Tesla CEO Elon Musk has made no secret of his distaste for unions. He previously called out the UAW for corruption and even dared the union to attempt the organization of his employees. The UAW did not successfully do so, but as we recently reported, SEIU affiliate Workers United shifted some of their focus from Starbucks to Tesla. As such, the union is waging a new campaign against the automaker’s Buffalo, NY, facility.
It must be noted that the NLRB has had a target on Musk’s back for a while. In early 2022, they even ordered him to delete an old tweet in which he criticized unions, and now that a campaign is in motion, one can expect Biden’s board to go all in on him.
It’s already happening. The automaker has been accused of responding to the union drive by laying off 30 union supporters from the Buffalo plant. Naturally, the Tesla Workers United group headed straight to the NLRB to file a complaint. However, Tesla maintains that these dismissals were not retaliatory and, instead, specifically applied to 4% of the autopilot labeling staff due to the department’s subpar performance.
This denial hasn’t stopped further allegations, including a claim that Tesla Workers United’s tweets have been“shadowbanned,” meaning that the group believes that Musk, also CEO of Twitter, purposefully hid these tweets from search results.
