Tesla Workers Speak Out: 'Anything Pro-Union Is Shut Down Really Fast' (Demo)

By Gary Reber Uncategorized September 10, 2018

On September 10, 2018, Michael Saint writes in The Guardian:

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders said:

We need to expand, not eliminate, the collective bargaining rights of all Americans. When unions are strong, the middle class is strong. I stand with the workers at Tesla who are trying to organize a union.

Mark Vasquez, who worked at Tesla from 2015 to July 2016: ‘Talking to other workers about unionizing was really frowned upon.’ Photograph: Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images

For two years Dezzimond Vaughn was a well-regarded worker at the Tesla factory in Lathrop, California. Then he became involved in trying to organize a union and suddenly his job was on the line.

“They started changing rules without any remorse,” Vaughn, a 31-year-old former Tesla computer-numeric-controlled (CNC) heavy machinery operator, told the Guardian. He cited a strict attendance policy Tesla implemented and backdated that deducted points from employees every time they clocked in late or were absent. “We started talking about forming a union, because they wouldn’t be able to do the things they’re doing, and they somehow found out I was having meetings at my house.”

Vaughn claims management began to try to push him out of employment once they found out he was helping to lead unionization efforts. “Throughout my last year, we kept bumping heads. I never stopped working, they never had a problem with me as far as the work, but I had a lot of complaints about me. My supervisor said they were trying to fire me.”

In October 2017, Vaughn received a phone call at home that he was being fired by Tesla due to two poor employee performance reviews in a row. He provided his separation agreement with Tesla, which cited “failure to meet performance expectations” as the sole reason for termination. Vaughn said his review scores were changed afterward to warrant his job termination, while the positive comments from his supervisor in the review remained.

Vaughn provided a copy of his employee file and his last two employee reviews. In the reviews, his supervisor calls Vaughn an employee who “does what’s right for the company as a whole” and “can always be counted on by team members to both show up (attendance) and get the job done”, yet his review scores are low rated. In previous employee reviews (January to June 2016, June 2015 to December 2015, and January 2015 to June 2015) before management discovered his role in unionization efforts, Vaughn received high scores, which resulted in promotions.

The supervisor who conducted Vaughn’s last two performance reviews (July to December 2016 and January to June 2017), Tarus Starks, confirmed the review scores were lowered by upper management. “When Dezz came to work under me, his performance was super positive,” Starks said. “I was about to train him for back-up lead.”

“At Tesla, we strive to be a fair and just company, the only kind worth being. Performance reviews result in promotions and occasionally in employee departures,” said a Tesla spokesperson in an email. “No one at Tesla has ever or will ever have any action taken against them based on their feelings on unionization.”

The spokesperson said: “It’s worth remembering that each year, roughly 20,000 ULPs [unfair labor practice complaints] are filed with the NLRB [National Labor Relations Board] by unions like the UAW [United Auto Workers union] as an organizing tactic.”

This handout photo made available by Tesla Motors on 3 July 2017 shows workers at the Fremont factory in California, in 2012. Photograph: Handout Handout/EPA

Tesla and its billionaire owner, Elon Musk, have earned a reputation for union-busting efforts over the past few years. In February 2017, Musk accused a factory worker who outlined several issues within Tesla in a Medium blogpost of being a “union plant”. In an email, Musk also promised workers free frozen yogurt in a letter to employees that framed unionization efforts as an effort against Tesla by big car companies. The same month, Tesla employee Michael Sanchez alleged he was asked to leave the Tesla factory by security for handing out pro-union flyers outside to fellow employees.

The NLRB filed a complaint currently on trial over Musk’s alleged promise to workers in a June 2017 meeting to fix safety standard concerns if they refrained from efforts to form a union. Several similar charges against Tesla are currently under consideration by the NLRB, including one alleging surveillance and intimidation against workers attempting to form a union.

Complaints from workers over being fired for engaging in efforts to unionize at Tesla have become common. “I was a union supporter. I wore a union shirt almost every day to work and my supervisor at the time asked me why I wore it,” said Jim Owen, who left the Tesla factory in Fremont, California, in March 2018 due to concerns for his safety after a robot almost severely injured him while working on car hoods. “He told me upper management wouldn’t appreciate me wearing it.”

