Elon Musk, the Tesla CEO and lifelong foe of organized labor, received scathing criticism from the president of the auto workers union(UAW).
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and a lifelong foe of organized labor, was the target of scathing criticism from the president of the auto workers union.
According to United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain, employees at companies like Tesla “are scraping to get by so that greedy CEOs and greedy people like Elon Musk can build more rocket ships.”
The “Big Three” automakers—Ford Motor, General Motors, and Stellantis—have cautioned that the union’s demands will exacerbate the already-existing cost difference with other automakers with non-unionized workforces in statements clarifying their positions.
Ford claimed on Thursday that complying with the UAW’s demands will increase its labor expenses, which are currently “significantly higher than the labor costs of Tesla, Toyota, and other foreign-owned automakers in the United States that utilize non-union-represented labor.”
Fain stated on CBS that labor costs made up just 5% of the price of a vehicle in response to these worries. “[Automakers] could double our wages and not raise the price of the vehicles and still make billions in profits,” he claimed. The union president referred to Tesla and other businesses’ pay as “pitiful.”
These worries were repeated on CBS by Representative Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), whose district includes a portion of the Detroit metropolitan area. “Tesla does have a significant disparity in the wages they pay their employees. In addition, the majority of people in our country cannot afford a Tesla, she added.
However, Dingell asserted that non-unionized workers might also benefit from the UAW’s victory. Nearly all car plant employees gain from the outcome of these agreements, she claimed.
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What are autoworkers asking for?
On Friday, the UAW began a planned strike by leaving three sites in Missouri, Ohio, and Michigan. Starting small, according to the union, will enable the majority of its members to continue working while leaving potential for subsequent escalation.
Over the weekend, talks between the union and the Big Three were reopened. The UAW reported having “reasonably productive discussions” with Ford on Saturday.
In a statement to Reuters on Saturday, Ford stated that it was dedicated to finding a settlement with the union.
The union and the automakers still seem to be at odds. The UAW’s current demand for a mid-30% wage raise over the course of the new contract is a reduction from its initial desire for a 40% pay increase, but it is still well beyond the 20% at best that the auto industry has proposed.
The union is also requesting a reduction in the workweek and, more importantly, an extend of benefits to factories producing electric vehicles. Many of these factories (which lack unionization) are joint ventures with foreign firms.
The head of the UAW wants to make up ground that was lost following the 2008 auto bailout, in which employees consented to give up long-standing perks in order to prevent the bankruptcy of automakers.
Fain claimed on Sunday that “the workers were unfairly blamed for everything that was wrong with those companies,” blaming instead “bad decisions on the parts of the companies that put us in that position.”
Fain asserted that “we made all the sacrifices,” and that “after a decade of massive profits, the workers have [gone] backwards.”
How about Tesla?
Tesla does not have a unionized workforce, but the UAW has long attempted to organize its employees.
In 2018, the union attempted, but failed, to organize workers at the EV manufacturer’s Fremont, California, facility. The UAW then cited a tweet from Tesla CEO Elon Musk as evidence of improper interference in unionization attempts by Tesla.
Musk questioned why Tesla employees would “pay union dues and give up stock options for nothing” if they chose to join the UAW at the time. The union claimed that if employees unionized, they may view the Tesla CEO’s statement as a threat to lose their stock options.
Tesla was required to remove the tweet and rehire a Tesla employee who had reportedly been sacked for engaging in organizing action by the National Labor Relations Board. The order is currently being assessed by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
On social media, Musk has kept teasing the union of autoworkers. On Thursday, Musk said on his owned social media platform X, “We pay more than the UAW btw, but performance expectations are also higher,”
However, according to industry data, Tesla employees make up to a third less than their unionized colleagues. According to the Wall Street Journal, which cited industry data, Tesla employees receive pay and benefits of $45 per hour, whereas workers at UAW-represented plants can earn up to $66 per hour.
Stock options are given to Tesla employees. According to Musk’s statement from Thursday, “quite a few of our factory techs who work on the line have become millionaires over the years from company stock grants.”
An enquiry about salary at the corporation was not immediately answered by Tesla.
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