Elon Musk's SpaceX has sued a US labor board after it accused the rocket and satellite maker of illegally firing employees for sending letters to top executives of the company calling Musk “a distraction and embarrassment”.
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a complaint against SpaceX on Wednesday.
In its lawsuit filed in Brownsville, Texas federal court, the company claimed that the structure of the NLRB violates the Constitution of the United States, Reuters reported.
NLRB, in its complaint, alleged that SpaceX violated federal labor law as it fired eight workers in 2022 after they signed a letter accusing Musk of making sexist comments against the company policies.
In June 2022, the letter sent to the company executives talked about a series of tweets the SpaceX CEO made since 2020, which were said to be sexually suggestive.
Elon Musk's statements do not align with SpaceX's policies on diversity and workplace misconduct, the employees claimed in the letter and asked the company to condemn them.
The case will next be heard by an administrative judge, followed by a five-member board appointed by the US president. However, the decision of the board can be appealed in federal court.
According to Reuters, SpaceX has claimed that since the federal law only allows board members and administrative judges to be removed for cause, and not at will, the structure of the National Labor Relations Board is unconstitutional.
The lawsuit by SpaceX seeks to block the case by NLRB from moving forward.
Recently, Elon Musk's company used a similar tactic to block a case by the US Department of Justice, which had claimed that SpaceX illegally refused to hire refugees and asylum recipients.
In November last year, a federal judge in Brownsville had paused the administrative case, while the judge noted that the US Constitution requires administrative judges at the US Department of Justice to be appointed by the president and not by the attorney general.
Besides the lawsuit by SpaceX, the NLRB is also facing a case by a Starbucks Corp employee, who had objected to the unionisation of the store in New York where she works.
NLRB was sued by the female worker in October last year after her petition for an election to dissolve the union was denied.
(Edited by : Sudarsanan Mani)
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