Workers at Tesla’s New York state Gigafactory are attempting to form a union in a bid to improve their pay and job security. The employees responsible for annotating data for Tesla’s autopilot technology have officially informed the company of their intentions to join the Workers United Upstate New York, which represents over 86,000 workers across various sectors in the US and Canada.
This move comes as Tesla has successfully prevented unions from forming in its US factories in the past. However, workers at the Buffalo plant claim that the pressures of production have been detrimental to their health.
They have accused Tesla of monitoring their performance at work through keystroke and task completion tracking, which has led some workers to forgo bathroom breaks to avoid negatively impacting their productivity. The workers reportedly earn a starting pay of $19 per hour.
A union would represent the collective interests of the workers, enabling them to bargain for better pay and work conditions with Tesla. In contrast to other US car manufacturers, Tesla has managed to avoid unions forming in its factories, with CEO Elon Musk drawing the ire of the US Labor Relations Board in the past. Musk was required to delete a tweet in which he threatened that unionized employees would lose their stock options.
