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Elon Musk’s tweets have gotten him into trouble.
A California judge ruled Friday that the Tesla CEO and other company executives have been illegally sabotaging employee efforts to form a union.
The administrative judge, Amita Tracy, pointed to 12 company actions that violated US labor laws. That includes letting 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.
Then there is the matter of Musk’s tweets. The judge said several anti-union messages he posted on Twitter in May 2018 were illegal too.|
These are known as unfair labor practices. And what is the financial penalty for this? There isn’t one.
That’s because the law that governs collective bargaining doesn’t let judges fine companies that break the law. Basically, Tesla just has to stop sabotaging union efforts and hire back the fired employee, plus pay him lost wages. Musk has to also read a notice to his employees saying that they have a right to unionize and that the company will not interfere with that. (Tesla has not yet responded to Vox’s request for comment.)
If Tesla doesn’t comply, the National Labor Relations Board, an independent federal agency that enforces collective bargaining laws, would have to petition a federal appeals court to enforce the order.
So this is more like a slap on the wrist.
Still, it’s a big victory for workers who build Tesla’s luxury electric cars. Since 2016, a group of them have been trying to form a labor union at the company’s factory in Fremont, California, which employs about 12,000 people. The organizers had complained about high injury rates and low wages and wanted to join the United Auto Workers union, which represents workers at GM, Ford, and Fiat Chrysler. Right now, Tesla is the only large US automaker without a unionized workforce.
- Wikipedia: U.S. Labor Law.
