- The factory has 12,000 employees, meaning the average worker has stolen 5 coffee mugs.
- Managers have threatened to stop supplying cutlery if the thefts continue.
- Tesla recently let go of roughly 2% of its workforce at the German facility.
Running a car factory isn’t easy and the manager of Tesla’s facility in Germany has discovered this the hard way, revealing that tens of thousands of coffee mugs have disappeared from the site.
Tesla’s German Gigafactory has courted controversy from before it was opened in 2022. Protestors have routinely expressed their disdain for the site and the alleged environmental damage it has done to the local area. But now, it’s the plant’s workers who have been placed in the crosshairs of managers because they’re sick and tired of buying coffee cups.
Read: Activists Thwart Tesla’s German Gigafactory Expansion Plans With Tree Houses
While speaking at a recent staff meeting, plant manager Andre Thierig told attendees that a staggering 65,000 coffee mugs had been ordered for the plant since it opened, and they’d all gone missing.
“I’m just going to give you a figure,” he said. “We’ve bought 65,000 coffee mugs since we started production here. 65,000! Statistically speaking, each of you already has five Ikea coffee cups at home. I’m really tired of approving orders to buy more coffee cups.”
The plant is home to 12,000 employees and Thierig said that if the thefts didn’t stop, Tesla would stop providing cutlery in break rooms at the plant, DW reports.
One would have thought that coffee mugs being stolen would be a minor headache and nothing more, particularly when you consider other issues plant managers have had to deal with. A report published soon after the opening of the factory alleged that Tesla had registered three times as many emergencies as Audi’s plant in Ingolstadt.
As part of a worldwide effort to slash numbers, Tesla recently reduced staff at the German gigafactory by roughly 2%. Jannes Bojert, the secretary of IG Metall, the union that represents employees at the factory, says workers are facing extreme pressure and growing frustrated at safety issues at the site. He hasn’t ruled out a potential strike at the plant due to the growing discontent.