Tesla gave workers permission to stay home, then sent termination notices

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Tesla-gave-workers-permission-to-stay-home-rather-15365312.php

by joering2 • 6 years ago

162 140 6 years ago

falcolas• 6 years ago

Charitably, this is a mistake in communication. Tesla should fix this immediately though, because it doubles down on the poor impressions formed by breaking county (IIRC) law when restarting their factories.

SpicyLemonZest3• 6 years ago

I suspect it's not entirely a mistake. When Tesla offered to let workers take unpaid leave, they probably didn't mean for it to last until "when covid-19 is over" as these workers wanted.

intopieces2• 6 years ago

Hm, then Musk, who is notoriously not careful with his words, should have clarified long before it reached this point.

throwaway_jobs7• 6 years ago

I suspect it's not entirely a mistake.

Like Tesla calling their driving assistance “auto-pilot”.

matz14• 6 years ago

Its not a mistake, as a worker you are not obligated to come to work if you don't want to, likewise Tesla is also not obligated to pay you for not working.

ralmidani• 6 years ago

The article says the leave was unpaid.

throwaway_jobs7• 6 years ago

Debatable when the CEO publicly makes a statement to that effect that you “detrimentally relied on”.

Not to mention the CEO was actually breaking the law by reopening, in practice this worked out to violate the law by coming to work or get fired...

coliveira2• 6 years ago

It is very hard to believe that such a decision would be made as a simple communication mistake. It just shows the lack of values from the people running this organization.

sjwright6• 6 years ago

In a company of ten thousand employees, I have no problem giving benefit of the doubt that two instances of wrongful termination could be done by mistake. It's not unreasonable to imagine that an HR department might screw up at least 0.02% of the time when having to manage ten thousand individuals making ten thousand individual decisions with regards to their response to a pandemic.

Besides, it just doesn't ring true to me. Had this been intentional, they would have been far more careful and not set themselves up for the most predictable made-for-media firing scandal you could possibly envisage. Companies deal with firings all the time, they know to avoid this sort of thing. That's basically the point of an HR department.

jaybeeayyy• 6 years ago

I'm not sure if this is a surprise to anyone when the CEO of Tesla has made it very clear that he doesn't believe the threat of COVID-19 is real and that a mandated quarantine is fascism. Couple that with the factory conditions that have been reported by workers previously and the result is this.

sjwright6• 6 years ago

The result is this? A scandal this obvious? This predictable? A scandal this trivially avoidable? Is incompetent goonishness really more likely than an HR department screwing up 0.02% of the time while managing ten thousand individuals making ten thousand individual decisions with regards to their response to a pandemic?

skellington7• 6 years ago

No, he has said that he believes the threat of COVID does not warrant the extreme response of mandated lockdowns. That's a lot different than saying there is no threat.

Every day, people make decisions around risk and people can have wildly different opinions on how much risk to accept in order to live.

FireBeyond3• 6 years ago

And he has made that decision on behalf of his employees, too, not just himself. He is deciding how much risk that they need to be willing to take.

cryptoz2• 6 years ago

Elon is nearly criminally bad at risk management, then. He claimed that based on 'current trends' (in March?), the US would have close to 0 new virus cases per day by the end of April. I have no idea what trends he was looking at, because there was no public evidence of a declining US case count at the time he was referencing. I don't think the US ever got much below 20,000 new cases per day, at any point since we rose to those levels in the first place.

That's a lot different than saying there is no threat.

