Tesla’s chief executive, Elon Musk, says he is inviting the United Auto Workers labor union (UAW) to hold a vote at the electric carmaker’s California factory.
The announcement comes three months after the billionaire Musk criticized the Biden administration and Democrats for a proposal to give union-made, US-built electric vehicles an additional $4,500 tax incentive.
Tesla and foreign automakers do not have unions at their US factories.
Organizing a Tesla plant would represent a major victory for the UAW, which has largely failed to win the backing of workers at foreign-owned automakers’ or electric vehicle startups’ assembly plants, many of which are in the US south. Tesla also has a plant in Austin, Texas.
In his tweet on Thursday, Musk said the real challenge was the negative unemployment in Bay Area, where the factory is located, and not compensating people well would make them leave as they have many offers.
“I’d like hereby to invite UAW to hold a union vote at their convenience. Tesla will do nothing to stop them,” he said.
UAW did not have an immediate comment about Musk’s tweet, but analysts said his actions over the past year do not match the rhetoric.
Joe Biden has often praised the electric-vehicle (EV) efforts made by General Motors and Ford, even though they sell fewer EVs than Tesla.
Last month, Biden, whom Musk earlier this year compared to a “damp sock puppet”, acknowledged Tesla’s leadership role in making EVs after Musk repeatedly complained about being ignored. Last autumn, Musk said Biden’s EV policy appeared to be controlled by labor unions.
Musk has also faced the ire of the National Labor Relations Board, which last year ruled the company violated US labor law and ordered Tesla to direct him to delete a 2018 tweet saying employees would lose their stock options if they formed a union.
Tesla subsequently appealed the NLRB ruling with the New Orleans-based US court of appeals and that case is still pending.
In the 2018 tweet, Musk wrote: “Nothing stopping Tesla team at our car plant from voting union. Could do so tmrw if they wanted. But why pay union dues & give up stock options for nothing? Our safety record is 2X better than when plant was UAW & everybody already gets healthcare.”
The NLRB also directed Tesla to offer one former employee reinstatement as well as to rescind 2017 rules that prohibited distributing union literature in its parking lot on non-work time and rules that barred distributing union stickers, leaflets and pamphlets without first obtaining permission.
Last November, 10 environmental and advocacy groups, including the Sierra Club, Greenpeace and the League of Conservation Voters, called on EV startup Rivian to work with labor groups to ensure a clean future and high-paying jobs, and to allow a union voting process in its plants.
Workers at Rivian’s plant in Normal, Illinois, are not unionized. Rivian previously declined to comment on the subject and could not immediately be reached on Thursday following Musk’s tweet.
Tesla’s Fremont factory has been the site of longstanding employee complaints. Most recently, Black employees alleged they experienced rampant racism, according to a February lawsuit filed by the California’s department of fair employment and housing (DFEH).
The complaint says Black workers were subjected to racist slurs and graffiti and were assigned the most physically demanding jobs.
“Workers referred to the factory as the ‘slaveship’ or ‘the plantation’, where defendants’ production leads ‘crack the whip’,” the agency said in the lawsuit.
