Tesla Allegedly Fires Employees at New York Plant After Attempt to Unionize [Update]

1 year ago

Update Feb. 16, 8:50pm PT: Tesla has responded to these allegations calling them false.

Tesla has allegedly fired dozens of workers from its Buffalo, New York plant on Wednesday, after employees launched a campaign to unionize this week, according to Bloomberg.

The news was spotted in a filing with the U.S. National Labor Relations Board, in which the union Workers United accused Tesla of illegally firing workers “in retaliation for union activity and to discourage union activity.”

Additionally, the union requested that the U.S. labor board seek a federal court injunction “to prevent irreparable destruction of employee rights resulting from Tesla’s unlawful conduct.”

Many of the terminated workers were involved in unionizing efforts, including one employee who was a part of the union campaign’s organizing committee.

“This is a form of collective retaliation against the group of workers that started this organizing effort,” said Jaz Brisack, an organizer with Workers United who has been helping with Tesla’s union campaign. She also added that the terminations are “designed to terrify everyone about potential consequences of them organizing, as well as to attempt to cull the herd.

Last year the National Labor Relations Board ruled that employees the automaker’s plants can’t be banned from wearing pro-union shirts.

In Germany last month, the country’s largest metal-working union IG Metall shared worker complaints of extended working hours and low wages at Tesla’s Giga Berlin.