The social climate in the Tesla factory in Berlin is deteriorating. The manufacturer took him to absent employees calling his nail, denounced the IG Metall Union on Friday. Information confirmed by the German newspaper Handelsblatt.
The Daily Economic was able to consult several letters sent to employees with a disease license. They have the right: “doubts about the certificates of disability for the work presented.”
In these letters, Tesla announces the immediate judgment of the payment of wages and threatens to claim the reimbursement of the sums already paid. The company also urges its employees to reveal its diagnosis of “each inability to work attested” and “unleash the doctors that they treat with them their professional secret,” according to Handelsblatt.
Facts denounced by the IG Metall Union, which says that, in addition to debt threats, Tesla encourages employees to sign a contractual break without leaving a delay in reflection.
An “inhuman” and “counterproductive” practice
In the only “European giga factor in Tesla, south of Berlin, where more than 11,000 employees work, those members of IG Metall” use legal protection (…) approximately 21 times more often than the average, “reports the union.
These appeals are “numerous”, according to a spokesman for Ig Metall, who did not want to specify the number. Quoted by the Bild tabloid, Tesla’s management speaks of a dozen cases per month. “Talking here about massive action is a deliberate distortion of reality,” said the company that has not responded to AFP requests.
Tesla must “immediately end this” not very serious, inhuman “and” counterproductive “practice, according to Dirk Schulze, regional manager of IG Malll.
“We do not fight against high absenteeism by pressing employees, but improving working conditions,” he adds.
The “disease patrol”
Absenteeism has reached the factory to 17%, encouraging Tesla’s management to visit employees at home without prior notice.
Although this approach was poorly perceived, the “disease patrol” made it possible to reduce the 9%absence rate, a Tesla official in Germany said in December, cited by Handelsblatt.
This tension climate occurs, while Tesla has lost land since January in the German automotive market, despite the increase in electric vehicles records.
Elon Musk is criticized in Germany for his support for the AFD party by far during the recent legislative elections. Four Tesla cars caught fire in Berlin on the night of Thursday to Friday, the police that evokes a possible “political reason.”
Source: BFM TV
