Tesla and unions

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tesla, Inc. is an electric car manufacturer which employs over 70,000 workers across its global operations without trade unions.[1] As of 2016 Tesla was the only American auto manufacturer without a union,[2] as well as in Germany.[3] Tesla CEO Elon Musk has commented on trade unions in relation to Tesla.

United States[]

Nothing stopping Tesla team at our car plant from voting union. Could do so tmrw if they wanted. But why pay union dues & give up stock options for nothing? Our safety record is 2X better than when plant was UAW & everybody already gets healthcare.

Elon Musk, (5 May 2018)[4]

Our real challenge is Bay Area has negative unemployment, so if we don't treat and compensate our (awesome) people well, they have many other offers and will just leave!

I'd like hereby to invite UAW to hold a union vote at their convenience. Tesla will do nothing to stop them.

Elon Musk, (3 March 2022)[5]

See also: Labor unions in the United States

In 2010, Tesla acquired the formerly unionized NUMMI plant in Fremont, California which was rebranded as the Tesla Fremont Factory.[6] By 2016, Tesla was the only US auto manufacturer to not be represented by a union. In the Fall of 2016, Jose Moran, a Tesla employee reached out to the United Auto Worker (UAW), going public with a "Fair Future at Tesla" campaign in February 2017, citing high injury rates, long hours and below industry pay as motivations.[7] In 2016, UAW also indicated its interest in unionizing Tesla,[8] spending over $400,000 on organizing, campaigning and National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) complaints by 2018.[6] In October 2017, Tesla fired Richard Ortiz, which the NLRB later ruled to be illegal retaliation.[9]

One year later in 2018, Elon Musk posted a tweet "Nothing stopping Tesla team at our car plant from voting union. Could do so tmrw if they wanted. But why pay union dues & give up stock options for nothing? …".[4] Musk was ordered to delete that tweet and offer Ortiz his job back with back pay.[10][11] Additionally they would have to put up a notice in all of its US factories addressing the unlawful tweet.[12] As of 2021 the Ortiz case had been appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.[13]

In March 2022 Musk invited the United Auto Workers (UAW) union to hold a vote at their convenience.[14]

Germany[]

Tesla is one of the few auto manufacturers in Germany that is neither unionized, nor a member of the Employer Association. Because electric vehicle production requires 30 percent fewer workers than traditional combustion-engine vehicles, a non-unionized Tesla weakens IG Metall's bargaining power in the auto sector.[3]

Grohmann[]

In 2017, Tesla acquired Grohmann Engineering. IG Metall and the Works Council chair Uwe Herzig stated that wages under Tesla were 25‒30 percent below the Metal Industry (" [de]") collective agreements. Employees expressed concern after former CEO Klaus Grohmann was ousted and business contracts with other firms were cancelled.[15] By October 2017, Tesla and the Tesla Grohmann employees came to an agreement that set their salaries on par with the Metal Industry collective agreements without explicitly signing them. While IG Metall still pushes for formal ratification, it indicated there have been "good negotiation results," citing threats of strikes and internal pressure as fostering the agreements.[16]

Giga Berlin[]

According to the IG Metall union, Tesla was offering employees at the new Giga Berlin facility, wages twenty percent below the collective agreement standards provided at other auto facilities in Germany.[17][18] On November 22, 2021, 7 non-union employees of Tesla's Giga Berlin factory initiated a Works Council proceeding. IG Metall displayed cautious optimism about the proceeding and cited a concern about Works Council becoming dominated by management as only the earliest employees would be eligible to vote and majority of the 1,800 hires were middle management personnel. In total, Tesla plans to hire 12,000 employees and, if the number of employees were to double, the next Works Council election would be every two years instead of every four.[19][20]

Netherlands[]

In March 2021, rumors were leaked to Brabants Dagblad that Tesla would shut down its Tilburg plant and lay off 96 of its 450 employees, because it no longer made sense to continue re-assembling the Tesla X and S models. By July 2021, according to the Federation of Dutch Trade Unions (FNV), forty employees accepted voluntary redundancy, with no further announced layoffs or organisational restructuring.[21]

