The National Labor Relations Board says that Tesla and its CEO engaged in unlawful actions towards US workers attempting to set up a union. One of these actions was a tweet, now three years old, wherein Musk appeared to threaten to revoke workers’ helpful inventory choices in the event that they voted for a union.
“Nothing stopping Tesla team at our car plant from voting union. Could do so tmrw if they wanted,” the tweet reads. “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.”
The US labor legislation regulator ordered Musk to delete the tweet, and it ordered Tesla to rehire a union supporter who’d been fired. Other unlawful anti-union actions by Tesla cited by the labor board embody interrogating workers about their union actions, and disciplining or in any other case discriminating towards workers as a result of they help the union.
As of Friday morning, the tweet had not been deleted.
The board’s determination, which included no monetary penalties, quantities to a slap on the wrist for Musk and Tesla.
“Elon’s tweet was simply a recognition of the fact that unlike Tesla, we’re not aware of a single UAW-represented automaker that provides stock options or restricted stock units to their production employees, and UAW organizers have consistently dismissed the value of Tesla equity as part of our compensation package,” a spokesperson stated at the moment.
The board’s determination suggests the tweet may very well be seen as a menace to take away choices that had been already granted to workers, no matter Musk’s intent.
If workers voted to be represented by a union, it is clear that the dear inventory choices that they’d already been granted couldn’t be revoked, stated Jeffrey Hirsch, a labor legislation professor at University of North Carolina.
What’s far much less clear, Hirsch added, is whether or not hourly staff may lose the entry to future inventory choices in the event that they had been to vote to be represented by a union.
The union has not but gained sufficient help amongst workers to have a union illustration vote held on the plant. It hailed the NLRB determination on Thursday, although it acknowledged that Tesla averted any monetary penalty for its conduct.
“This is a great victory for workers who have the courage to stand up and organize in a system that is currently stacked heavily in favor of employers like Tesla who have no qualms about violating the law,” stated Cindy Estrada, a UAW vice chairman and director of its organizing division. “While we celebrate the justice in today’s ruling, it nevertheless highlights the substantial flaws in US labor law. Here is a company that clearly broke the law and yet it is three years down the road before these workers achieved a modicum of justice.”
