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The Hidden Workforce Expanding Tesla's Factory

109 points by jhspaybar 10y ago

slicktux 10y ago
It is a rather complex problem and it needs to be solved, but I do not see how it's Tesla's fault. . . First off Tesla chose Eisenmann for the expansion and in return they subcontracted another company which then brought in the the workers for the illegal work. Given those circumstances I believe Eisenmann knew what was going on if not they would have never made such a low bid, because they would have risked paying out of their pocket. Therefore, Eisenmann is responsible and Tesla should not be held accountable. . . Aside from that what would be a good way to counter this specific problem? The people applying for the visa obviously can lie so it would be pointless to start from the application process because anyone from any other country can lie; it would be harder to verify if they really are coming as supervisors. . .maybe the companies that are working on large projects should be audited by their local authorities to make sure they have qualified workers? What would be a good solution for this problem of H1-B workers being used for cheap labor which in term is stealing Americans jobs?
- ams6110 10y ago
  I flatly do not believe that Tesla did not know what was going on. The bid being as low as it was means that the savings were coming from somewhere. Presumably the materials used all had specifications so hard to cut corners there. That leaves labor. Come on, maybe they aren't legally responsible but morally and ethically they made a choice here.
  - NotSammyHagar 10y ago
    It's hard to believe that Tesla didn't become aware of this after a few months. Just like farmers who can't hire american people to pick their crop with backbreaking labor and low wages and who hides from hiring undocumented workers from mexico, they are morally responsible for treating the workers well. US politicians should address this situation by working to eliminate b1 visa fraud. If it turns out not to be illegal to do this kind of job, we should change the laws to disallow it.
    - x0x0 10y ago
      The other way to fix this is to allow liability for labor law and health code violations to pass all the way up the contracting chain. The only reason Tesla doesn't care is they can insulate themselves from liability via the outsourcing relationship; were Tesla liable for law violations, they'd make sure everything was aboveboard. viz labor board ruling McDonalds is jointly liable for wage violations of franchisees. McDonalds will have a newfound interesting in making sure every person working at McDonalds is correctly paid. [1] [1] http://www.franchisetimes.com/news/NLRB-McDonalds-Joint-Employer-of-Franchise-Employees/ http://www.franchisetimes.com/news/NLRB-McDonalds-Joint-Empl...
  - bardworx 10y ago
    Not entirely. Many companies who bid out projects during "off times" would receive preferential bids. In colder climates, if your construction begins in the colder months, construction companies will bid lower since there is less work and do their best to make little to no profit on the job. That's fairly standard. The downside, most construction companies will have many COs (Change Order)to supplement the work. Just because a bid is lower doesn't mean the subcontractor is hiring illegal labor. Parent company that accepts bid isn't morally responsible to check on their subcontractors. If parent company is responsible, imagine the possibilities? Ever subcontractor would then blame the parent company for just about everything since they're not held responsible. Did Tesla realize that labor wasn't "legal" during the process? Probably...but what now? Stop building the factory? They have investors that don't care about morals or ethics.
    - jsprogrammer 10y ago
      >Parent company that accepts bid isn't morally responsible to check on their subcontractors. If parent company is responsible, imagine the possibilities? Ever subcontractor would then blame the parent company for just about everything since they're not held responsible. What absolves them of responsibility? Exchanging money? If the parent company isn't responsible then imagine what happens: every parent company blames subcontractors for everything as the parent could never be responsible since they only commissioned the project.
      - hueving 10y ago
        You are saying the customer is responsible for how a company achieves something. (Tesla is a customer of the contractor.) By that procedure of blame shifting, we could basically blame every Volkswagen customer for the diesel emissions scandal because they should have done their due diligence and realized that an engine couldn't perform that well without cutting corners.
        jsprogrammer 10y ago
        VW customers should have realized that.
- andmarios 10y ago
  It is simple; Tesla should have a supervisor at the construction site that made sure everything was according to their specifications, be it construction or worker issues. It wouldn't be very difficult for the supervisor to tell that people who don't even speak English aren't legit workers. As for the solution, place huge fines for all companies involved. That would give motive to Tesla to both inspect their construction and include protection clauses in their contracts.
  - Mtinie 10y ago
