A leaked recording of a training during Tesla’s week-long production shutdown outlines a serious morale problem.
Something strange happened at Tesla’s Gigafactory in Austin, Texas the week of Memorial Day.
The production lines at the plant went dark and the 20,000 folks responsible for running them—whether it be the ones putting the final touches on Tesla’s made-in-Texas Model Y or spit-shining panels on the Cybertruck—were told to take the week off if they had paid time off to burn. If not, it was time to come in and either scrub the floors or take some company culture training.
Production pauses do happen. Sometimes it’s due to upgrading lines, other times due to demand problems (and it might be a bit obvious which Tesla is facing right now). Tesla’s hasn’t said which, but a week is “unusually long” according to employees who spoke with Business Insider.
“Sure, we’ve had a history of sexual and racial discrimination of our workers by other workers, but if you are a woman or a person of color thats no reason to have low morale. Yes, our CEO did back-to-back Nazi salutes on live television while he had abandoned his responsibilities here at the company. Why is that a reason to feel down? Okay, so our company brand is a social pariah at home with regular weekly protests at our stores and people burning the cars you make. Also around the globe largely because our CEO has been invading the privacy of all Americans through the power of government and pushing far right political ideology in other nations and here. Is that a reason to let it affect your work? No. Workers, this is all your fault and its time you changed your attitude.” - Tesla corporate instructors probably