
California Opens Investigation into Tesla Workplace Conditions - danso
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-18/california-opens-investigation-into-tesla-workplace-conditions
======
usaphp
> It was difficult to find employees to go on the record. Like a lot of tech
> companies in Silicon Valley, workers signed non-disclosure agreements. NDAs
> usually are put in place so workers don't share any trade secrets or
> proprietary technology. So some workers were scared to talk to us because of
> this NDA they sign for working at Tesla.

Damn, so workers were afraid to speak up and spread the injury info because
they were forced to sign an NDA and we’re worried about being sued. I think
somebody needs to do something about this NDA situation, it’s getting out of
control in SV

~~~
mschuster91
> I think somebody needs to do something about this NDA situation, it’s
> getting out of control in SV

Not just in SV, it's all over the world. IMHO the right of protection for
whistleblowers should be made a basic human right, in order to protect people
worldwide who are afraid to speak out.

~~~
briandear
California law DOES protect whistleblowers. The law is extremely clear. Those
laws even provide for damages due to retailiation.

~~~
makecheck
Even in that situation, if you’re a paycheck-to-paycheck worker, how much
boat-rocking can you endure? On some theoretical future date according to the
law you can get back at your employer, great: in the meantime, maybe you got
fired and now you can’t feed yourself?

We’ve seen plenty of companies that shrug off large fines and such. Whatever
the rules, it has to reach the point of being seriously unprofitable to
disobey (i.e. investors knocking to demand compliance).

~~~
kregasaurusrex
Not to mention the further stigmatization that results from being a
whistleblower- having your name in published sources associated with calling
out an employer may impact how quickly you can find a new job. Future
employers also like seeing $LARGE_CORP experience on a resume, where I've seen
colleagues stay at a job they didn't like only for the prestige attached to
this line item.

For a worker without this safety net there really isn't reason for them to
violate an NDA and have to rely on whistleblower protections for future
remidial damages if there isn't a guarantee that their current living
situation would be able to be maintained. We saw last week how Apple fired
leakers on the spot and have their name blacklisted towards future tech
employers as such.

~~~
erikpukinskis
Not to mention the emotional toll. Having an entire HR department viciously
attacking you when you’ve already been wrongned, while backing the party who
wronged you, can be extremely scary and depleting.

------
Animats
The real problem for Tesla is that their destiny is probably to be the next
BMW - a good midrange luxury car maker, about #12 in the world on volume. That
would be fine except for the excessive market cap. Tesla's market cap exceeded
GM's at one point. The stock has to come down a lot if Tesla ends up at BMW's
scale. Even with Tesla's most optimistic production estimates, Tesla will make
far fewer cars than BMW in the next few years.

Silicon Valley has a few other companies like that, Uber and Twitter being the
most prominent.

~~~
cagenut
the cars are a product demo. selling batteries by the gigawatt is the real
biz. GE not GM.

~~~
ckastner
Then you should back Panasonic, not Tesla, because they're the ones with the
tech.

------
danso
Related: the two Reveal reporters who worked on the investigation are
currently doing an IAMA:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/8d7khd/were_two_inves...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/8d7khd/were_two_investigative_reporters_who_looked_into/)

~~~
gniv
From that thread:

> Have you investigated any other auto manufacturer?

> (ajpreports) I haven't nor has Will. But maybe that's our next venture!

That diminishes their credibility a lot in my mind. This is a type of
investigation that should be done by people with experience in the area.
Especially on a company that pushes the envelope like Tesla.

~~~
gniv
Five people downvoted but only one replied. I would appreciate a line
explaining, since I didn't think my opinion was so controversial.

~~~
bdcravens
I think in general HN finds any idea that Tesla should get a free pass
distasteful.

------
mixmastamyk
Don't know about Tesla, but have heard horror stories about SpaceX here in LA.
60+ hour weeks, butts in seats, whole depts fired/walkouts, sweatshop
conditions, etc.

Some folks are still not aware that these practices lower productivity.
_shrug_

~~~
ranman
Worked at SpaceX in LA on software. It was generally quite pleasant but you do
put in a lot of hours. No one asks you to work overtime or work extra hours -
it’s just a fun environment and you like your coworkers so you stay at work
longer than you should. Most people who were there longer than I was ended up
finding a healthy work / life balance that they could sustain... I don’t think
the new folks do this because they’re obsessed with learning as much as they
can.

I left because the space industry moves at quite a slow pace compared to the
rest of the software world and I was tired of working on one small piece of
software while the world was changing around me...

All in all? SpaceX was pretty wonderful and I don’t think anyone should judge
employee happiness solely from hours worked. I was frequently encouraged to
take some recharge time for me. This is just one data point and maybe we’re
all only hearing the negative data points?