    > It wouldn't be very difficult for the supervisor to tell that people who don't even speak English aren't legit workers. Have you worked in construction before? Non-English speaking employees (especially in California) aren't necessarily an indication that anything is amiss. Supervision may have made a difference, but I'm not sure. The onus is on the contracted company to do things the right way. I'm surprised that California building, OSHA , and employment inspectors didn't catch this. If they visited the site as I expect they would have multiple times through construction, and didn't find anything out of the ordinary, it tells you something about the inspections themselves and the degree that the required employment documents were misrepresented.
- forgetsusername 10y ago
  >Therefore, Eisenmann is responsible and Tesla should not be held accountable. Why not? Otherwise, follow the logic: sub-contractor after sub-contractor until you reach the bottom and you've got some fly-by-night operation that you can't hold accountable. Everyone involved shares the blame, including Tesla
  - dominotw 10y ago
    >Why not? Because its govt's job to enforce labor laws not Tesla's . Maybe Tesla is responsible from a moral pov .
  - hueving 10y ago
    Because a customer shouldn't be held accountable for another company's actions. The government's job is to enforce labor laws and it should do just that. Then we don't have this gross attempt to just find the biggest bank account to blame.
  - sjwright 10y ago
    Blame has to stop somewhere. By that logic, why stop at Tesla? Perhaps we should blame Tesla's individual investors? Or all the consumers who placed a deposit down for a Model 3? Or the City of Freemont? Or the Californian government? Or the US government?
- azernik 10y ago
  Given the other stories this article brings up, it seems Eisenmann has a history of this kind of thing.
- dominotw 10y ago
  >What would be a good solution for this problem of H1-B workers being used for cheap labor which in term is stealing Americans jobs? Review and proper enforcement of 'prevailing wage' requirements. People in this article were not using H1B though. >Tesla proudly employs nearly 6,000 American workers from the Bay Area And for everything else we use subcontractors. Fucking disgusting.
  - leeoniya 10y ago
    good 'ole friend Plausible Deniability. except, s/plausible/voluntary
  - bardworx 10y ago
    > And for everything else we use subcontractors. Fucking disgusting. That's a very strong sentiment, sprinkled with ignorance. I work in hospitality industry and seen the underbelly of food production and construction of QSR locations. I speak from experience. Sure, everyone wants contracted, union labor and hire Americans but no one is willing to pay for it. Subcontracting is "Fucking Disgusting"? Okay, how would you like to pay 30% more for your food, clothing, and electronics? Doesn't sound so appealing? Well that's unfortunate. This isn't a complex problem - the economics doesn't work; American labor isn't hired because American's don't want to pay more for products. > Review and proper enforcement of 'prevailing wage' requirements. That is so simple to write...our HR department has to check every employee against many different services to ensure that they're legally allowed to work and are not felons, while constantly hiring. They're over worked and do not have adequate resources. Hiring more folks for HR is out of the question because the business has to be profitable...because...that's how the world works. However, if we raise prices, we could "Review and proper enforcement of 'prevailing wage' requirements" but then we would be out of business because no one would purchase our product since it would be too expensive. Statements are easy to make, solutions are tough.
    - dominotw 10y ago
      I was talking about govt enforcing prevailing wage requirements that are already in place for H1B. This is one of the many loopholes that shady employers take advantage of.
- patrickg_zill 10y ago
  Do you think that Tesla, with all their engineering, job costing, materials science, and cost accounting talent, is unable to estimate the work needed to install the paint shop mentioned in the article? There is no "magic pixie dust" that Eisenmann had, that they used to sprinkle over their materials that would make installation of the mechanical systems any less labor-intensive than their competitors. Either Tesla knew (but chose wilful blindness) or Tesla is incompetent. Which is it?
  - manmal 10y ago
    Tesla was just ok with Eisenmann exploiting global wage differences - they didn't necessarily know how low their employees' wages would actually be.
    - writetoalok 10y ago
      Read their statement in the article > "Tesla enters into contractual agreements with its general contractors, which allow them to select the resources they need for the job while also requiring them to hire and _pay_ their workers appropriately." Do you think they did a good job in enforcing their own stated requirement? Any client who permits people to work in their premises providing them with badges and security passes does minimal background checks. Now tell me what minimal background check would not have found their Visa Status and hence Visa fraud on the basis of B1 Visa person doing hands on job? Do you still think Tesla was ignorant or closed their eyes purposefully?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- hkmurakami 10y ago
