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Posted on [13 juillet 2009] |
by Steve Hanley
July 13, 2018 by Steve Hanley
Before you get your knickers all knotted about how I am a Tesla hater and a musk misanthrope , please be aware that yesterday I requested a constitutional amendment to allow Elon Musk to run for president and repeatedly praised Tesla for slapping the traditional carmakers with a 2 × 4 and forcing them to manufacture electric vehicles. Without Musk and Tesla, there would be no EV revolution (yet).
The following is news this week about Musk and Tesla. What you do with this news is yours. Please do not shoot the messenger if it does not fit your world view. Thank you. We now return to your regular programming, already in progress.
NLRB Complaint for Wrongful Labor Practices
Section 8 (a) (1) of the National Labor Relations Act states: "
is an unfair labor practice for an employer to hinder, restrict or coerce employees to exercise the rights guaranteed "to organize a union." On its website, the NLRB adds a bit of context to this section: "For example, employers may not respond to an organizing campaign by threatening, questioning or spying on pro-union employees, or by promising benefits to them. forget the union. "The employer creates an unfair labor practice – the impression that you spy on employees' union activities," promise "employees benefits that they" reject "a union, or pass on " the message that selecting a union would be futile. "
The United Auto Workers are trying to organize workers at the Tesla factory in Fremont for more than a year. Elon Musk makes few attempts to hide his contempt for the unions in general and for the UAW in particular. In May, he answered a question from the user of Twitter Eric Brown who asked him if he was considering removing stock options from shares at employees who voted in favor of a union
. test this theory. Maybe we want to recover the UAW, even though the UAW betrayed us 8 years ago and left us here to rot. Maybe we want the UAW to return to normal even though the injury rate today is 1/2 what it was with them and the wages were lower. May be.
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 22, 2018
On June 4, the NLRB requested leave to amend its complaint against Tesla, on the basis of what he claims to have occurred at a meeting between Musk and the employees on June 7, 2017. The judge who heard the case of unfair labor practices has not yet ruled on the request for amendment of the board . The amended complaint alleges that Musk "implicitly promised to remedy his security concerns when he refrained from his trade union activity" and "informed the employees that it would be futile for them to choose a union as a negotiator telling them that the employees did not need a union and [Tesla] would allow them to have a union if [Tesla] failed in its efforts to remedy their safety grievances According to a report by Jalopnik
A Tesla spokesman challenged the amended amendment proposal in a statement. "Not only are all these allegations false, but the NLRB's amended complaint was inappropriate for a number of reasons. The judge has not decided yet if he can continue. Neither the NLRB nor the UAW responded to Jalopnik's request to comment on the case
What about the safety of workers at the Tesla factory
? Safety at the Fremont factory has attracted the attention of OSHA and the state of California, both of which are conducting independent investigations. Tesla insists that his factory is safer than others in the industry, but it seems that it has not properly recorded some workplace injuries in its safety records. Justine White, who was once chief of plant safety, once complained to her supervisor that the factory did not have yellow safety markings. "Elon does not like the yellow color," he was told. Many other security issues were hijacked by saying that things were as they were because that was how Elon wanted them.
There is a report in the Mercury News had to be amputated from one of his legs in 2016 after being knocked over by a poorly operated forklift. The injury was apparently not reported as work-related because both employees were outside the factory at that time.
In a recent statement Bloomberg, Tesla said, "Nothing is more important to us. the safety of our employees. This does not mean that there are no real problems to deal with at Tesla or that we have made no mistake with any of the 40,000 people who work in our company . However, there is no question that we care deeply about the well-being of our employees and that we do our best to do the right thing and fail less often. With each passing month, we are improving safety and we will continue to do so until we have by far the safest factory in the world. "
It may be true, but workers have developed what is called a" Tesla "look" – a zombie-like state that manifests itself after many long quarters of work in the factory. The state is especially common after the so-called "broke weeks" when the company strives to produce as many cars as possible in the last few weeks of each quarter. Mikey Catura tells Bloomberg that workers often consume large amounts of Red Bull energy drink to counter the fatigue that occurs during work periods of 12 to 16 hours. "They are vibrant, energized," he said. "And a few weeks go by, and you'll see them coming out of the building looking like zombies in space." Semi-vegetative states can not be good for alertness and to keep security best practices in mind. head. [19659008] The Whistleblower Suit
Martin Tripp is the former controversial employee of Tesla who, according to the company, stole proprietary information and provided it to outside interests. Tesla sues Tripp for a million dollars in damages in a federal Nevada court. This week, Tripp responded by filing a complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission (commonly known as the SEC) alleging that the company systematically overestimates the weekly production of Model 3, up to 44%. The production of Model 3 is one of the key indicators that Tesla investors use to determine the market value of Tesla shares, so any reporting issues with Model 3 production numbers could constitute a violation of federal and SEC laws. , a New York attorney who represented an anonymous whistleblower in a 2016 case against Monsanto. This decision resulted in a $ 22 million grant to the whistleblower – one of the largest since the SEC began offering rewards in 2012 to encourage more internal reporting of potential violations, according to the report. Washington Post . ] Meissner says Tesla sought to ruin Tripp's reputation in order to protect his image and intimidate other potential whistleblowers to come forward. "Tesla and Mr. Musk poured gasoline on the fire of Tesla supporters," he says. Tripp, "is not a public figure like Elon Musk and yet he was thrown out into the public domain and ransacked."
