Major German automotive union IG Metall is eager to represent workers at Tesla’s new factory near Berlin and claimed that employees at the site are being paid significantly less than those working for German carmakers.
The union has opened an office near the Tesla factory and speaking with the German Press Agency, the district leader for the union in Berlin, Brandenburg and Saxony, Birgit Dietze, said the union is available to answer questions about pay, working hours, and employment contracts.
Job applicants at the Tesla site have reportedly told IG Metall that the car manufacturer is offering pay 20 per cent below the collectively bargained wages paid by German automakers. The electric vehicle manufacturer is also offering employees packages with stock options and bonuses rather than traditional holiday pay.
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The factory is expected to eventually house 12,000 employees building 500,000 vehicles annually. Auto News reports that approximately 1,800 workers had been hired by Christmas, with Dietze adding that the first stage of production will probably start with about 6,000 employees.
Tesla has been opposed to unions in the past and fought against plans from the United Auto Workers to unionize the Fremont factory in California. A union at the Berlin plant has yet to be officially formed but IG Metall is eager to make it happen.
“In terms of transformation, it is necessary to take the employees with us,” Dietze said. “We are not the dinosaurs of the industrial age but are looking forward in a progressive way. We are actively intervening in the issues of shaping industrial policy.” Dietze added that the union isn’t opposed to Tesla paying stock options.
“On top of a secured collective bargaining standard like that of the metal and electrical industry, we would have no objection,” she said. “But what generally does not work in our members’ estimation is that parts of the remuneration are so thoroughly flexible that the employee does not know exactly what is coming out for them at the end of the month or the year.”