  It's similar to the Apple-Foxconn situation. Foxconn was abusing its workers and not Apple, but people felt that Apple was at least partly to blame for the situation and had a responsibility to call for improvements.
- moonfern 10y ago
  Belgium, proud of it's social protection and security, has the same problem. Delhaize Belgium bought it's chickens from an industrial farm. That farm hired a company who brought in workers for help during the harvest. The workers were from Bulgaria, standard of living there's much lower than Slovenia. Member states of the European Union adhere to the free trade of goods and labor principle. Which meant in this case those Bulgarian workers fell under Bulgarian labor laws. It's really a complex matter because civil servants accused this company of illegaly employing staff to dodge taxes and cheat social security. The Labour Appellate Tribunal of Gent imposed severe fines which would have impoverished everyone related, also "normal" workers, to the industrial farm. The court of cassation ( highest instance court in Belgium ) judged that the court of Gent was wrong. So the process had to be redone. The Labour Appelate Tribunal of Antwerp judged that the defendants, Delhaize and that chicken farm, didn't breach the law so they were not guilty. Case closed. Start rant I' m wondering if Tesla's case will grab headlines in the European "left"press. If so that indicates that populism uses facts to give you the sentiment that you're a victim of capitalism instead of realising the complexity of postmodern times End rant
pingec 10y ago
5$ per hour is practically minimum wage here in Slovenia except that you also get compulsory health insurance and pension contribution on top of that. And it's not extremely hard to get a job. I wonder why anyone would repeatedly fly to the US to work for that money. He was maybe getting or was promised something more. Also funny how they call us an "impoverished country". In my eyes an average Joe has much better quality of life in Slovenia than in the US :). I would say the problems start if you want to me more than the average Joe.
- azernik 10y ago
  They call you an impoverished country because Slavic language = Eastern Europe = poor hungry alcoholic Russians. Welcome to the US media :-P
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- bardworx 10y ago
  > Also funny how they call us an "impoverished country". In my eyes an average Joe has much better quality of life in Slovenia than in the US :). I would say the problems start if you want to me more than the average Joe. Creating labels and positioning the individual who was hurt as a victim, coming from an "impoverished country" is more attractive then reporting a different ("positive") point of view. In defense of their reporting, however, they're measuring minimum wage of Slovenia vs minimum wage in USA, which is less, with no context (that you supplied)
  - pingec 10y ago
    So how much higher is US minimum wage? Perhaps 100%? Would you agree with someone who earns twice as much as you to automatically call you impoverished? I am no native speaker so I could be wrong, but I have looked up the word on Google. I believe that "impoverished" does imply context eg. [1] and is not simply a comparative word. It implies someone is really poor in a way that seriously affects his well-being, requires help from others etc. So when applied to a country, the context should of course matter. [1] https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/impoverished https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/impoverished
adt2bt 10y ago
Wow, I did not expect to see this. I imagined Tesla, a poster boy for American innovation, would do its best to stay away from shady labor practices. To their credit, they claim to know nothing about how their contractors employ people.
- ams6110 10y ago
  Yes very convenient isn't it?
- pjmorris 10y ago
  How is knowing nothing about how their contractors employ people to Tesla's credit? I'd be gratified to see Musk's attention to detail include focus on details like these.
  - Chronic51 10y ago
    What else should we pardon the great God, Elon Musk, for? HN is full of fanboys like you. If I said Elon Musk had nothing to do with the SpaceX landings, where is your "he can't pay attention to all detail" comment now?
    - ncallaway 10y ago
      Did you reply to the wrong comment? Because you're chastising pjmorris for "pardoning" Elon Musk when, in fact, pjmorris was specifically calling Tesla and Elon to task for their lack of oversight. Your mocking tone makes it hard for me to be empathetic toward you when misunderstandings occur.
- venomsnake 10y ago
  >To their credit, they claim to know nothing about how their contractors employ people. Captain Renault: I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here! [a croupier hands Renault a pile of money] Croupier: Your winnings, sir.
dilliwal 10y ago
A check for purpose of Visa and actual job would have avoided such situation. Countries with mature laws like US have these problems, its a shame.
wrong_variable 10y ago
This is why Americans cannot have nice things. Why did jobs move overseas ? If I am a business owner it makes absolutely no sense for me to pay 10x wages just for the privilege of hiring american workers. And if Laws do not change to take into account this differential more and more businesses will leave america.
- andmarios 10y ago
  Keep in mind though that workers who get paid 1/10x wages, can't afford your products.
  - ryanmarsh 10y ago