Meissner told CNBC that, "It's dramatic and serious regarding the materiality of omissions and inaccuracies, and how they affect investors, and the general public regarding the potential risks to the safety of Tesla vehicles. I have never seen a company handle an employee who has raised internal issues in an aggressive manner.For me, this indicates that they are trying to send a message not only to Martin Tripp, but to all employees that they should not talk about they see something wrong. "In emails to Tripp, Elon Musk called it" a horrible human being "who should have &
It is too early to say what will be the outcome of the lawsuit against Tripp and the SEC's complaint. "Tripp says he can not afford to To hire a lawyer to defend himself in the legal action of Nevada.There is no doubt that Stuart Meisnner deals with the SEC in an unexpected manner, which does not require the aggrieved party to pay fees in advance.
The Takeaway
What to do with all these claims and counterclaims? Different people will have different interpretations. Perhaps a clue can be found in a previous tweet from Musk: "Management sucks, btw." It is clear that Elon would rather be left alone to pursue his dream of ridding the world of fossil fuels – no union says when and where for how long his staff can work, no yellow safety line in the factory, and no unhappy employee calling the media with complaints.Musk has an unshakeable belief that he is right and whoever does not see them things in his way must yield to his vision.
In Forbes this week, Betsy Atkins has some tips for Musk and Tesla, that sounds reasonable and rational:
"Looking at this messy scrum of # 39; cross-charges, there is a clear process that the Tesla Board of Directors should immediately consider. An established best practice for any board in a situation such as this one is to form a special committee of independent directors to review the allegations of the whistleblower. To form a special committee, you must determine the scope of the committee and the charter of the committee. Are there only investigators investigators or do they make recommendations to the entire board for it to review and make a commercial judgment?
"For a special committee to be effective, it must be independent, which means it has to choose and hire their own unaffiliated legal adviser." It's always a good idea of getting a written proposal from an outside lawyer and submitting it to a competitive bidding call in order to establish a firm budget or obtain a margin of huge maneuver and darken the expenses of the company and shareholders.It is also important to have a temporal objective to complete and to investigate.
"In a situation where he there are cost claims; the company in this case, claimed the sabotage by the employee, it is important to separate the topics of investigation. In other words, you could actually have a valid whistle-blowing situation where the company has put pressure on the employee and has attempted to intimidate other employees for that purpose. ############################################################################# They do not manifest themselves. At the same time, there may also be findings that the employee improperly accessed confidential documents.
Musk resists what someone tells him what to do. He is pretty much a type of guy from the road or from the highway. This can be a good thing for someone whose intention is nothing less than saving the world, but that does not mean that he is an easy person to work with. He may seem like a benevolent lord himself. It develops clearly over the 16 hours and may not fully understand why others do not. If there is one word of advice that he could benefit from, it is to avoid pride. There is a reason why pride is listed as one of the seven deadly sins.
A cautious businessman might conclude that the time has come to entrust Tesla's daily task to professionals and use his considerable talents to pursue more of his radical ideas. It may be more important for the world to devote its energy to finding creative solutions to pressing global problems than to sleep on the floor under a Fremont Tesla factory office, obsessed with daily and hourly production figures. . In a way, Elon can be his worst enemy. We could all be better if Elon could learn to step back and let one or more professional business leaders do what they do best. [ Editor's Note: I would say, however, that this is a move that was done a little too early. Elon has trusted excellent professionals to get the scale up incredibly fast. They did not succeed. He had to go in and fix the process and solve problems that others seemed unable or unwilling to solve. I would say that he is always critical in such roles. Once Tesla will comfortably produce 500K vehicles per year, it may be time for others to take over ]
About the Author
Steve Hanley Steve writes about the interface between technology and sustainability from his home in Rhode Island and everywhere else where singularity can take him. His muse is Charles Kuralt – "I see the road turning, I wonder what's around the turn?"
You can follow him on Google + and on Twitter .
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