In the works council of Tesla in Grünheide, near Berlin, the powerful metalworkers’ union enters for the first time IG Metall. With 16 representatives it will constitute the largest group. You will be able to strengthen your requests for the application of the category contract addressing management resistance. In the elections held in recent days, 9 lists with 234 candidates competed. The union has always said it is in favor of Gigafactory by Elon Musk in Germany, but accuses Tesla of deliberately using the legal form of a European joint-stock company to escape national collective bargaining. The European company (also Societas europaea or SE) allows the activity to be carried out in various EU countries by applying a single regulation, but Tesla for now only has a factory in Germany.
Elon Musk keeps unions away from his factories: in the USA as reported by ARD workers who tried to set up a representative body at the Buffalo headquarters were promptly met fired. Even in the only European plant, last July, workers who had distributed IG Metall stickers with the slogan “our health is more important than the next million Elons” according to Business Insider had been warned of the risk of disciplinary measures until immediate dismissal.
The head of the Grünheide plant, André Thierig, he sees the glass half full and underlines that around 60% of the votes went to lists other than the union and 23 out of 39 seats will be occupied by candidates who are not attributable to IG Metall. The manager declared that he does not find the application of a collective agreement necessary: it is enough to “reach solutions favorable to employees”. Among these, Tesla cites free charging of electric cars and free shuttles. The manager, on the occasion of Musk’s recent visit to the factory after an arson attack on a high voltage pylon, claimed by the far-left Vulkangruppe, which has blocked production for almost two weeks since March 5, also announced that the the company will increase further salary.
The outgoing president of the works council, Michaela Schmitz, who reappeared with her own list, spoke out against the influences of the union and the application of sector contracts, claiming to have obtained improvements in salary and social benefits so far. And protections at work agreed directly with management. Schmitz referred to 17 agreements concluded in the two-year life of the plant even without a collective agreement, including wage increases of 18% for the lowest incomes, an anti-inflation bonus of 3,000 euros (actually foreseen by the government) and supplements for production employees.
In its campaign, the IG-Metall-Tesla Workers GFBB list instead criticized the working conditions that would lead to illness up to 30% and more accidents, the pay and treatment of employees, arguing that the activity of the outgoing works council would have been too compliant to the ownership. For IG Metall, salaries at Tesla are on average lower than those of other manufacturers. In a ten-point program he asked for more hiringthe absorption of temporary workers, pause longer assembly lines, greater accident prevention measures and to crystallize everything in a collective agreement. She obtained 39.4% of the votes.
There was no shortage of controversy regarding the timing of the vote. The union wanted more time for the campaign, after the factory was closed for two weeks at the beginning of the year due to the interruption of traffic due to Houthi attacks. With a appeal to the Labor Court of Frankfurt on the Oder had obtained a ban on voting in February. Tesla’s board of directors insisted to the Berlin-Brandenburg Regional Labor Court and action was taken as early as March. Criticisms had also accompanied the elections of the first works council held on 28 February 2022, before the plant opened its doors. For IG Metall, a trick to reduce the turnout among the then approximately 2,500 production and lacquering workers.
Tesla’s Gigafactory now employs approximately 12.500 people, but since its inception it has been accompanied by controversy due to the heavy use of water resources. Recent expansion plans have therefore been rejected by a referendum consultation among citizens and around eighty activists occupy the area that should be deforested to make room for the new warehouses.