    Whose products? I don't see how your comment follows. Are you talking about $90k automobiles or groceries? GP was commenting on the expense of hiring American workers and wage competition. While there are some moral arguments for higher labor cost such as (ironically) workplace safety, the necessity for laborers to be able to afford the products they make is just nonsense.
    - andmarios 10y ago
      Model 3 will go for about $30,000? Yes, I wouldn't expect workers at Ferrari to be able to afford one but this is the outlier.
      - forgetsusername 10y ago
        >Model 3 will go for about $30,000? I'll believe that when I see it. In fact, I bet it'll be closer to $50,000 than $30,000, which isn't exactly the "everyman's car".
- sbov 10y ago
  You've got that backwards. There's all sorts of things that make absolutely no sense for business owners to do, so we have labor laws because business owners can't be trusted to not fuck everything up for society.
billyjeans 10y ago
This is always a usual problem for tech companies. Truth be told they tell everyone "oh we are doing this", but in reality they are just sub-contracting it. I for a fact know that most popular games are sub-contracted.
- bardworx 10y ago
  That's true with "most" things. In American business culture, there is so much pressure on companies from investors that they have to take every short cut possible to make their numbers. In addition, the pressure from other countries that are able to produce products at a lower cost because of different labor laws/market, it becomes impossible to "do the right thing".
lovich 10y ago
Why did the title change? It originally matched the headlines title of "THE HIDDEN WORKFORCE EXPANDING TESLA’S FACTORY" and given that tesla is saying they didnt know about it, that seems more accurate
- dang 10y ago
  We took it out as linkbait a la "secret", but since you think it's legit we'll put it back.
swimfar 10y ago
This isn't a Tesla thing, it's an automotive industry thing (as alluded to in the article). You often see this with foreign car companies, or more specifically, with foreign-based contractors. Just a little background, first. The car manufacturers often times aren't the ones designing the machines that build their cars. They come up with general plans for the layout and process and then they hire various engineering companies who specialize in that particular manufacturing process. Obviously they work closely with those companies to ensure that the designs meet their requirements. Those engineering firms will then design, build, and install the equipment. Some of that work is done by sub-contractors. If the engineering company is based outside of the US (in this case, German-based Eisenmann), they are likely to have local workers (nationally or continentally speaking) that they are used to hiring for their projects (because they're familiar with their work, already have contracts set up, have the language issues more or less worked out, etc.). When they get contracts for the US, they are going to want to use the same group of people instead of the more complicated and risky option of trying to build a local team. This is especially true for physical labor (e.g. installation, setup) because you need those people onsite. So, often times when there's a big automotive construction project you have lots of foreigners happening to show up to the area with tourist visas. The engineering firm provides housing and vehicles so they don't have to worry about that. And they pay them in the country they're based out of. The manufacturer probably knows it's going on, but they don't ask questions. And I don't think it should necessarily be their responsibility. Sure, if they were held liable they would pay more attention. But you could say the same thing about the contractor as well. From the article, "The company overseeing Tesla’s expansion project — Eisenmann, a German-based manufacturer of industrial systems — also denied in court that it had legal responsibility for Lesnik." Unless someone (anyone in the chain, really) is fined or punished, no one is going bother worrying about it.
- djrogers 10y ago
  > This isn't a Tesla thing, it's an automotive industry thing No, this is a complete failure of the government in upholding it's responsibility 'thing'. This is entirely a result of greedy politicians taking corporate money to write laws enabling this, encouraging government agencies to look the other way, and they need to be held responsible.
rdl 10y ago
The most difficult to understand part of the whole Tesla story for me is that they can operate the NUMMI plant in California successfully. I guess the huge capital base which they got essentially for free, and the proximity to Palo Alto HQ, makes up for Bay Area expenses and California regulation. Sure wouldn't be where I'd choose to put a factory otherwise. From what I've read the low-VOC paint requirements in California lead to the Tesla Model S having inferior paint to Ford/etc (but still better than Nissan Leaf); one minor issue but probably representative.
chmaynard 10y ago
Several years ago, Apple executives stepped up and took responsibility for monitoring and improving substandard labor practices in its Chinese manufacturing plants. Tesla could learn a few things from Apple about business ethics. Some of the Tesla shine has been tarnished by this story, and I hope they decide to conduct an impartial investigation and take action to make sure their subcontractors comply with US labor law.