He has downplayed the threat so significantly and in such frequent error - proved as error as time passes and his virus predictions do not come to pass - that he is effectively suggesting that indeed, "there is no threat" even if he does not use those direct words.

patentatt• 6 years ago

With communicable diseases, your risk taking implicates those around you. Your rights end where other's begin, and people around you have a right to not be exposed to a life-threatening illness.

softsound• 6 years ago

Considering their past, I'm not that surprised to be honest.

gre• 6 years ago

I will continue my personal boycott of Tesla.

throwaway_jobs7• 6 years ago

Maybe the protestors that riot and loot will burn Tesla down using Musk’s “not a flame thrower” the ultimate of ironies.

inawarminister• 6 years ago

Such blood-thirst...

almost_usual4• 6 years ago

Larry Page will miss your money

dekhn• 6 years ago

Larry Ellison, not Larry Page.

rrock• 6 years ago

I wonder how many people are reconsidering Tesla purchases now, and how that compares to the cost of having these workers on unpaid leave. Seems to be the wrong decision from both the ethical and the business perspective.

dylan604• 6 years ago

I was never in the market for a Tesla car, but I have been very intrigued by their Powerwall units.

matz14• 6 years ago

I'm not rich enough to own tesla car so I buy tesla stock instead.

WrtCdEvrydy• 6 years ago

Is this going to be the thing that causes a Tesla implosion?

After all of the issues, the magical tents?

sjwright6• 6 years ago

I'm curious, do you think that early information-limited reporting of alleged unethical treatment of two employees is enough to decide to shift your purchase over to Ford, Toyota or Volkswagen? Have you confirmed that the company who wins your vehicle purchase have, statistically speaking, done unethical things to proportionally fewer employees?

travisporter2• 6 years ago

Not to get meta, but both you and the parent are asking leading questions. I do it too, but I don't think we shoudl I think it's because we're trying to be polite but make a point. Maybe it's just an online thing.

drcongo3• 6 years ago

I'm going to guess nobody is reconsidering over this if they haven't reconsidered the last hundred times they've been shown what kind of person Musk is.

timmytokyo2• 6 years ago

I'm going to guess that the vast majority of people who bought Teslas knew little to nothing about Elon Musk.

With all the bad publicity he's generating for himself in the midst of a huge crisis, where the media exposure of his actions is greater than it's ever been, that is going to change. And it probably won't be good for Tesla.

sbussard5• 6 years ago

Unpopular opinion: articles like this are just designed to shame people who don’t buy into the popular opinion. Not even all medical experts agree on the best course of action regarding herd immunity, sip, etc. For the other 5% of the article, there could be other dynamics at play that got those employees fired, though Tesla has a less than stellar reputation for work life balance.

almost_usual4• 6 years ago

Operate like the Shanghai factory, done.

Tesla doesn’t care unless there are steep penalties. They wouldn’t get away with this in their Shanghai factory.

emiliobumachar• 6 years ago

I disagree. While this could still be an honest mistake, if done intentionally it definitely goes beyond civil disobedience. Given the decision to reopen the factory and terminate employees that do not show up, there's no justification for misleading them about their options.

sbussard5• 6 years ago

Agreed. But the main content of the article was more about Covid 19 than the employees, and it seems more like a piece to shape thoughts by reinforcing ideas about public health policy than to discuss the employees’ welfare. More shame than substance.

devalgo4• 6 years ago

Not even all medical experts agree on the best course of action regarding herd immunity...

This is a dubious claim at best. That being said the real problem is that Musk made the decision about how much risk is acceptable for his employees without their input and seems to be retaliating against those who disagreed.

sbussard5• 6 years ago

That’s the secondary issue at best. The primary issue is that the government has done exactly that to the people and media has taken it upon themselves to shape and enforce sociological norms. Shelter in place causes major health risks to a subset of the population. Shelter in place is a tradeoff of public health. But when the economy, rights, and other major factors are considered, it looks less like a tradeoff and more like a betrayal.

This is a dubious claim at best

Ask any microbiologist.

sandworm1012• 6 years ago

> Employees, like the broader public, are left to learn of Musk's mind-set through his sporadic 280-character posts on Twitter.

That's the real crux of the problem. That is not evidence of a mature corporate environment. Broad policy statements and occasional emergency directives can come directly from the top, but day-to-day HR policy should come in writing after being signed off by appropriate directors/managers.