~~~
rubicon33
> I left because the space industry moves at quite a slow pace compared to the
> rest of the software world and I was tired of working on one small piece of
> software while the world was changing around me...

Would love it if you could shed some more light on this point :)

Was it that you were using an old programming language or something? It's hard
for me to believe that the space industry didn't present some pretty awesome
opportunities to use your brain. Sometimes building CRUD apps with the latest
X framework is just too damn easy.

~~~
ranman
I wasn’t working on any code that was changing rapidly. I was basically making
small tweaks to existing projects without the opportunity to refactor. The
work being done by the whole company was fascinating... the small part of that
I was working on was somewhat mind numbing. I kept doing some one off projects
that were fun for a day or two but nothing that took multiple months or people
to build and get into production. Nothing that I was personally super proud
of. Others were in more substantial projects and probably enjoyed their work
more.

------
austincheney
Does Tesla have automation problems? They appear to be having atrocious labor
conditions while putting out a very small quantity of product compared with
absolutely everybody else.

~~~
sf_rob
Musk in an interview last week said as much (re: automation). He claims that
the Model 3 line was over-automated so now they're tearing out sections for
rework while doing more with the labor on hand. (Although they're about to
also install new sections from their German automation subsidiary so it goes
both ways).

~~~
StudentStuff
The whole play with making their own tooling seems ill conceived at Tesla's
small scale, and it has definitely set the Model 3's production back quite a
bit.

~~~
rgbrenner
This has been true across the board at Tesla... they make almost all of the
parts in house, even when there are established reliable providers... even
when it costs them more and results in lower quality.. even when they are
already short staffed. Musk is pro-NIH syndrome.

In fairness, Musk says they will eventually be as reliable, and as high
quality as others and it'll be cheaper.. one day. That's the common NIH
fallacy though.

~~~
localhost
There are quite a few parts in the Model S that come from suppliers. The
steering wheel, window / mirror controls all appear to come from the same
folks that supply Mercedes. I don't know where the parts for the Model 3 come
from - the steering wheel and window / mirror controls are definitely
different.

~~~
rgbrenner
Yes, but Tesla has the highest rate of vertical integration in the industry.
In 2016, Goldman visited their factory and put it at 80% vertically
integrated: [https://www.valuewalk.com/2016/02/tesla-stock-rallies-
after-...](https://www.valuewalk.com/2016/02/tesla-stock-rallies-after-tough-
couple-of-weeks/)

And they've brought in house more since then (like the seats).

------
mc32
Wonder if Alabama will see the opportunity this might represent for them. High
tech and high relative pay.

~~~
ebikelaw
Alabama produces a million cars a year, in factories that are actually high-
tech unlike Tesla’s. You think they are clamoring to bring in an automaker
struggling to produce a handful of cars with double the industry injury rate?

~~~
Diederich
> actually high-tech unlike Tesla’s

citation needed.

~~~
rconti
Having toured the Tesla plant a few months after touring BMW in Munich,
they're worlds apart. I also toured the Fremont plant back in the NUMMI days.

That said, I don't think it's necessarily a huge strike against Tesla; they're
at a different scale and at a different stage in the life of the company.

~~~
Diederich
That's pretty fascinating; I'd love to hear more about your various plant
tours. Roughly when did you visit BMW and Tesla? Also comparing it to pre-2010
would be interesting. Thanks!

~~~
rconti
It's just been far too long for me to remember NUMMI that well, but as far as
I remember, it was a pretty automated plant. At Tesla, I saw tons of forklifts
being driven around manually, occasionally bumping into things, one with a
broken piece of pallet stuck under a wheel, people hand-polishing parts, etc.
Workers with boomboxes setup in their desk area on the factory floor, fun
stuff like that. I don't begrudge them this, as they have tons of space and
are building a car company from scratch; it won't be as automated on day or
week or even decade 1 as an existing established manufacturer. But when you
compare to BMW, where virtually every operation is highly automated, it's
quite a change.

Of course, there's also the matter of what the manufacturer is willing to show
you (perhaps we didn't visit the forklift floor at BMW!), and also BMW is
highly space constrained building cars right in the heart of Munich.

------
Animats
_"... ideologically motivated attack by an extremist organization working
directly with union supporters to create a calculated disinformation campaign
against Tesla. The piece even includes an interview with Worksafe – the same
organization that the UAW enlisted to publish a negative report against Tesla
last year, and whose board includes labor union officials and advocates._"[1]
- from Tesla's own site.

Wow. That sounds like something Hannity or Trump would say. Is Musk losing it?

The United Automotive Workers union is hardly an "extremist organization".

[1] [https://www.tesla.com/blog/not-so-revealing-
story](https://www.tesla.com/blog/not-so-revealing-story)