109 points by jhspaybar 10y ago

It is a rather complex problem and it needs to be solved, but I do not see how it's Tesla's fault. . . First off Tesla chose Eisenmann for the expansion and in return they subcontracted another company which then brought in the the workers for the illegal work. Given those circumstances I believe Eisenmann knew what was going on if not they would have never made such a low bid, because they would have risked paying out of their pocket. Therefore, Eisenmann is responsible and Tesla should not be held accountable. . . Aside from that what would be a good way to counter this specific problem? The people applying for the visa obviously can lie so it would be pointless to start from the application process because anyone from any other country can lie; it would be harder to verify if they really are coming as supervisors. . .maybe the companies that are working on large projects should be audited by their local authorities to make sure they have qualified workers? What would be a good solution for this problem of H1-B workers being used for cheap labor which in term is stealing Americans jobs?

ams6110 10y ago
I flatly do not believe that Tesla did not know what was going on. The bid being as low as it was means that the savings were coming from somewhere. Presumably the materials used all had specifications so hard to cut corners there. That leaves labor. Come on, maybe they aren't legally responsible but morally and ethically they made a choice here.
- NotSammyHagar 10y ago
  It's hard to believe that Tesla didn't become aware of this after a few months. Just like farmers who can't hire american people to pick their crop with backbreaking labor and low wages and who hides from hiring undocumented workers from mexico, they are morally responsible for treating the workers well. US politicians should address this situation by working to eliminate b1 visa fraud. If it turns out not to be illegal to do this kind of job, we should change the laws to disallow it.
  - x0x0 10y ago
    The other way to fix this is to allow liability for labor law and health code violations to pass all the way up the contracting chain. The only reason Tesla doesn't care is they can insulate themselves from liability via the outsourcing relationship; were Tesla liable for law violations, they'd make sure everything was aboveboard. viz labor board ruling McDonalds is jointly liable for wage violations of franchisees. McDonalds will have a newfound interesting in making sure every person working at McDonalds is correctly paid. [1] [1] http://www.franchisetimes.com/news/NLRB-McDonalds-Joint-Employer-of-Franchise-Employees/ http://www.franchisetimes.com/news/NLRB-McDonalds-Joint-Empl...
- bardworx 10y ago
  Not entirely. Many companies who bid out projects during "off times" would receive preferential bids. In colder climates, if your construction begins in the colder months, construction companies will bid lower since there is less work and do their best to make little to no profit on the job. That's fairly standard. The downside, most construction companies will have many COs (Change Order)to supplement the work. Just because a bid is lower doesn't mean the subcontractor is hiring illegal labor. Parent company that accepts bid isn't morally responsible to check on their subcontractors. If parent company is responsible, imagine the possibilities? Ever subcontractor would then blame the parent company for just about everything since they're not held responsible. Did Tesla realize that labor wasn't "legal" during the process? Probably...but what now? Stop building the factory? They have investors that don't care about morals or ethics.
  - jsprogrammer 10y ago
    >Parent company that accepts bid isn't morally responsible to check on their subcontractors. If parent company is responsible, imagine the possibilities? Ever subcontractor would then blame the parent company for just about everything since they're not held responsible. What absolves them of responsibility? Exchanging money? If the parent company isn't responsible then imagine what happens: every parent company blames subcontractors for everything as the parent could never be responsible since they only commissioned the project.
    - hueving 10y ago
      You are saying the customer is responsible for how a company achieves something. (Tesla is a customer of the contractor.) By that procedure of blame shifting, we could basically blame every Volkswagen customer for the diesel emissions scandal because they should have done their due diligence and realized that an engine couldn't perform that well without cutting corners.
      - jsprogrammer 10y ago
        VW customers should have realized that.
andmarios 10y ago
It is simple; Tesla should have a supervisor at the construction site that made sure everything was according to their specifications, be it construction or worker issues. It wouldn't be very difficult for the supervisor to tell that people who don't even speak English aren't legit workers. As for the solution, place huge fines for all companies involved. That would give motive to Tesla to both inspect their construction and include protection clauses in their contracts.
- Mtinie 10y ago
  > It wouldn't be very difficult for the supervisor to tell that people who don't even speak English aren't legit workers. Have you worked in construction before? Non-English speaking employees (especially in California) aren't necessarily an indication that anything is amiss. Supervision may have made a difference, but I'm not sure. The onus is on the contracted company to do things the right way. I'm surprised that California building, OSHA , and employment inspectors didn't catch this. If they visited the site as I expect they would have multiple times through construction, and didn't find anything out of the ordinary, it tells you something about the inspections themselves and the degree that the required employment documents were misrepresented.
forgetsusername 10y ago