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ Lambert, Fred (2021-02-10). "Tesla increased its workforce by over 20,000 employees in 2020". Electrek. Retrieved 2021-12-24.
  2. ^ "The United Auto Workers Focus On Tesla, The 'Only' Non-Union Major American Car Company Whose Workers 'Are Not' Unionized". New Labor Report. Western New York Labor Today. 2016-07-05. Retrieved 2021-12-30.
  3. ^ a b Levin, Tim (April 3, 2021). "Tesla is on a collision course with Germany's biggest union and neither side is likely to back down". Business Insider. Retrieved 2021-12-24.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  4. ^ a b Musk, Elon [@elonmusk] (2018-05-20). "Nothing stopping Tesla team at our car plant from voting union. Could do so tmrw if they wanted. But why pay union dues & give up stock options for nothing? Our safety record is 2X better than when plant was UAW & everybody already gets healthcare" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  5. ^ Musk, Elon [@elonmusk] (2022-03-03). "Our real challenge is Bay Area has negative unemployment, so if we don't treat and compensate our (awesome) people well, they have many other offers and will just leave! I'd like hereby to invite UAW to hold a union vote at their convenience. Tesla will do nothing to stop them" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  6. ^ a b "Opinion: Would Tesla close unionized plant like GM and NUMMI did?". The Mercury News. 2018-05-01. Retrieved 2021-12-24.
  7. ^ Campbell, Alexia Fernández (2019-09-30). "Elon Musk broke US labor laws on Twitter". Vox. Retrieved 2021-12-24.
  8. ^ Bomey, Nathan (May 19, 2016). "UAW wants union for Tesla factory". USA TODAY. Retrieved 2021-12-24.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  9. ^ Scheiber, Noam (2021-03-25). "Tesla employee's firing and Elon Musk tweet on union were illegal, labor board rules". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-12-24.
  10. ^ Kolodny, Lora (2021-03-25). "Tesla ordered to have Elon Musk delete anti-union tweet". CNBC. Retrieved 2021-12-14.
  11. ^ McFerran, Lauren; Emanuel, William J.; Ring, John F. (2021-03-25). Tesla, Inc. and Michael Sanchez, Jonathan Galescu, Richard Ortiz and International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, AFL–CIO (decision and order). Decisions of the National Labor Relations Board. National Labor Relations Board. p. 9,10. Retrieved 2022-01-06. General Counsel argues that to remedy fully CEO Musk's unlawful May 20, 2018 tweet, which coercively threatened that employees would lose their stock options if they selected the Union as their representative, the Board should order the Respondent to have Musk delete that tweet and to post a notice addressing that violation at its facilities nationwide. … (f) Direct its agent and supervisor, CEO Elon Musk, to delete his May 20, 2018 statement
  12. ^ Peters, Jay (2021-03-25). "Tesla has to tell Elon Musk to delete a 2018 tweet, labor board rules". The Verge. Retrieved 2021-12-24.
  13. ^ Reply Brief to Court of Appeals (appeal). 2021-10-26. Retrieved 2022-01-06. The Court should set aside the Board's ruling that Musk's tweet was unlawful and must be deleted.
  14. ^ Boston, William; Elliott, Rebecca (2022-03-03). "Elon Musk Invites UAW to Hold Union Vote at Tesla". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2022-03-03. 'Tesla will do nothing to stop them,' the chief executive says
  15. ^ Vetter, Philipp (2017-04-16). "Tesla: Ärger mit dem Maschinenbauer Grohmann" [Tesla: Trouble with the machine manufacturer Grohmann]. Die Welt (in German). Retrieved 2021-12-24.
  16. ^ Vetter, Philipp (2017-10-18). "Deutschland: Tesla einigt sich auf deutliche Gehaltssteigerung" [Germany: Tesla agrees on significant salary increase]. Die Welt (in German). Retrieved 2021-12-24.
  17. ^ Waldersee, Victoria (2021-10-07). "Tesla's gigafactory electrifies California-Germany culture clash". Reuters. Retrieved 2021-12-24.
  18. ^ Eddy, Nathan (2022-01-03). "German union steps up efforts to recruit Tesla workers with office near Berlin plant". Automotive News Europe. Retrieved 2022-01-06.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  19. ^ Barnstorf, Phillip (November 25, 2021). "IG Metall fürchtet Strategie in früh gewähltem Tesla-Betriebsrat". (in German). Retrieved 2021-12-24.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  20. ^ Waldersee, Victoria (2021-11-24). "German union fears new Tesla works council will be top heavy". Reuters. Retrieved 2021-12-14.
  21. ^ Gotink, Bart (2021-07-21). "Tesla blijft in Tilburg en gaat fabriek opnieuw vullen, mogelijk voor Tesla Energy" [Tesla will remain in Tilburg and will reuse the factory, possibly for Tesla Energy]. Brabants Dagblad (in Dutch). Retrieved 2021-12-27.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)

External links[]

Retrieved from ""