rivian in separate lawsuits this 12 months over allegations they had been harassed, in some circumstances by prime executives, and that the corporate’s management did little to deal with their issues, in accordance with a TechCrunch overview of courtroom information.
Rivian has additionally reached settlements in three different harassment and discrimination circumstances, TechCrunch has discovered.
Lawsuits aren’t unusual within the automotive business, significantly with massive firms that function factories and a number of services. However the allegations contained in these beforehand unreported lawsuits towards Rivian, and those that it has settled, counsel the corporate continues to be checking out its inner tradition — a tradition that was thrust into the highlight three years in the past when it went public.
Two of the lawsuits, filed in California’s Orange County Superior Courtroom, focus on Rivian chief designer Jeff Hammoud, who has been with the corporate since 2017.
One filed by former coloration, materials, and end staff director Elizabeth Curran in February 2024 accuses Hammoud of being “prone to irrational outbursts of anger,” incidents she describes as being “often directed at the women in leadership.”
The opposite, filed by sculptor Nathan Facciolla in October 2024, alleges Hammoud created a hostile work setting and known as Facciolla’s spouse “a hooker” as a result of she labored an evening shift at a hospital.
Each staff declare they reported Hammoud to HR and that he was not disciplined.
A lawyer for Hammoud declined to remark.
A 3rd lawsuit, filed in federal courtroom final month by line employee Jeremiah Powe, accuses not too long ago departed chief working officer Frank Klein of assault and battery after he allegedly pulled Powe to the bottom for violating the corporate’s gown code. Powe advised native legislation enforcement that he believed Rivian didn’t correctly examine the alleged incident, in accordance with a police report obtained by TechCrunch.
Attorneys for Powe declined to remark. Klein declined to remark and directed TechCrunch’s inquiries to Rivian.
Rivian was additionally sued by a manufacturing employee at its Regular, Illinois manufacturing facility in February 2024. Nicole Hawkins filed a lawsuit within the Eleventh Judicial Courtroom in McLean County, Illinois claiming she was bodily harassed and threatened by a coworker. When she reported this to Rivian’s human assets division, she claims “[n]othing was done.” The case is doubtlessly being settled, because the docket now reveals Hawkins’ legal professional is asking for a dismissal. Her legal professional declined to remark.
Rivian declined to touch upon the claims made by every worker, citing the truth that the lawsuits are ongoing.
“Rivian is committed to providing an outstanding workplace free of harassment, discrimination and retaliation,” Marina Hoffmann, Rivian’s VP of worldwide communications, stated in an emailed assertion. “As with any organization with thousands of employees, situations do arise that prompt us to take action. When we become aware of conduct that may violate our corporate policies or the law, we investigate thoroughly and take appropriate action.”
These lawsuits come only a few years after Rivian’s former head of gross sales and advertising and marketing Laura Schwab put the corporate’s tradition underneath scrutiny when she sued the corporate over her personal allegations of sexual discrimination and wrongful termination.
Schwab claimed in her 2021 lawsuit that founder and CEO RJ Scaringe had “surrounded himself with a tight knit group of men” who created a “toxic bro culture” that resulted in “blatant marginalization” of ladies. She stated she was fired two days after she introduced her expertise to HR.
Schwab’s lawsuit and her weblog submit concerning the firm’s tradition garnered quite a lot of consideration forward of Rivian’s blockbuster IPO in 2021. However she quietly settled with the corporate six months later and dismissed the lawsuit, courtroom information present. Her lawyer declined to touch upon the settlement.
Oscar Ramirez, a lawyer representing each Curran and Facciolla, advised TechCrunch in an interview that these new lawsuits counsel little has modified following Schwab’s case.
“There seems to be a general pattern of high-ranking managers engaging in completely insane behavior and targeting employees for any number of protected activities, or because of their characteristics,” he stated.
“A frothing rage”
Curran, who labored on the firm’s Irvine, California headquarters, alleges that Hammoud confronted her throughout a March 2023 assembly in “a frothing rage, red-faced with anger, veins on his head, and neck bulging as he berated her” after she had hassle accessing a pc presentation. She claims the incident introduced her to tears.
The subsequent day, in accordance with the grievance, Curran advised a Rivian HR consultant that she wished to debate the incident. However the HR rep allegedly by no means adopted up with Curran and didn’t supply her the chance to file a proper grievance.
Within the weeks that adopted, Hammoud allegedly put Curran on a efficiency enchancment plan primarily based on what Curran’s attorneys say had been “false” causes. Throughout this “reset plan,” Curran claims Hammoud made feedback about how a lot she was or wasn’t smiling. Curran’s attorneys observe within the grievance that Hammoud’s feedback had been “something that other Rivian directors uniformly agreed was not normal.”