>Therefore, Eisenmann is responsible and Tesla should not be held accountable. Why not? Otherwise, follow the logic: sub-contractor after sub-contractor until you reach the bottom and you've got some fly-by-night operation that you can't hold accountable. Everyone involved shares the blame, including Tesla
- dominotw 10y ago
  >Why not? Because its govt's job to enforce labor laws not Tesla's . Maybe Tesla is responsible from a moral pov .
- hueving 10y ago
  Because a customer shouldn't be held accountable for another company's actions. The government's job is to enforce labor laws and it should do just that. Then we don't have this gross attempt to just find the biggest bank account to blame.
- sjwright 10y ago
  Blame has to stop somewhere. By that logic, why stop at Tesla? Perhaps we should blame Tesla's individual investors? Or all the consumers who placed a deposit down for a Model 3? Or the City of Freemont? Or the Californian government? Or the US government?
azernik 10y ago
Given the other stories this article brings up, it seems Eisenmann has a history of this kind of thing.
dominotw 10y ago
>What would be a good solution for this problem of H1-B workers being used for cheap labor which in term is stealing Americans jobs? Review and proper enforcement of 'prevailing wage' requirements. People in this article were not using H1B though. >Tesla proudly employs nearly 6,000 American workers from the Bay Area And for everything else we use subcontractors. Fucking disgusting.
- leeoniya 10y ago
  good 'ole friend Plausible Deniability. except, s/plausible/voluntary
- bardworx 10y ago
  > And for everything else we use subcontractors. Fucking disgusting. That's a very strong sentiment, sprinkled with ignorance. I work in hospitality industry and seen the underbelly of food production and construction of QSR locations. I speak from experience. Sure, everyone wants contracted, union labor and hire Americans but no one is willing to pay for it. Subcontracting is "Fucking Disgusting"? Okay, how would you like to pay 30% more for your food, clothing, and electronics? Doesn't sound so appealing? Well that's unfortunate. This isn't a complex problem - the economics doesn't work; American labor isn't hired because American's don't want to pay more for products. > Review and proper enforcement of 'prevailing wage' requirements. That is so simple to write...our HR department has to check every employee against many different services to ensure that they're legally allowed to work and are not felons, while constantly hiring. They're over worked and do not have adequate resources. Hiring more folks for HR is out of the question because the business has to be profitable...because...that's how the world works. However, if we raise prices, we could "Review and proper enforcement of 'prevailing wage' requirements" but then we would be out of business because no one would purchase our product since it would be too expensive. Statements are easy to make, solutions are tough.
  - dominotw 10y ago
    I was talking about govt enforcing prevailing wage requirements that are already in place for H1B. This is one of the many loopholes that shady employers take advantage of.
patrickg_zill 10y ago
Do you think that Tesla, with all their engineering, job costing, materials science, and cost accounting talent, is unable to estimate the work needed to install the paint shop mentioned in the article? There is no "magic pixie dust" that Eisenmann had, that they used to sprinkle over their materials that would make installation of the mechanical systems any less labor-intensive than their competitors. Either Tesla knew (but chose wilful blindness) or Tesla is incompetent. Which is it?
- manmal 10y ago
  Tesla was just ok with Eisenmann exploiting global wage differences - they didn't necessarily know how low their employees' wages would actually be.
  - writetoalok 10y ago
    Read their statement in the article > "Tesla enters into contractual agreements with its general contractors, which allow them to select the resources they need for the job while also requiring them to hire and _pay_ their workers appropriately." Do you think they did a good job in enforcing their own stated requirement? Any client who permits people to work in their premises providing them with badges and security passes does minimal background checks. Now tell me what minimal background check would not have found their Visa Status and hence Visa fraud on the basis of B1 Visa person doing hands on job? Do you still think Tesla was ignorant or closed their eyes purposefully?
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
hkmurakami 10y ago
It's similar to the Apple-Foxconn situation. Foxconn was abusing its workers and not Apple, but people felt that Apple was at least partly to blame for the situation and had a responsibility to call for improvements.
moonfern 10y ago
Belgium, proud of it's social protection and security, has the same problem. Delhaize Belgium bought it's chickens from an industrial farm. That farm hired a company who brought in workers for help during the harvest. The workers were from Bulgaria, standard of living there's much lower than Slovenia. Member states of the European Union adhere to the free trade of goods and labor principle. Which meant in this case those Bulgarian workers fell under Bulgarian labor laws. It's really a complex matter because civil servants accused this company of illegaly employing staff to dodge taxes and cheat social security. The Labour Appellate Tribunal of Gent imposed severe fines which would have impoverished everyone related, also "normal" workers, to the industrial farm. The court of cassation ( highest instance court in Belgium ) judged that the court of Gent was wrong. So the process had to be redone. The Labour Appelate Tribunal of Antwerp judged that the defendants, Delhaize and that chicken farm, didn't breach the law so they were not guilty. Case closed. Start rant I' m wondering if Tesla's case will grab headlines in the European "left"press. If so that indicates that populism uses facts to give you the sentiment that you're a victim of capitalism instead of realising the complexity of postmodern times End rant

