'Sick' workers get home visits from Tesla plant managers; Union outraged

The plant director, who sent the managers, defended his actions by saying that he wanted to 'appeal to the employees’ work ethic.'

The director of an Elon Musk-owned Tesla manufacturing plant in Germany has come under fire for sending his managers to the home of workers on sick leave in order to “appeal to the employees’ work ethic”.

A report in the Guardian said the move by André Thierig, the plant’s manufacturing director, has sparked outrage at the trade union IG Metall, which represents a some of the 12,000 workers at the Berlin-Brandenburg gigafactory.

Defending his decision, the director said that such practices were common in the industry, and that some workers were taking advantage of Germany’s labour protection laws.

The union, in protest, has said that the employees' are subjected to harsh working conditions in the factory with “unreasonably” long hours and a poor health and safety record. Just last October, Tesla rejected claims made by IG Metall that health and safety provisions at the factory were not adequate.

The union has alleged that the employees have developed a “culture of fear” that has caused stress and sick leave among workers.

“Employees from almost all areas of the factory have reported an extremely high workload,” Dirk Schulze, a regional director at the union, to the Guardian, adding, “When there are staff shortages, the ill workers are put under pressure and those who remain healthy are overburdened with additional work. If the factory’s overseers really want to reduce the level of sickness, they should break this vicious circle.”

In response, Thierig said that for the factory’s 1,500 temporary workers, who operate under similar conditions to full-time employees, the average rate of absence through illness is just 2 per cent.

“In our analyses of attendance at work, some phenomena have become obvious: on Fridays and late shifts, about 5 per cent more employees take sick leave than on other weekdays,” Thierig was quoted by the Guardian, adding, “That is not an indicator of bad working conditions because the working conditions are the same on all working days and across all shifts. It suggests that the German social system is being exploited to some extent.”

The union said that sick leave rates at the factories with a “culture of fear”, have commonly hit 15 per cent or higher.

The factory, which is in Grünheide, south-east of Berlin, was opened in 2022 and is the electric car manufacturer’s first in Europe.