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The National Labor Relations Board on Thursday ordered Tesla Inc. to reinstate an employee it laid off in 2017 and said chief executive Elon Musk must delete a three-year-old tweet urging not to unionize.
The Washington, DC NLRB approved a 2019 ruling by a California NLRB judge that found the electric car maker violated labor laws related to organizing efforts at its Fremont, Calif. Plant. .
Tesla TSLA,
must offer to reinstate Richard Ortiz in his former position as production associate within 14 days, as well as give him back his salary and benefits. The company must also compensate him for any resulting tax consequences, according to the ruling.
Tesla said in documents that Ortiz was fired for lying during an investigation into a Facebook post about union activities at the company.
Margo Feinberg, a lawyer for Schwartz, Steinsapir, Dohrmann & Sommers who was hired by the United Auto Workers on behalf of Ortiz, told MarketWatch on Thursday that Ortiz was aware of her wanting to return to work at Tesla.
The decision in the Tesla case, first reported by Bloomberg News, comes as the Protect the Right to Organize Act (PRO), or HR 482, was passed by the House earlier this month. The bill – which would give workers new protections when they seek to organize and sanction companies that violate workers’ rights – is expected to pass the Senate.
See: The PRO law, called “ the most important labor law for several generations ”, is adopted by the Chamber
“If it was OSHA, there would be fines,” Feinberg said. “The NLRB decision is not enough, but it is an important message.”
“At the end of the day, we need reform,” she added, saying the PRO law would provide for an injunction and damages in a case like this.
The UAW echoed this sentiment.
“While we celebrate the justice in today’s ruling, it nonetheless highlights significant gaps in US labor law,” UAW Vice President Cindy Estrada said in a statement. “Here is a company that has clearly broken the law and yet there are three years left before these workers achieve a minimum of justice.”
As for Musk’s tweet that needs to be deleted, the NLRB deemed it threatening. In 2018, as the UAW continued to try to organize Tesla employees, the CEO of Tesla tweeted, “Nothing prevents the Tesla team at our auto factory from voting for the union. Could do it tmrw if they wanted to. But why pay union dues and give up stock options for nothing? Our safety record is twice as good as when the factory was UAW and everyone is already receiving health care. “
Tesla is also to remove a warning from another employee’s file that was sanctioned when he interacted with Ortiz about union-related activities, the NLRB said in its ruling Thursday. The company was further ordered to rescind rules prohibiting employees from distributing union materials outside of working hours and wearing union badges, and from threatening, disciplining or firing an employee because of union activities. In addition, Tesla is to post a notice at its factory that it has violated employment law.
The company must also remove the wording of a confidentiality agreement it asks employees to sign that they cannot speak to the media because labor law “protects employees when they speak with the media about working conditions. labor, labor disputes or other conditions of employment. “
The company, which reportedly disbanded its public relations team, did not return a request for comment.
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