pingec 10y ago

5$ per hour is practically minimum wage here in Slovenia except that you also get compulsory health insurance and pension contribution on top of that. And it's not extremely hard to get a job. I wonder why anyone would repeatedly fly to the US to work for that money. He was maybe getting or was promised something more. Also funny how they call us an "impoverished country". In my eyes an average Joe has much better quality of life in Slovenia than in the US :). I would say the problems start if you want to me more than the average Joe.

azernik 10y ago
They call you an impoverished country because Slavic language = Eastern Europe = poor hungry alcoholic Russians. Welcome to the US media :-P
- deleted 10y ago
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bardworx 10y ago
> Also funny how they call us an "impoverished country". In my eyes an average Joe has much better quality of life in Slovenia than in the US :). I would say the problems start if you want to me more than the average Joe. Creating labels and positioning the individual who was hurt as a victim, coming from an "impoverished country" is more attractive then reporting a different ("positive") point of view. In defense of their reporting, however, they're measuring minimum wage of Slovenia vs minimum wage in USA, which is less, with no context (that you supplied)
- pingec 10y ago
  So how much higher is US minimum wage? Perhaps 100%? Would you agree with someone who earns twice as much as you to automatically call you impoverished? I am no native speaker so I could be wrong, but I have looked up the word on Google. I believe that "impoverished" does imply context eg. [1] and is not simply a comparative word. It implies someone is really poor in a way that seriously affects his well-being, requires help from others etc. So when applied to a country, the context should of course matter. [1] https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/impoverished https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/impoverished

adt2bt 10y ago

Wow, I did not expect to see this. I imagined Tesla, a poster boy for American innovation, would do its best to stay away from shady labor practices. To their credit, they claim to know nothing about how their contractors employ people.

ams6110 10y ago
Yes very convenient isn't it?
pjmorris 10y ago
How is knowing nothing about how their contractors employ people to Tesla's credit? I'd be gratified to see Musk's attention to detail include focus on details like these.
- Chronic51 10y ago
  What else should we pardon the great God, Elon Musk, for? HN is full of fanboys like you. If I said Elon Musk had nothing to do with the SpaceX landings, where is your "he can't pay attention to all detail" comment now?
  - ncallaway 10y ago
    Did you reply to the wrong comment? Because you're chastising pjmorris for "pardoning" Elon Musk when, in fact, pjmorris was specifically calling Tesla and Elon to task for their lack of oversight. Your mocking tone makes it hard for me to be empathetic toward you when misunderstandings occur.
venomsnake 10y ago
>To their credit, they claim to know nothing about how their contractors employ people. Captain Renault: I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here! [a croupier hands Renault a pile of money] Croupier: Your winnings, sir.

dilliwal 10y ago

A check for purpose of Visa and actual job would have avoided such situation. Countries with mature laws like US have these problems, its a shame.

wrong_variable 10y ago

This is why Americans cannot have nice things. Why did jobs move overseas ? If I am a business owner it makes absolutely no sense for me to pay 10x wages just for the privilege of hiring american workers. And if Laws do not change to take into account this differential more and more businesses will leave america.

