An aerial view shows the Tesla Fremont Factory in Fremont, California on February 10, 2022. – (Photo by JOSH EDELSON / AFP) (Photo by JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images)
Entrepreneur, business magnate and the founder, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, Inc, Elon Reeve Musk has charged the United Auto Workers (UAW) labour union, inviting them to hold a vote to unionize at the Tesla’s Fremont factory in California.
Musk’s charge is on the wake of Joe Biden’s State of the Union Address, where U.S President had mentioned rival automakers Ford and General Motors, the two companies having a strong union presence, a vital component of Biden’s political base, ignoring Tesla’s mention in the process.
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.
Musician Gene Simmons while responding to Biden’s speech posited on Twitter that the snub from pro-union Biden may have been “because Tesla is non-union and moved to Texas, a ‘right to work’ state.”
Reacting to Simmons assertion, Musk wrote on Twitter: “I’d like hereby to invite UAW to hold a union vote at their convenience. Tesla will do nothing to stop them.”
The main argument of Musk, who is the Forbes wealthiest man is that because the Bay Area has such a competitive labour market, Tesla has to “treat and compensate our (awesome) people well,” which makes unionization unattractive.
“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”, he tweeted.
The Tweet by Elon Musk though portend a fair vote on unionization, the Tesla henchmen and other executives of the company has in the past been found guilty of sabotaging union efforts. It would be recalled that a California judge, Amita Tracy had in September 2019, found the company’s management guilty of a number of illegal anti-union tactics.
Judge Tracy had pointed to 12 company actions by Tesla that ran afoul of US labor laws, some of them including allowing security guards harass workers who were passing out union pamphlets in the parking lot, banning employees from wearing pro-union T-shirts and buttons, repeatedly interrogating union organizers, and eventually firing one of them.
Tesla, since its initial public offering in 2010, has seen its stock rise significantly; becoming the most valuable carmaker in summer 2020, with it reaching a market capitalization of $1 trillion by October last year, the sixth company to do so in U.S. history. But the car maker has been widely criticized for not respecting the right of its workers, with the company seen to quash labour movement and unions.
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Ayoola Faseyi, an Abuja based Journalist with interest in Technology and Politics. He is a versatile writer with articles in many renowned News Journals.
He is the Co-Founder of media brand, The Vent Republic.
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