by Tesla has denied it fired workers at its Autopilot plant in Buffalo, New York, in response to a new union campaign. Days after workers at the plant sent a letter to company boss Elon Musk declaring their intention to unionize, campaign organizers accused the automaker of illegally firing workers in retaliation. In a blog post, Tesla called her allegation a “false allegation” and said those who were fired lost their jobs because of their own actions.
The company stated that it conducts performance reviews every six months and that workers are rated from 1 to 5 for each cycle. It “helps them calibrate their work,” Tesla wrote, and they’re fired if they don’t meet their performance expectations. These reviews appear to be conducted wherever Tesla has a facility, with the most recent cycle covering July 2022 through December 2022. Tesla said it had identified the people who will be fired on February 3, more than a week before organizers sent their letter to Musk that managers were told back in December that low-performers were leaving the company for the week of March 12. be left in February.
In addition, the company specifically stated that 4 percent of the Autopilot Labeling team members were fired due to their poor performance review. (Tesla said it only learned afterwards that one of the 27 employees affected was part of the union campaign.) They had previously received feedback, Tesla said, but “they haven’t shown sufficient improvement.” If you recall, Buffalo union organizers are in charge of labeling dates for Autopilot. you said before Bloomberg that they fight for better wages and working conditions that reduce the pressure to produce.
The workers said Tesla monitors their keystrokes to determine how much time they spend on each task and how many hours they work in a day. They reportedly skipped bathroom breaks as a result. But Tesla’s answer states that the time monitor is only there “to calculate how long it takes to tag an image,” so “there’s nothing to be gained by delaying bathroom breaks.” The report that Tesla is pressuring its employees is “categorically false,” he added. However, Tesla did not mention anything about employees’ complaints about having no voice at the company: Workers previously said talks about forming a union began after management shut down an internal chat room where they could air their grievances.
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