The UAW may not get a better offer than this: an invitation from Tesla CEO Elon Musk to try to organize the EV maker’s plant in California.
To be clear, he invited them via Twitter to “hold a union vote at their convenience.” He added, “Tesla will do nothing to stop them.” The invitation came as part of a thread about why President Joe Biden doesn’t included Tesla in discussions about electric vehicles.
The contention is that Biden is a pro-union president — which he is — and that because Tesla’s not a union shop, the company is omitted from the president’s discussions on the topic. Musk’s addressed the topics of union representation in the past, essentially offering the same perspective: we offer them salary and benefits better than they’ll get with union representation.
In fact, he reiterated it in in a follow up tweet early this morning, “By the way, Tesla factory worker compensation is the highest in the auto industry.” He did not offer up any numbers to back the assertion. UAW auto workers top wage is a little more than $32 an hour, and the total compensation exceeds $60 an hour, according to reports.
A UAW official told TheDetroitBureau.com there would be no response to Musk’s tweet.
Rolling out the welcome wagon
Musk’s assertion that Tesla wouldn’t interfere in a union vote isn’t a clear cut as it appears, especially since the EV maker appealed a ruling by the National Labor Relations Board that the company violated federal labor law in firing a union supporter and blocked a union organizing drive at its plant in Fremont, California.
In addition, the NLRB found Tesla and the company’s freewheeling CEO, Elon Musk, violated the law and ordered them to stop interfering with workers seeking to organize a union at the Fremont plant, handing a victory to the United Auto Workers (UAW). The ruling on union activity by employees also extends to any other installation operated by Tesla in the U.S.
The dispute between Tesla and the UAW has been ongoing.
The union began an organizing effort at Tesla more than five years ago and filed the unfair labor charges against the company in 2017 after security guards seized union literature and one of the leaders of the UAW effort inside Tesla was dismissed.
Tesla is disputing the NLRB’s ruling and asked the court to review the order and grant Tesla “any further relief which the Court deems just and equitable.”
To vote or not to vote
Tesla’s Musk has long disputed that his company is against union organizing.
In a 2018 tweet, Musk wrote: “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.”
The NLRB ruling ordered Musk to delete that three-year-old tweet warning employees they could lose their stock options if they opted to join the United Auto Workers, which had begun an organizing drive in Fremont. Compensation, including stock options, are subjects of contract negotiations under federal labor law.
The NLRB ordered Tesla to offer one of the former employees reinstatement. The company was also directed to rescind rules established in 2017 that prohibit the distribution of union literature in its parking lot on non-work time.