The TeslaManagement at the Grünheide plant is said to have fired a member of the works council for the second time in three months. That reports that “Handelsblatt”
. For IG Metall, this is a “scandal” that the car company is dealing with Elon Musk (53) crosses a red line.
Specifically, a shift manager from production is said to have received notice of termination in July – four weeks before his parental leave began. As a result, he was actually under double protection against dismissal, because works councils cannot be dismissed easily anyway. There had already been problems with his application for parental leave because he had planned to continue working part-time.
According to the shift manager, management refused and asked him to withdraw the request. He was also threatened with a warning and dismissal, the report continues. The human resources department informed him that the work at Tesla was “basically full-time.” The employee was even presented with a termination agreement, which he did not sign. Tesla is then said to have accused him of specifying incorrect working hours in two cases.
There was a court dispute and in September the Brandenburg State Office for Occupational Safety and Health rejected the termination. The authority therefore criticized “inconsistent regulations” at Tesla, which had “legally unacceptable consequences”.
The works council is said to have threatened a colleague with violence
At the beginning of October, the second case occurred in which a unionized works council member is said to have threatened a non-unionized colleague with physical violence. To understand: The Tesla works council in Grünheide consists of 16 representatives from IG Metall and 23 other members – the so-called “Faction 23”. The latter is said to have supported the two dismissals.
In the most recent incident, the affected production employee is said to have received an email invitation to a works council meeting at 9 a.m. the same day after a night shift at 5:35 a.m. He then drove back to the factory in anger to take part in the meeting. At the end, several participants criticized the fact that the invitation had been sent out too late.
Finally, according to eyewitnesses, the production employee said: “What are you thinking about inviting me at 5:35 a.m. after my night shift at 9 a.m.? I was already home and had to go again. I don’t know the legal situation, but if I find a loophole, I’ll hit you.”
The chair of the meeting and the “Faction 23” were apparently happy about the employee’s outburst; he was expelled from the room and suspended. According to internal documents, he then apologized and said that his threat only meant legal and not physical measures. However, six days later he was terminated without notice.
“New high point in the aggressive approach of the factory management”
IG Metall reacted to the two terminations in an official press release and stated that Tesla’s “aggressive” actions had reached “the next peak”. The “employer faction” in the works council agreed to the termination against the efforts of IG Metall and even helped push the whole thing. This is “a scandal” and another attempt to intimidate union members.
25 employees who belong to IG Metall have already received a warning since the beginning of the year. “Every IG Metall works council has already been threatened with extraordinary dismissal by the plant management,” the statement says. “And everyone in the plant who has spoken up or who has been sick for a long time can report similar experiences,” says the union statement, which is available to manager magazin.
Union members are also said to have explained to the “Handelsblatt” that the phrase “I’ll pull one over on you” was not unusual given the rough treatment in the works council. Allegedly, members of “Fraction 23” have insulted the union members several times and made sexually vulgar insinuations towards them.
The Tesla factory in Grünheide has recently made several negative headlines. Among other things, the management had Unannounced home visits were made to sick employees, plant manager André Thierig defended this approach.
Tesla denies allegations from IG Metall
At the request of manager magazin, Tesla rejected IG Metall’s accusations. In doing so, the union is “staging a scandal based on falsehoods to the detriment of the Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg and its employees.”
According to a Tesla spokeswoman, the two terminated employees had “severely crossed red lines,” and there were criminal allegations in each case. These are “by no means trivial offenses”. With regard to IG Metall’s accusation that specifically union members were targeted by management, the spokeswoman explained: “The fact that the affected employees have union and works council affiliations is absolutely irrelevant to the disciplinary measures taken.”
More on the topic
In the first case from July, no termination had been given yet; instead, the company was still “in an official procedure prior to termination.” In the second case, IG Metall would now try to “scandalize a termination,” said the Tesla spokeswoman. We reserve the right to examine legal action against false allegations made by the union.