A fired assembly worker says the automaker questioned her male coworkers about an anonymous tip
A longtime Stellantis assembly worker says the automaker investigated an anonymous sex-for-drugs tip about her by quizzing male coworkers across the plant.
That is one of the central allegations in a lawsuit filed April 21, 2026 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan by Hiawaka Banks, a former Operation Specialist and Assembly Worker at FCA US LLC, the U.S. arm of Stellantis. Banks, who is African American, worked at the company from March 2012 until she was fired on November 25, 2024. Her suit, Banks v. FCA US LLC, No. 2:26-cv-11307, accuses the automaker of race and sex discrimination, harassment, and retaliation under Title VII and Michigan's Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act.
The episode likely to catch the eye of HR leaders involves a meeting Banks says she was called into in May 2024, the day she returned from medical leave. According to the filing, the company told her it had received an anonymous tip the previous December claiming she had offered male coworkers "blunts and $40.00" in exchange for sex. Banks says the company looked into the tip by going around the plant asking her male colleagues whether she had propositioned them, and that she was then questioned about her private sex life in the meeting itself. The fallout, she says, was humiliation, reputational damage, and coworkers who started treating her differently.
The filing traces the tension back further. Banks says a male coworker reported in early 2022 that he had seen a supervisor taking pictures of her from behind, and that she reported the supervisor through the Stellantis Ethics Hotline that April. A union committeeman who she says was friendly with the supervisor refused to file a grievance. Banks also alleges that a plant manager offered to throw out two write-ups against her if the union agreed to drop her harassment complaint.
Banks describes a pattern of discipline she argues did not line up across racial lines. She says she received a five-day suspension after a dispute with a white coworker over a Juneteenth shirt, while the other employee got only a warning. A white colleague returning from a 15-year absence, she says, was allowed overtime she was denied. A minor accident in a work vehicle led to a 30-day suspension she contends violated company policy.
For HR professionals, some of the most striking claims concern the paperwork itself. Banks says her termination file references discipline dated Saturday, August 19, 2023, a day she did not work, and twice in January 2024, when she was on medical leave running from early January 2024 through early May 2024. She also points to what she calls internal contradictions, including a supervisor's claim that her nails were too long to hold tools in the same report that credited her with drilling and torque work.
Banks is seeking lost wages and benefits, emotional distress damages, costs, and attorney fees, and has asked for a jury trial. The allegations have not been tested in court. FCA US LLC has not yet filed a response, and no court has ruled.