In September 2023, Curran was known as into a gathering with Hammoud and an HR rep and was fired for failing to make “sufficient improvements during the ‘reset plan’,” in accordance with the grievance.
This was not the primary time Hammoud had been accused of harassing staff.
Facciolla, who began working at Rivian in 2017, claims in his lawsuit that Hammoud would recurrently “angrily humiliate” staff. This created a poisonous tradition that led to staff overworking themselves out of concern of Hammoud’s reprisals, in accordance with Facciolla’s grievance.
Simply earlier than Christmas in 2022, in accordance with Facciolla’s lawsuit, staff on his staff had been working 12-to-14 hour days for 3 weeks straight. Sooner or later, Hammoud allegedly acquired indignant that one other worker left the workplace to maintain their sick baby. The chief designer then allegedly began “aggressively carving up” Facciolla’s clay mannequin of one in all Rivian’s autos in response, making “major changes that are typically made in the early phases” of the automobile improvement course of.
Later that night, when Facciolla advised Hammoud he wanted to go dwelling as a result of his spouse was working an evening shift on the hospital, Hammoud allegedly requested: “Is she a hooker now?”
Facciolla reported Hammoud to HR and, in accordance with the grievance, the division “seemed superficially sympathetic, but proved uninterested in correcting the situation.” Facciolla claims HR spoke to Hammoud, however didn’t self-discipline him.
Facciolla started seeing a therapist and finally took “several weeks off after Christmas to recover,” however allegedly skilled extra mistreatment from Hammoud when he returned. Facciolla resigned in June 2023.
Hoffmann declined to touch upon specifics of any of the allegations specified by any of the lawsuits. In a follow-up e-mail, she shared a press release that Rivian has “explicit policies that address appropriate conduct in the workplace and all employees, including executives, are required to follow these policies.”
Bother in Illinois
Powe, in the meantime, claims that in November 2022 then-COO Klein “stormed into [his] work area, shouting with rage” and stated Powe’s necklace and Rivian-issued jacket violated the corporate’s gown code.
Klein then allegedly grabbed Powe by the jacket and “forcefully pulled him toward the ground,” earlier than he “proceeded to grab [Powe] by the crotch, and unzipped his pants several times.” Powe claims “several” different staff witnessed this.
Powe reported Klein to Rivian’s HR staff that day, in accordance with the lawsuit, and claims the corporate spent a few month investigating the incident. In the meantime, Powe filed a police report with the Regular, Illinois police division in December 2022 as a result of he believed “Rivian security was not going to investigate the incident,” in accordance with the responding officer’s abstract. The Regular Police Division advised TechCrunch the case was closed and no costs had been filed.
In his lawsuit, Powe claims “[s]everal other employees” at Rivian’s manufacturing facility had made “similar complaints against Klein to Rivian’s HR Department” previous to his alleged assault. Powe saved working at Rivian, however was struck by a automobile at work in September 2023 and injured. He then claims Rivian “maliciously” required him to clock in on the second ground of the manufacturing facility, and says he was finally fired in November 2023, which he says was performed “without cause.”
Klein left Rivian in September 2024 to change into chief working officer of area firm Rocket Lab.
A number of Rivian settlements
Schwab’s case shouldn’t be the one harassment lawsuit Rivian has settled in recent times, courtroom information present. TechCrunch has found a minimum of two others since 2022.
Battery staff member Angela Betancourt sued Rivian in federal courtroom in September 2022 after allegedly being “regularly subjected to unwanted sexual advances by several of her male coworkers” on the firm’s manufacturing facility in Illinois. Betancourt reported the harassment to “several HR representatives,” in accordance with the grievance. However, her attorneys wrote, the corporate “failed to address such unlawful harassment and the company culture that enables it.”
In an amended grievance filed in August 2023, which sought class motion standing, Betancourt’s attorneys wrote that it’s “common knowledge that women are routinely sexually harassed at Defendant’s facility with the knowledge of management, but without management making any real, substantive effort to correct it.”
After Rivian unsuccessfully tried to maneuver the case to arbitration, the corporate and Betancourt reached a settlement in August 2024 and the lawsuit was dismissed.
Natasha Hill, an operations and manufacturing affiliate at Rivian’s manufacturing facility, sued the corporate in federal courtroom in October 2023 after one other worker allegedly shared an “explicit video” of her with “numerous coworkers.” She claimed the worker continued to indicate the video to others even after she reported the alleged incident to her supervisors.
Hill claimed in her go well with that one other worker threatened her with a firearm. After reporting all of this to HR, Hill’s lawsuit states that she was terminated in July 2023 “in connection” with the “investigation regarding the firearm incident.”
Hill and Rivian reached a settlement and dismissed the lawsuit in April 2024.
