Tesla fired more than 30 workers at a plant in Buffalo, New York, just days after employees at the facility announced plans to form a union.
Workers filed a claim with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB),
claiming that the firings are part of efforts to thwart their
unionization efforts.
- Many of the workers leading the unionization effort work at Tesla's Autopilot unit.
- They want to discuss wages, benefits, and health and safety conditions.
- At least one of the workers on the union-organizing committee was fired.
- Workers at the plant planned to unionize with Workers United, the labor group representing Starbucks workers.
- Over 200 Starbucks coffee shops have voted to unionize since December 2021.
- None of Tesla's facilities in the U.S. are unionized and CEO Elon Musk has in the past been critical of unions.
- In 2018, he tweeted that employees would lose their Tesla stock options if they formed a union — the NLRB ordered him to delete the tweet.
- A report by the progressive Economic Policy Institute found that more than 200,000 workers joined labor unions in the U.S. from 2021 to 2022.
