Wednesday, December 20, 2023

Danish union begins action against Tesla in support of Swedish strike

COPENHAGEN, Dec 20 (Reuters) — Danish dockworkers and lorry drivers have stopped unloading and transporting Tesla cars destined for Sweden as Danish labour union 3F on Wednesday joined Swedish mechanics in their strike action against Tesla.

Tesla is facing a backlash from unions and some pension funds in the Nordic region as the U.S. carmaker refuses to accept a demand from Swedish mechanics for collective bargaining rights covering wages and other conditions.
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"We can't allow one man or one company to come and say, I want to do this in another way, you need to change your system. If you want to be here, you're very welcome, but you have to follow the rules," said Jan Villadsen, chairman of 3F Transport.

3F announced the sympathy action on Dec. 5, addressing speculation that Tesla had started shipping cars to Sweden through Danish ports following Swedish dockworkers joining the dispute.

"We know that some cars have come through Denmark, we don't know how many but some, we know also that from today there is not one coming," Villadsen said.


Workers at the port of Malmo, Sweden blocked the loading of Tesla vehicles on November 7.
 (JOHAN NILSSON/ TT News Agency/ AFP via Getty Images) 

Villadsen thinks the conflict with the Nordic unions will last until an agreement is reached with Tesla, he told Reuters, adding:

"I've been in this game for more than 25 years, and I've never seen a strike that didn’t end with an agreement. All strikes end with an agreement".

The sympathy action will only affect Tesla cars meant for Sweden. The transport of Tesla cars for Danish customers will remain unaffected, Villadsen told Reuters.

(Reporting by Johannes Birkebaek and Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen; Editing by Toby Chopra)

Tesla skips employees' yearly merit-based stock compensations - Bloomberg News

Reuters
Tue, December 19, 2023 

FILE PHOTO: Tesla electric vehicle dealership in Durango


(Reuters) -Tesla is not offering its employees yearly merit-based stock awards, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday.

Tesla did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment.

The news comes after United Auto Workers union said in November it is launching a first-of-its-kind push to publicly organize the entire nonunion auto sector in the U.S., including Tesla, after winning new contracts with the Detroit Three automakers.

The company's managers delivered the news to salaried employees, the report stated, adding that four employees from different departments told Bloomberg News they believe the move was widespread.

Workers were still given modest cost-of-living increases and adjustments to their base salaries, according to the report.

Some Tesla employees who reached the end of their four-year vesting cycle were given stock "refreshers", in order to keep their total compensation competitive, the report added.

(Reporting by Arsheeya Bajwa in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri and Rashmi Aich)


Tesla to raise Nevada Gigafactory workers' pay amid union push: report

Eric Revell
Tue, December 19, 2023 at 4:35 PM MST·4 min read

Electric vehicle maker Tesla is planning to give hourly workers at its Nevada Gigafactory a roughly 10% raise in January, according to a report from CNBC.

According to internal documents reviewed by the outlet, Tesla will raise the pay for hourly workers from $20 to $22 an hour on the low end of the pay scale and up to $34.50 an hour from $30.65 on the high end.

The CNBC report added that the raise can add anywhere from $2 to $8.30 an hour to the hourly workers’ pay, while Tesla is also streamlining its employment levels so that workers currently making between $26.20 and $30.65 an hour will be paid $34.50 an hour after the raise takes effect.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.



Tesla is reportedly providing raises to its hourly workers at the Nevada Gigafactory.

The report about Tesla providing raises to workers at its Gigafactory in Nevada, which is located near Reno and manufactures batteries for Tesla EVs, comes as the company faces a unionization push from the United Auto Workers (UAW) union.

Fresh off securing record contracts from Detroit’s "Big Three" automakers — Ford, GM and Stellantis — the UAW views Tesla and other non-union automakers like Honda and Toyota as targets for potential unionization efforts.

After those contracts were secured and a six-week strike this fall was brought to a conclusion, UAW President Shawn Fain signaled the union would "pull out all the stops" to organize workers at Tesla, Toyota, Honda and other non-union automakers.

COURT RULES TESLA CAN BLOCK FACTORY WORKERS FROM WEARING UNION T-SHIRTS


Billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said that if the EV maker ends up unionized "it'll be because we deserve it and failed in some way."

Honda, Toyota, Hyundai and Subaru raised workers’ wages following the UAW’s deal with the Big Three, which prompted Fain to say that Toyota had previously hiked wages "because the company knows we’re coming for ‘em."

"To all the auto workers out there working without the benefits of a union, now it’s your turn," Fain said in a video message posted late last month. "The money is there. The time is right. You don’t have to worry about how you’re going to pay your rent or feed your family while the company makes billions. A better life is out there."

Tesla CEO Elon Musk was asked about the UAW’s unionization push last month at the New York Times DealBook Summit and said, "I disagree with the idea of unions." He added that if Tesla is eventually unionized "it’ll be because we deserve it and failed in some way."



UAW President Shawn Fain has set his sights on unionization pushes at non-union automakers such as Tesla.

Musk has previously pointed to the company’s stock options provided to workers as a lucrative benefit that could dissuade workers from unionizing. Musk posted on X, formerly, before the UAW strike began to tout Tesla’s work environment and the income potential provided by those stock options.

"Tesla and SpaceX factories have a great vibe. We encourage playing music and having some fun. Very important for people to look forward to coming to work! We pay more than the UAW btw, but performance expectations are also higher. Quite a few of our factory techs who work on the line have become millionaires over the years from company stock grants," Musk wrote.

The UAW previously attempted to unionize Tesla’s workforce in 2017 and 2018 during a period of labor unrest at the company’s factory in California. During that standoff, Musk wrote in a social media post, "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?"

Though that unionization effort proved unsuccessful, it set off a legal battle in which the National Labor Relations Board held that Musk violated labor law in part through statements about hourly workers losing stock options if they unionized, which an appellate court panel believed was an "implied threat to end stock options as retaliation for unionization."

Tesla has appealed that ruling and has disputed any wrongdoing, and the case is under review by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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