Mark Vasquez, worked at Tesla from 2014 until he was placed on a medical leave of absence in July 2016 after spending several months on light duty after he permanently injured his back on the job. “Talking to other workers about unionizing was really frowned upon,” he told me. “When some of my supervisors heard me talking to other employees about it, they would come over and shut down the conversation.”

One current Tesla employee, who asked to remain anonymous, was placed on medical leave after sustaining a work injury in July 2016. “They are refusing to allow me to return to work,” the worker said. “For a brief period of time, when the movement was gaining traction, pro-union employees were given promotions to lessen their demands. It did not work, so they moved to removing pro-union employees. I am one of them that they do not want back, but I absolutely will be fighting for a union even harder if I am allowed to return to work.”

A Tesla spokesperson noted the company could not share personal medical information or any details of medical leave on employees who still have pending cases with workers’ compensation.

In August 2017 Crystal Guardado was fired from Tesla as she began participating in union organizing and speaking up about the unsafe working conditions. “Some of my most vivid memories are asking questions about the union to colleagues and being told to shut up or I’d get fired,” Guardado said. She started working at Tesla in April 2017 and began speaking up after she hurt her eyes from chemicals used on door handles and was told by a doctor it was due to allergies. “They retaliated against me, I believe, because I was speaking up about my safety and the conditions in the factory.”

A Tesla spokesperson said Guardado was fired for failing the company’s substance abuse and testing policy, but Guardado argued she has possessed a medical marijuana card in California for the past five years due to panic anxiety issues and her efforts to provide human resources with the documentation leading up to the test were ignored.

Elon Musk allegedly promised to address safety concerns if workers refrained from forming a union. Photograph: Kiichiro Sato/AP

Interviews with current Tesla employees suggest these alleged union busting and intimidation tactics are still being implemented by middle and upper management at Tesla factories.

“Elon Musk says he’s neutral toward the union,” another employee added. However, “They’ve been anything but neutral. Anything union or pro-union is shut down really fast.”

Another current employee in a Tesla factory who asked to remain anonymous expressed similar sentiments. “Pro-union people are generally fired for made-up reasons. There’s a culture of fear because if you don’t comply, you will be fired,” the employee told me. “We are told Tesla would go bankrupt if we unionize because we are not a profitable company yet.” He added that management quickly finds reasons to fire employees who tout their efforts to form a union and those who are fired are pushed to sign non-disclosure agreements before receiving their last paycheck.

Despite the complaints expressed by current Tesla workers, they remain committed to pushing the company to allow workers to unionize and improve working conditions.

“Why should I go somewhere else when we can make this place a good place to work and the product is an awesome product?” added one of the current Tesla employees I spoke with. “I’m proud of that fact – it’s changing the world – but it shouldn’t start on the broken backs of workers.”

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/sep/10/tesla-workers-union-elon-musk

Gary Reber Comments:

Yes, I agree with Senator Bernie Sanders, we need strong union, but with a focus on obtaining ownership for workers in the corporations they work for.

The labor union movement should transform to a producers’ ownership union movement and embrace and fight for this new democratic capitalism. They should play the part that they have always aspired to — that is, a better and easier life through participation in the nation’s economic growth and progress. As a result, labor unions will be able to broaden their functions, revitalize their constituency, and reverse their decline.

Unfortunately, at the present time the movement is built on one-factor economics — the labor worker. The insufficiency of labor worker earnings to purchase increasingly capital-produced products and services gave rise to labor laws and labor unions designed to coerce higher and higher prices for the same or reduced labor input. With government assistance, unions have gradually converted productive enterprises in the private and public sectors into welfare institutions. Binary economist/corporate lawyer Louis O. Kelso stated: “The myth of the ‘rising productivity’ of labor is used to conceal the increasing productiveness of capital and the decreasing productiveness of labor, and to disguise income redistribution by making it seem morally acceptable.”

Historically and in its present form, the labor movement is destructive in that it agrees with the idea that propertyless people should exist to serve those who own property. The labor movement doesn’t seek to end wage slavery; it merely seeks to improve the condition of the wage slave. If it actually cared about human rights and freedom, it wouldn’t call itself the “labor movement.”

