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IG Metall Union Support Tesla Workers’ Moves!
Elon Musk is not a supporter of labor unions. Workers at the German Tesla plant are being encouraged to organize a union, by the labor leaders in the factories of his competitors.
As shown in a video from the country’s largest IG Metall union, unions from BMW AG, Mercedes-Benz AG, and VW AG are supporting Tesla workers’ moves to form a works council at the factory near Berlin in a vote planned for Monday.
Daniela Zimmer, a labor leader at the Porsche facility in Leipzig, said:
We are a premium manufacturer, you are a premium manufacturer. So let us work together to guarantee that your working circumstances also are premium.
The German Tesla plant is expected to produce up to half a million vehicles per year and employ thousands of people in an area where there is only some heavy industry.
Tesla, on the other hand, has so far declined to sign wage agreements that are typical in Europe‘s largest economy, placing the automaker on a collision path with IG Metall, which has 2.3 million members. Leaders from the Robert Bosch GmbH factory in Dresden and a neighboring ArcelorMittal S.A. plant also joined the declaration, stating that they will provide semiconductors and steel to the Tesla factory, respectively.
Worker representation exists in the great majority of large industrial businesses in Germany. Labor members often hold half of the supervisory board seats at major corporations, which allows them to have a say in the strategic decisions.
