When Tesla’s Germany plant manager Andre Thierig took the podium at the end of a stormy meeting with staff, he made no mention of the bitter conflict between the works council and the powerful IG Metall union, which until then had dominated the discussion, according to Germany’s Handelsblatt.
“I’ll just give you one figure,” Thierig said on a loudspeaker at the factory near Berlin, which employs about 12,000 people. “We have bought 65,000 coffee cups since we started producing here. 65,000! Statistically speaking, each of you already has a set of five of our Ikea coffee mugs at home.
“I’m really tired of approving orders to buy more coffee mugs,” he said to laughter and applause, threatening that there would be no cutlery in the break rooms if the thefts didn’t stop, reports
Jutarnji.hr.
Even before the tens of thousands of stolen mugs and the last workers’ council election, Tesla’s Gigafactory in Grünheide, Brandenburg, was at the center of controversy. Almost immediately after Germany beat out competition from eight other EU countries that also wanted Tesla’s first European factory, criticism began to pile up about the environmental damage caused by the factory’s construction. This included the clearing of hundreds of hectares of forest and concerns about groundwater contamination.
Shortly after the start of production in 2022, the German magazine Stern published an article citing serious violations of worker safety and health regulations, as well as environmental protection laws. The report showed that Tesla’s factory recorded three times more emergency cases than Audi’s factory in the city of Ingolstadt.
In 2024, the factory was the site of environmental protests against the planned expansion of the factory, which was finally given the green light after a long political struggle. More recently, Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s decision to cut factories worldwide by 10 percent has resulted in many temporary and part-time workers being laid off and raised questions about how much the factory will really boost the German economy in the long term.
According to IG Metall union secretary Jannes Bojert, Tesla workers are facing extreme pressure, harassment and frustration due to the high number of safety accidents at the factory. This was opposed at a staff meeting by Michaela Schmitz, the recently re-elected head of the Workers’ Council, who believes the union is exerting undue influence on its members to agitate among workers.
Source: Jutarnji.hr / Handelsblatt
Foto: Arhiva / Screenshot YouTube
Source: autoblog.rs
