A former SpaceX safety supervisor, who was aware of prime secret info on U.S. authorities applications, is suing the corporate and one among its senior workers for alleged discrimination, sexual harassment, and retaliation.
Jenna Shumway, who was promoted to senior contractor program safety officer after being employed in 2022, additionally alleges the senior worker — Daniel Collins, a former Protection Division official employed to run safety compliance for the corporate’s authorities work — violated prime secret protocols after which hid this info from the federal government.
Legal professionals for Shumway, Collins, and SpaceX didn’t instantly reply to TechCrunch’s request for remark.
Collins made the information in December 2024 when The New York Times reported SpaceX was underneath federal evaluate for sloppy safety protocols. Collins discouraged reporting safety clearance violations and allowed executives with out correct clearances into categorised conferences, based on the NYT. This and different allegations triggered at the least three federal opinions of the corporate’s safety procedures, the NYT discovered.
In response to Shumway’s complaint, she was handed over for the director place that Collins in the end was employed for with out being given the chance to use for it. Her “work surroundings totally modified” when Collins was employed as her superior in spring 2024, based on the criticism. Shumway claims Collins successfully waged a marketing campaign of harassment in opposition to her, which included stripping her of her tasks over a interval of months and in the end resulting in her termination in October 2024.
Collins’ harassment prolonged to different feminine workers, too, the criticism alleges. The discrimination included stopping feminine workers from doing required safety work, allegedly setting them up for noncompliance, gazing one worker’s chest throughout a gathering, and asking a subordinate feminine worker if she wished to “get s–tty collectively” over after-work drinks.
Shumway and different feminine workers repeatedly reported Collins to SpaceX human sources, the lawsuit states. The corporate ignored these complaints, the go well with alleges, and didn’t take any motion past suggesting the workers keep away from being alone with Collins. Shumway is in search of unspecified damages.
This isn’t the primary time SpaceX has been sued over claims that it permits sexual discrimination. Earlier lawsuits have alleged comparable tales of bias in opposition to feminine workers and a hostile work surroundings that enabled gender-based harassment. The corporate can be battling investigations from the California Civil Rights Division and the Nationwide Labor Relations Board over comparable claims.
The lawsuit was filed in late Might within the Los Angeles County Superior Court docket; it was later moved to federal court docket on June 30 at SpaceX’s request. It’s filed within the federal Central District of California court docket underneath case quantity 2:22-cv-05959.