American EV maker Tesla has fired dozens of employees in its Buffalo plant, a day after workers at the facility announced a union campaign. In a filing, the union Workers United accused Tesla of unlawfully terminating employees to discourage union activity.
The union has asked the labour board to seek a federal court injunction to prevent the irreparable destruction of employee rights resulting from Tesla’s unlawful conduct, reports Bloomberg.
According to the union, several members were involved, including one employee who was part of the organising committee. Jaz Brisack, a Workers United organizer who is helping spearhead the Tesla union drive told Bloomberg, “This is a form of collective retaliation against the group of workers that started this organising effort and designed to terrify everyone about potential consequences of them organising, as well as to attempt to cull the herd.”
According to the report, an organising committee of 25 employees, who label data for Tesla’s Autopilot system sent an email to Elon Musk on Tuesday with their intent to unionise.
In addition to job security and pay hike, employees have said they seek a say in workplace decision-making and want to curb monitoring, metrics and production pressure that they claim are harmful to their health. They say Tesla monitors their keystrokes and tracks how long they spend per task and how much of the day they spend actively working. This leads some to avoid taking bathroom breaks, several employees previously told Bloomberg News.
The union has said it also aims to organise around 1,000 manufacturing employees at the facility. On Tuesday, Tesla workers circulated leaflets at the plant to both groups of employees, with links to a website where they could sign union cards.
If the labour board officials find merit in the allegations and the company doesn’t settle, they prosecute the claims before an agency judge, whose ruling can be appealed to board members in Washington, and from there to a federal appeals court. The agency has the authority to order fired workers reinstated with back pay, but not to make companies pay punitive damages.