I've seen this at small-but-getting-bigger tech companies. The "founders" still act like they are running a business out of a garage. Once you have hundreds of employees you need to stop barking orders over a phone and comit all important policy decisions to paper.

hartator• 6 years ago

That's the real crux of the problem. That is not evidence of a mature corporate environment. Broad policy statements and occasional emergency directives can come directly from the top, but day-to-day HR policy should come in writing after being signed off by appropriate directors/managers.

Funny that we give local govs way more power with way less accountability.

linksnapzz• 6 years ago

Right. Let me know when Tesla employees can vote for a new CEO.

almost_usual4• 6 years ago

I’m sure someone will bring up “but the Shanghai factory”, the truth is that factory is operating under China COVID protocol.

If Tesla isn’t going to be held accountable or penalized for not enforcing strict COVID safety protocol they won’t.

I guarantee they wouldn’t get away with this in Shanghai.

LMYahooTFY• 6 years ago

Seems like a fairly accurate speculation, but like your dismissal of a derisive comment about Shanghai in another post, I think you're omitting the next logical topic to address: that of China's authority and governance.

I say omit because your posts seem to strongly imply that their compliance in Shanghai is the more desirable outcome.

andrewtbham3• 6 years ago

I am long term Apple and Tesla shareholder. I have in the past freaked out over stories in the media... remember antenna gate? What about when all Teslas caught on fire?

My advice to anyone with any money, or any ambition to have any money. Is to ignore these stories in the short term and take a long term view. They are mostly bullshit. And for the fools that don't have any money... and want to stay poor. Go ahead. Spread the bullshit. It increases wealth inequality...

Tepix2• 6 years ago

Take your own advice then: This is just one of many stories about Tesla not treating its employees well. That should be your long term view by now.

If all you care about is money on the other hand don‘t pretend not to be.

andrewtbham3• 6 years ago

The general understanding is that if you're at Tesla, you're choosing to be at the equivalent of Special Forces. ... That has pluses and minuses. It's cool to be Special Forces, but it also means you're working your ass off. It's not for everyone.

andrewtbham3• 6 years ago

there are many stories... but they were debunked and you remember the headline. You never see the retractions or the debunking.

Whatever happened to Martin Tripp?

elicash9• 6 years ago

This, to me, is the key sentence:

They believe they received the notifications for speaking up about their concerns with working conditions at the plant.

The conversation so far here seems focused on them not showing up after being told they didn't have to. But did everybody who did not show up get these notices? Was it just folks who were vocal about working conditions?

Is this retribution? Why do the workers say so? It's always a danger to take a company's stated reasons for termination at face value. It could be true, but it might not. I'd love to hear more details.

jdxcode5• 6 years ago

Even though we might not like the idea, Californians can be fired simply for complaining though—correct?

elicash9• 6 years ago

NLRA covers protected concerted activity at the national level. Whether this speech falls into that, or whether these employees are covered under the NLRA, I don't think we have the specifics for.

But there are more worker protections than people realize. The biggest problem with them is enforcement and lack of penalties.

jschwartzi• 6 years ago

Just because something is legal doesn't make it right.

sjwright6• 6 years ago

How many workers didn't get fired for not showing up during the pandemic?

How many workers didn't get fired after speaking up over concerns over working conditions?

If we don't have denominator, it's difficult to evaluate assertions of causation.

rhacker• 6 years ago

Literally, if every single person starting today, wears a mask when they are within 15 feet of another person, and all the time indoors, this virus would be gone from the entire United States in 2 months. No additional shutdown needed.

eloff2• 6 years ago

You're probably right. It worked in Japan.

It's a lot harder for the virus to make it through two masks (the one on the sick person is the especially important one) and it seems if you don't get a exposed to a high enough viral load at the start, you don't get it nearly as bad.

I think universal mask wearing would bring R0 below 1, and the pandemic would end.

Costco requires a mask to shop in their stores (at least where I am.) If you don't have one, they will give you one (and an admonition to save it for the next visit.) I feel safer shopping there than any other store right now.

