Tesla accused of intimidating workers at German plant
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Germany’s largest union, IG Metall, has accused the US car maker, Tesla, of intimidating workers at its plant at Grünheide near Berlin through its approach to sickness absence.
The union says there is a pattern at the plant where management refuses to accept sick notes from employees, requires them to produce their private medical diagnosis and subsequently fails to pay the sick pay that is due.
Management then argues that the employees concerned have already received sick pay they were not entitled to and demands repayment of the “debt”. However, this “debt” is only cleared provided the employees agree to sign an immediate termination agreement.
Court actions
The union says that generally, employees have been entitled to the sick pay they received and that it reclaimed almost €500,000 (£415,000) from Tesla through court actions in 2024.
It also says that IG Metall members at Tesla are 21 times more likely to ask the union for support in a legal case than an average IG Metall member.
Tesla disputes that it is doing anything unusual by refusing to pay sick pay in some cases and says that what the union describes as “unacceptable behaviour” is “standard practice in Germany”.
There seems little doubt that there is a high level of sickness absence at Grünheide, with the plant manager saying last year that at times it had reached 17%, and Tesla founder Elon Musk promising that he was “looking into it”.
Poor conditions
However, while management believes its workforce is lazy, the union argues the high level of absence is a result of poor working conditions and work pressure.
In a union survey last year, to which 1,200 Tesla workers responded (around a tenth of the workforce), 83% said they often or very often felt overworked, and only 10% said they thought they could go on working until retirement.
