A number of workers at the Tesla Gigafactory in Shanghai, China are pleading with chief executive Elon Musk to reinstate monthly bonus pay after it was unexpectedly cut.
Factory workers state that cuts were made to monthly bonus pay after a fatal accident occurred at the factory in February. Managers at the factory reportedly told employees that the cuts were being made so it could pay the compensation related to the accident.
“This is incredibly unfair,” one worker wrote on Chinese social media platform Zhihu. “This safety incident happened in the factory. It is not because of workers’ personal [shortcomings]. Workers should not be penalized with pay deductions because of the company’s liability problems.”
Was alerted this weekend. Looking into it.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 17, 2023
Some workers stated that their quarterly bonuses have been cut by around 2,000 yuan ($291). That’s a significant amount given that base salaries at the factory start from around 5,340 yuan ($777) per month.
Eager to make their concerns heard, some Tesla employees bypassed China’s restrictions on Twitter to ask Elon Musk himself to intervene.
Read: Angry Tesla Owners In China Blow A Fuse About Discounts They Missed
“Please pay attention to the performance of frontline workers at Tesla’s Shanghai factory being arbitrarily deducted,” one worker said.
Musk ultimately responded to one post from Investing.com, stating that he was alerted of the concerns over the weekend and is “looking into it.”
The incident at the heart of the issue occurred on February 4 when an accident in the welding workshop at the factory led to the death of a worker. An investigation from the local government concluded that oversight in Tesla’s safety management had indirectly contributed to the accident but noted the worker was directly responsible for their own death.