Someone1234• 6 years ago

I agree on Costco, on top of that I am also selective at where I shop based on other customer behavior.

For example, I am avoiding Walmart and hardware stores because almost nobody wears a mask, including even the staff, whereas in Target and Kroger it is 50% or higher.

Recently McDonald's actually removed the sneeze guards they had installed for some inexplicable reason and their staff stopped wearing masks, and in a related note due to increasing numbers we're likely to re-enter lock-down soon (per the state health board).

I cannot imagine any justification for EVER removing the sneeze guards, it isn't like flu and the common cold are disappearing. Let alone now.

goatforce5• 6 years ago

Costco requires a mask to shop in their stores (at least where I am.)

We went to a Costco in Toronto, Canada a couple of days ago. If you didn't have a mask on, they pointed you at a table off to the side where they had free masks, hand sanitizer, etc. Some people would accept the free mask, but others went in maskless. A staffer at the front door appeared to be keeping tally of people without masks using a sheet of paper (as opposed to the standard front door person who counts everyone going in with a little clicker thing).

I'd say about 15-20% of people in the store weren't wearing masks.

fzeroracer• 6 years ago

Unfortunately, there are a significant amount of Americans it seems that have bought into the narrative that wearing masks is fascism. So here we are, dealing with the fallout of people demanding that we end the shutdown while doing nothing to mitigate the disease. Or worse, they're openly antagonizing people who wear masks or stores that ask them to wear one because they're psychotic in their ideals.

erichocean2• 6 years ago

Americans [...] have bought into the narrative that wearing masks is fascism

They're not wrong. Enacting pro-social policies that restrict most individuals in small ways—but benefit society-as-a-whole in large ways—is one of the core things Fascists did that was actually effective at improving lives—just like forcing everyone to wear masks in the United States would also be effective at improving lives.

So yeah, Fascists would absolutely have forced individuals to wear masks for the good of everyone—but that doesn't make the policy "bad", it's just one of the rare policy areas where Fascists tend to get good results.

The actual problem is that people today believe literally anything Fascists would have done is, by definition, "bad/wrong/evil." That kind of simplistic thinking is all too common.

mcv2• 6 years ago

A mask is no substitute for distance. It does help, but in hospitals, where people know how to use masks properly, a lot of people still got infected. Many people do not know how to use masks properly.

What you want is masks + distance. The mask is really a stop-gap measure when keeping distance fails.

Also: gloves.

henryl• 6 years ago

That’s because many of the patients refuse to wear masks as well.

dudul• 6 years ago

I find it really unfair to downvote this comment because it is right. A lot of people don't know how to use masks. A lot of people don't know that they need to cover their nose, a lot of people remove them incorrectly and end up touching the front with their fingers.

That being said, even used incorrectly they would definitely drastically help.

MAGZine• 6 years ago

There's early evidence to suggest that masks do more to prevent the spread of the virus than physical distancing.

Of course, yes, it would be easy to say, "just never get in range and the mask doesn't matter," but we live in urban environments and need to do the best we can in light of that.

chrshawkes• 6 years ago

Can't help but to think Elon Musk is a huge dick and possibly psychotic.

drcongo3• 6 years ago

This should really be the top comment on here, but it's getting downvoted. Possibly because the diagnosis of mental illnesses at a distance is frowned upon by the psychiatric community. The bit about him being a huge dick is indisputable fact though.

rojcyk• 6 years ago

I bet that if you two would have a conversation, and you would discuss all the nuances of the situation, and you would actually get through the whole reasonig, you would write a different comment.

codingdave• 6 years ago

citing their apparent failure to show up and the company's inability to reach them. The workers provided evidence of their continuing correspondence with managers.

This sounds like a communication failure between the managers and the HR department. Absolutely a problem, and people are right to be angered. But it also sounds like one that could be quickly resolved, and their job status restored.

Tesla gave workers permission to stay home, then sent termination notices

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