Tesla’s Fremont Plant was in the news last week after Jose Moran, a worker attempting to rally the 6,000+ employees at the plant to join the United Auto Workers union (UAW), accused the EV firm of low pay, long hours and potentially unsafe equipment. Now CEO Elon Musk intends to look into the situation.
Tesla CEO again accuses UAW and Moran
In a tweet, Musk told Gizmodo that he is conducting an “investigation” right now.
“Fremont production management was in poor shape and not able to scale about a year ago. I think we’ve made a lot of progress since then,” Musk said.
The CEO informed the blog that he intends to publish the results of the probe later this week.
“If there are areas that you are hearing are still not great, I would love to hear feedback on that,” Musk added.
It looks similar to the statement the CEO made asking for suggestions for what to say to U.S. President Trump last month, says Gizmodo. It is uncertain if those suggestions will result in any policy changes.
Workers have nothing to fear about bringing their testimony to the press or Musk. Musk told Gizmodo that the confidentiality agreements Tesla workers are made to sign were drawn up to stop advance product leaks to the press.
“They specifically excluded workplace environment, health, safety or anything else.”
Musk concluded by noting that the agreement obviously has not prevented that “UAW guy from publishing that BS piece.” The UAW has already claimed that he is not on its payroll.
UAW denies all accusations
Last week, Musk went on the offensive after Moran, who claimed to be a Tesla employee, wrote a 760-word argument for why factory workers in Fremont should unionize. Then in a series of direct messages to Gizmodo on Twitter, Musk said he believed the employee was paid by the UAW to join the automaker and agitate workers into unionizing.
In its response to Musk, the UAW said it had not paid Moran. The union said it would hope that the electric car maker would apologize to Moran for spreading false news about him.
“We can confirm that Mr. Moran and others at Tesla have approached the UAW, and we welcome them with open arms,” the UAW said.
On Tuesday, Tesla stock closed up 0.14% at $280.98. Year to date, the stock is up more than 31%, while in the last year, it is up more than 86%.