Kelso argued that unions “must adopt a sound strategy that conforms to the economic facts of life. If under free-market conditions, 90 percent of the goods and services are produced by capital input, then 90 percent of the earnings of working people must flow to them as wages of their capital and the remainder as wages of their labor work… If there are in reality two ways for people to participate in production and earn income, then tomorrow’s producers’ union must take cognizance of both… The question is only whether the labor union will help lead this movement or, refusing to learn, to change, and to innovate, become irrelevant.”

Unions are the only group of people in the whole world who can demand a real Kelso-designed ESOP, who can demand the right to participate in the expansion of their employer by asserting their constitutional preferential rights to become capital owners, be productive, and succeed. The ESOP can give employees access to credit so that they can purchase the employer’s stock, pay for it in pre-tax dollars out of the assets that underlie that stock, and after the stock is paid for earn and collect the capital worker income from it, and accumulate it in a tax haven until they retire, whereby they continue to be capital workers receiving income from their capital ownership stakes. This is a viable route to individual self-sufficiency needing significantly less or no government redistributive assistance.

The unions should reassess their role of bargaining for more and more income for the same work or less and less work, and embrace a cooperative approach to survival, whereby they redefine “more” income for their workers in terms of the combined wages of labor and capital on the part of the workforce. They should continue to represent the workers as labor workers in all the aspects that are represented today — wages, hours, and working conditions — and, in addition, represent workers as full voting stockowners as capital ownership is built into the workforce. What is needed is leadership to define “more” as two ways to earn income.

If we continue with the past’s unworkable trickle-down economic policies, governments will have to continue to use the coercive power of taxation to redistribute income that is made by people who earn it and give it to those who need it. This results in ever deepening massive debt on local, state, and national government levels, which leads to the citizenry becoming parasites instead of enabling people to become productive in the way that products and services are actually produced.

When labor unions transform to producers’ ownership unions, opportunity will be created for the unions to reach out to all shareholders (stock owners) who are not adequately represented on corporate boards, and eventually all labor workers will want to join an ownership union in order to be effectively represented as an aspiring capital owner. The overall strategy should assure that the labor compensation of the union’s members does not exceed the labor costs of the employer’s competitors, and that capital earnings of its members are built up to a level that optimizes their combined labor-capital worker earnings. A producers’ ownership union would work collaboratively with management to secure financing of advanced technologies and other new capital investments and broaden ownership. This will enable American companies to become more cost-competitive in global markets and to reduce the outsourcing of jobs to workers willing or forced to take lower wages.

Kelso stated, “Working conditions for the labor force have, of course, improved over the years. But the economic quality of life for the majority of Americans has trailed far behind the technical capabilities of the economy to produce creature comforts, and even further behind the desires of consumers to live economically better lives. The missing link is that most of those unproduced goods and services can be produced only through capital, and the people who need them have no opportunity to earn income from capital ownership.”

Walter Reuther, President of the United Auto Workers, expressed his open-mindedness to the goal of democratic worker ownership in his 1967 testimony to the Joint Economic Committee of Congress as a strategy for saving manufacturing jobs in America from being outcompeted by Japan and eventual outsourcing to other Asian countries with far lower wage costs: “Profit sharing in the form of stock distributions to workers would help to democratize the ownership of America’s vast corporate wealth, which is today appallingly undemocratic and unhealthy.

“If workers had definite assurance of equitable shares in the profits of the corporations that employ them, they would see less need to seek an equitable balance between their gains and soaring profits through augmented increases in basic wage rates. This would be a desirable result from the standpoint of stabilization policy because profit sharing does not increase costs. Since profits are a residual, after all costs have been met, and since their size is not determinable until after customers have paid the prices charged for the firm’s products, profit sharing [through wider share ownership] cannot be said to have any inflationary impact on costs and prices.”

Unfortunately for democratic unionism, the United Auto Workers, American manufacturing workers, and American citizens generally, Reuther was killed in an airplane crash in 1970 before his idea was implemented. Leonard Woodcock, his successor, nor any subsequent union leader never followed through.

The union movement should also expand beyond representing corporate employees and represent capital ownership empowerment for all propertyless citizens.

Tesla Workers Speak Out: 'Anything Pro-Union Is Shut Down Really Fast' (Demo)

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