Tesla workers in the US complain about working conditions

Despite the large number of industrial robots, the Tesla factory in the United States employs over 10,000 people

After Ilon Musk bought a closed automobile plant in Fremont, California, this company was transformed in a matter of months into a modern factory with a large number of various hi-tech industrial manipulators and a bunch of innovations. The company continues to improve to this day, introducing new methods of work, optimizing the production process, logistics, etc. But some factory employees are not too happy with the working conditions, believing that Musk does not regret people for the sake of achieving his goals.

According to statistics, since 2014, an ambulance has arrived at the Tesla plant more than 100 times. In general, there is nothing surprising, since in any, even the most modern production, there are certain risks for employees. Sometimes trouble happens and then people suffer. Since the opening of the Tesla enterprise, there have been several hundred such incidents.

This is a different kind of fall, dizziness with loss of consciousness, pain in the chest and back. In general, the Tesla plant now employs more than 10,000 people. According to Ilona Mask himself, his employees really have a hard time, because they have to work a lot, and the work itself is difficult. But he also says that working conditions have been significantly improved over the past year, and the number of accidents and other incidents has decreased. The businessman claims that the life and health of the employees of his electric vehicle factory are valued, all the norms of working conditions are respected.
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Several employees disagree with him. 15 people, some of whom have already quit the enterprise, and some continue to work, believe that the factory workers are constantly under strong pressure to comply with the norms. “I saw people fall to the floor and smash their faces,” says Jonathan Galescu, a Tesla employee. "We were sent to work, saying that we went around the fallen, while the man continued to lie on the floor."

Galescu claims to have seen people fall right near the conveyor. “We continued to work, work, work, and then - we see how a person falls on the floor,” echoes Mikey Katur, another factory employee.

Richard Ortiz, who also works for Mask’s enterprise, confirms the above, saying that the factory itself is modern, this is the future of industry, but the employees work as before, and the working conditions are not the highest.

Despite the fact that Tesla Inc. - an unprofitable enterprise, Musk says that he is doing his best to provide decent conditions for work and rest to all employees. Well, a large amount of work is due to the fact that the number of pre-orders for Tesla electric cars is constantly increasing. The bill goes on hundreds of thousands, and in order to meet the needs of customers, Tesla is going to increase production up to 500,000 electric cars in 2018. This is about 500% more than in 2016. It is clear that all this leads to the fact that employees of the enterprise have to work a lot and for a long time, although within the framework of American labor legislation (Tesla factories are now being built in other countries, including Europe).

In February of this year, one of the employees of Tesla published an open letter to the company, which referred to the constant processing and increasing loads. In particular, he said that machine tools and other equipment are not very convenient, ergonomics leaves much to be desired, and during the production process, employees have to perform a large number of unnecessary intermediate operations. About his colleagues, José Morgan writes that they are simply afraid to ask their superiors for any requests or complaints so that they would not think anything bad about them.

Morgan also claims that the $ 25 dollars an hour salary received by him and by the overwhelming number of plant employees does not correspond to the general financial background of the region where the factory is located (remember, this is California, USA). California prices are traditionally high, so Tesla Inc. employees can not secure a life at a comfortable level.

In general, employees who decide to talk about the working conditions at the Tesla factory remain loyal to both the company and Mask personally. They only declare that they would like to receive slightly smaller loads with an increase in the comfort of their workplace. Musk himself tries to hear his subordinates. This year, the base wage was increased for the first time, and working conditions continue to improve.

Ilon Mask agrees that there are some problems. He explains them in the following way: “Creating an automobile production from scratch is a bad way of making money, maybe rockets is an even worse way.” Therefore, there are problems, but, according to the head of the company, they are gradually being solved.

At the same time, the goals are fulfilled, in any case, over the first three months of 2017, more than 25,000 electric vehicles were produced. This is a record for Tesla. At the same time, some employees of the company's factories claim that the plans announced by Musk are simply unrealistic, and an attempt to fulfill them leads to the fact that the company's employees suffer.

"We are trying to work, doing good for the world, and we believe that we are doing everything right," said Musk. "And this obliges us, first of all, to worry about the health and safety of our own employees."


Musk himself looks very tired in many recent photos. No wonder - after all, he participates in the work of almost all of his enterprises, which produce a lot - from rockets to solar batteries and electric vehicles.

The entrepreneur even sleeps in the factory in order to conduct direct observation of the fulfillment of the assigned tasks. Last year, the company received pre-orders for Tesla Model 3 much more than expected. By this, the previously developed plans had to be changed. Until 2016 Tesla Inc. Planned to increase production to 500,000 electric vehicles by 2020. In May 2016, the same number of vehicles was decided to produce as early as 2018.

Of course, 15 dissatisfied employees from 10,000 are not very many, but Musk, as far as can be understood, tries to listen to the opinions of his subordinates. In any case, the company continues to evolve.