Workers at Tesla’s plant near Berlin, Germany, will elect a works council to represent their interests, Germany’s IG Metall trade union said Tuesday.
The union said seven employees have taken the first step towards setting up a works council and are planning to choose an election committee on November 29. The actual election of the works council will not take place particularly soon, though.
The plant is expected to employ a total of 12,000 workers, but only about a sixth of that have so far been hired, reports Reuters.
Read Also: Germany’s Largest Union Is Looking To Set Itself Up At Tesla’s Berlin Gigafactory
“A works council ensures that the interests of the workforce have a voice and a weight. This is in line with the democratic work culture in Germany,” said Birgit Dietze, IG Metall’s district leader in Berlin, Brandenburg, and Saxony.
IG Metall says that applicants have told it that Tesla is offering to pay 20 percent below the collectively bargained wages offered at other German automakers. The automaker is also bucking German trends by offering packages with stock options and bonuses rather than predetermined holiday pay.
Tesla and its CEO, Elon Musk, have gained a reputation for their opposition to organized labor. The automaker’s American workers are not union-represented and in 2018, Musk threatened to take their stock options if they formed a union, in a tweet that he was later ordered to delete.
Musk has also expressed his frustration with German laws, blaming red tape for delays at the factory that has been investigated for diverting wastewater to a nearby aquifer and underpaying construction workers at the plant.
