Topline
Tesla CEO Elon Musk must delete a tweet maligning unionization efforts at the automaker, the National Labor Relations Board said Thursday, ruling Tesla violated labor laws by retaliating against union supporters and implying staff could lose stock options if they unionize.
Key Facts
A panel of NLRB members largely upheld the 2019 ruling of a California judge who found Tesla responded coercively to a unionization drive at the company.
The NLRB directed Tesla to rehire a pro-union employee who was fired and toss out disciplinary warnings lodged against a second staffer, among other findings.
The panel also took issue with a 2018 tweet in which Musk said there’s “nothing stopping” workers at Tesla’s assembly plant from unionizing but argued, “why pay union dues & give up stock options for nothing?”
Tesla was directed to tell Musk to delete his tweet, which the NLRB decision said “coercively threatened” employees with loss of benefits.
The United Auto Workers — which brought the complaint — celebrated the NLRB decision, calling it a “great victory for workers” in a statement to Forbes.
Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Key Background
The NLRB decision follows a years-long spat between Tesla and a group of staffers who have criticized the company’s working conditions and pushed to unionize its assembly line in Fremont, Calif. UAW accused Tesla of trying to quash these efforts by illegally preventing people from distributing pro-union leaflets, interrogating union activists, and implying employees could lose out on stock options (Tesla has denied the charges).
Tangent
Musk’s tweets have drawn the ire of federal regulators in the past. The Securities and Exchange Commission charged Musk with securities fraud after he tweeted in 2018 that he can take Tesla private, a statement the SEC alleged was “false and misleading” (Musk and the SEC later settled).
Surprising Facts
This isn’t the first time an outspoken employer’s tweets have clashed with the 85-year-old National Labor Relations Act. Last year, the NLRB ruled conservative pundit and Federalist publisher Ben Domenech violated the law when he tweeted that staffers would be sent “back to the salt mine” if they unionized, and Barstool Sports settled with the NLRB after founder Dave Portnoy threatened to fire pro-union employees “on the spot.” Federal labor law generally prohibits employers from firing or threatening to fire staff for joining a union.
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March 26, 2021 at 05:50AM
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Federal Labor Board Orders Elon Musk To Delete Tweet - Forbes
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