Three workers burned at Tesla plant

[Mother Muckraker]

10. Tesla pay is ~ 1/2 of what NUMMI workers made.

Tesla is already "undercutting union pay" by not having a union. It's not the location of the plant that determines pay. It's whether you have a collective bargaining agreement or not.

NUMMI UAW Local 2244 collective bargaining contract: start $20 after 3 yrs $28/hr w/ health 401k pension dental etc.
Tesla ~$20/hr top pay, starting pay is less.

Those figures with the addition of the benefits amount to Tesla paying their workers about 1/2 of what workers at NUMMI made.

This is done deliberately with the hiring of a union avoidance specialist (union buster) as head of Tesla HR. The hiring back of (exNUMMI) managers is done to keep workers from unionizing. It's a classic union busting tactic. The union busting at Tesla is simply an ongoing effort started at NUMMI. That's how companies keep wages low. When many companies do this en masse, overall middle class wages decline, while the "money saved" goes into the pockets of the rich and powerful.

The idea of electric cars replacing gas cars as the solution to climate change is a huge fallacy. This will not only NOT solve our climate crisis but in the short-term will accelerate global warming burning cheap dirty coal. The only way to stop global warming is to stop using energy. We have to take public transportation, bicycle and walk.

There's been a number of lies coming from Elon Musk. The $500 per month for a Model S, the 5.4-Star safest car ever rating, the promotion of non-GAAP figures to show "profit" when official GAAP figures show a loss, "5 times less likely to catch fire" after the 3rd fire, "we've hired 'hundreds' of exNUMMI workers" and more. These are the lies from a man who wants to make as much for himself as possible. Musk does not care about saving the earth as he has said so himself.

Tesla has produced only about 20,000 cars so far and this accident happens. This kind of thing would never happen at NUMMI even with a much higher production rate at over 400,000 cars/trucks per year. At Tesla, people are discouraged from reporting safety issues. At NUMMI, we had safety reporting forms that workers would fill out which sends out a safety rep from the company AND the union. That's why you unionize. That's why you re-hire experienced workers who know what they're doing.