andmarios 10y ago
Keep in mind though that workers who get paid 1/10x wages, can't afford your products.
- ryanmarsh 10y ago
  Whose products? I don't see how your comment follows. Are you talking about $90k automobiles or groceries? GP was commenting on the expense of hiring American workers and wage competition. While there are some moral arguments for higher labor cost such as (ironically) workplace safety, the necessity for laborers to be able to afford the products they make is just nonsense.
  - andmarios 10y ago
    Model 3 will go for about $30,000? Yes, I wouldn't expect workers at Ferrari to be able to afford one but this is the outlier.
    - forgetsusername 10y ago
      >Model 3 will go for about $30,000? I'll believe that when I see it. In fact, I bet it'll be closer to $50,000 than $30,000, which isn't exactly the "everyman's car".
sbov 10y ago
You've got that backwards. There's all sorts of things that make absolutely no sense for business owners to do, so we have labor laws because business owners can't be trusted to not fuck everything up for society.

billyjeans 10y ago

This is always a usual problem for tech companies. Truth be told they tell everyone "oh we are doing this", but in reality they are just sub-contracting it. I for a fact know that most popular games are sub-contracted.

bardworx 10y ago
That's true with "most" things. In American business culture, there is so much pressure on companies from investors that they have to take every short cut possible to make their numbers. In addition, the pressure from other countries that are able to produce products at a lower cost because of different labor laws/market, it becomes impossible to "do the right thing".

lovich 10y ago

Why did the title change? It originally matched the headlines title of "THE HIDDEN WORKFORCE EXPANDING TESLA’S FACTORY" and given that tesla is saying they didnt know about it, that seems more accurate

dang 10y ago
We took it out as linkbait a la "secret", but since you think it's legit we'll put it back.

swimfar 10y ago

This isn't a Tesla thing, it's an automotive industry thing (as alluded to in the article). You often see this with foreign car companies, or more specifically, with foreign-based contractors. Just a little background, first. The car manufacturers often times aren't the ones designing the machines that build their cars. They come up with general plans for the layout and process and then they hire various engineering companies who specialize in that particular manufacturing process. Obviously they work closely with those companies to ensure that the designs meet their requirements. Those engineering firms will then design, build, and install the equipment. Some of that work is done by sub-contractors. If the engineering company is based outside of the US (in this case, German-based Eisenmann), they are likely to have local workers (nationally or continentally speaking) that they are used to hiring for their projects (because they're familiar with their work, already have contracts set up, have the language issues more or less worked out, etc.). When they get contracts for the US, they are going to want to use the same group of people instead of the more complicated and risky option of trying to build a local team. This is especially true for physical labor (e.g. installation, setup) because you need those people onsite. So, often times when there's a big automotive construction project you have lots of foreigners happening to show up to the area with tourist visas. The engineering firm provides housing and vehicles so they don't have to worry about that. And they pay them in the country they're based out of. The manufacturer probably knows it's going on, but they don't ask questions. And I don't think it should necessarily be their responsibility. Sure, if they were held liable they would pay more attention. But you could say the same thing about the contractor as well. From the article, "The company overseeing Tesla’s expansion project — Eisenmann, a German-based manufacturer of industrial systems — also denied in court that it had legal responsibility for Lesnik." Unless someone (anyone in the chain, really) is fined or punished, no one is going bother worrying about it.

djrogers 10y ago
> This isn't a Tesla thing, it's an automotive industry thing No, this is a complete failure of the government in upholding it's responsibility 'thing'. This is entirely a result of greedy politicians taking corporate money to write laws enabling this, encouraging government agencies to look the other way, and they need to be held responsible.

rdl 10y ago

The most difficult to understand part of the whole Tesla story for me is that they can operate the NUMMI plant in California successfully. I guess the huge capital base which they got essentially for free, and the proximity to Palo Alto HQ, makes up for Bay Area expenses and California regulation. Sure wouldn't be where I'd choose to put a factory otherwise. From what I've read the low-VOC paint requirements in California lead to the Tesla Model S having inferior paint to Ford/etc (but still better than Nissan Leaf); one minor issue but probably representative.

chmaynard 10y ago

Several years ago, Apple executives stepped up and took responsibility for monitoring and improving substandard labor practices in its Chinese manufacturing plants. Tesla could learn a few things from Apple about business ethics. Some of the Tesla shine has been tarnished by this story, and I hope they decide to conduct an impartial investigation and take action to make sure their subcontractors comply with US labor law.