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Tesla fired dozens of workers in Buffalo plant the day after union campaign launch [1]

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Date: 2023-02-16  

In 2021, the National Labor Relations Board found that Tesla had illegally fired a union activist and that a tweet from Musk had illegally threatened workers with the loss of stock options if they unionized. Tesla is appealing that ruling, which came from two Republicans and one Democrat. In 2022, unfair labor practice charges were filed claiming that SpaceX had fired eight workers in retaliation for a letter about the company’s sexual harassment policies generally and specifically about Musk’s tweets dismissing a report that SpaceX had settled a sexual harassment complaint against him. Those cases are pending. And, of course, at Twitter, Musk has repeatedly fired people who didn’t kiss the ring enthusiastically enough.

In the narrow window of time between the Buffalo Tesla workers—who work on the Autopilot system—going public with their union drive and the company firing a significant number of workers in the plant, Tesla issued a warning to workers to “protect the confidentiality, integrity and security of all Tesla Business Information.” It’s not clear what that was about, but it doesn’t sound coincidental either.

“I feel blindsided,” one of the fired workers, Arian Berek, said in a statement. “I got COVID and was out of the office, then I had to take a bereavement leave. I returned to work, was told I was exceeding expectations and then Wednesday came along.”

Another member of the organizing committee who was not fired (yet) said the effort to intimidate workers away from union activism was backfiring, Bloomberg reports.

“It’s pretty clear the message they’re sending. They’re trying to scare us,” Sara Costantino said. “And it’s really I think backfiring on them.”

“It has really opened people’s eyes to the fact that this is why we need a union.”

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/16/2153344/-Tesla-fired-dozens-of-workers-in-Buffalo-plant-the-day-after-union-campaign-launch

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