~~~
stevenwoo
Reveal won a Pulitzer Prize in this year for revealing how all around the
country judges steered convicted drug offenders into rehab / thinly disguised
private industry work camps. I guess that is pretty extremist if one is in
favor of private industry work camps and judges benefiting from them.
Nomination details: [http://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/amy-julia-harris-and-
shosh...](http://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/amy-julia-harris-and-shoshana-
walter-reveal-center-investigative-reporting)

~~~
danso
Clarification: they were finalists for the award in national reporting. The
WaPo and NYT were the winners this year:
[http://www.pulitzer.org/winners/staffs-new-york-times-and-
wa...](http://www.pulitzer.org/winners/staffs-new-york-times-and-washington-
post)

Reveal was also a finalist in 2013 (back when it was named California Watch)
for the award in public service (generally considered the most prestigious of
the Pulitzers): [http://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/california-
watch](http://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/california-watch)

------
m4x
The original Reveal article [1] didn't get much discussion here, but it's
pretty damning.

[1]: [https://www.revealnews.org/article/tesla-says-its-factory-
is...](https://www.revealnews.org/article/tesla-says-its-factory-is-safer-but-
it-left-injuries-off-the-books/)

------
chalkandpaste
THIS IS FANTASTIC.

I’ve had a friend, a specialist engineer doing failure analysis, who has been
largely incapacitated from any work because of Tesla. He sustained an injury
during a high urgency project (which failed, whodathunk) which required him to
work 16 hour days for a few months. During the course of this, he sustained
injuries to arms and legs due to machinery issues (the machinery at Tesla
often has workers contorting into unnatural positions, I’ve heard). It’s been
2 years and my friend is unable to pay for the requisite operations and can’t
get a cent out of Tesla. He is unable to work because of his injuries and so
really has been confined to his home for 2 years now.

I have no respect for Musk. An employer who has no respect for their
employees, a leader who has no regard for those he leads, is morally bankrupt
and seeks only their own good.

~~~
komali2
With respect to you and your friend, I'm automatically skeptical of stories
like this. We're on the internet, after all.

Has your friend spoken to news agencies about this? Why not, if he/she hasn't?
Surely _any_ of the major news agencies would be watering at the mouth for a
story like this.

~~~
mabufo
What are you skeptical about? That this person's friend is actually injured?
That it happened because of tesla? People get injured at work. Maybe not where
YOU work, but it absolutely happens.

Also, the subtext of your comment - that this person OF COURSE would have
contacted a news organization if their claim was legitimate is frankly very
weird.

~~~
dragonwriter
> What are you skeptical about? That this person's friend is actually injured?
> That it happened because of tesla?

What I (not the original poster of the comment you are questioning) is that
they were injured in the workplace at Tesla as en employee and unable to get
anything from Tesla to deal with that, since workers compensation is a bright-
line legal requirement for all employers and covers all employees.

Now, bureaucratic difficulties dealing with Tesla’s WC insurer resulting in
annoying runarounds, poor doctors in inconvenient locations, and disappointing
care quality would be credible. Crickets, though, stretches belief.

------
IBM
It's really surprising to me see posts critical of Tesla highly upvoted on HN
these days. It tells me the narrative around Tesla is finally starting to
break down, and naturally the stock price has declined from its highs as well.

A few years ago most of the comments here would have been much more
sycophantic. It's very refreshing to see.

edit: Ok maybe it's not completely gone yet.

~~~
netsec_burn
Because we all want Tesla to succeed. It's competition in an industry that
needs what Tesla is trying to bring to market. It will also greatly benefit
the American economy to be the first to mass produce inexpensive electric
cars.

So personally, I read comments like yours and wonder who you are and why you
feel it is necessary to be critical of that motive.

~~~
majormajor
I want the electric car transition to succeed, but if Tesla's becoming a bad
actor in their quest to be the biggest winner, than I don't think that's
helpful for the overall effort anymore.

~~~
freedomfries
> if Tesla's becoming a bad actor in their quest to be the biggest winner,
> than I don't think that's helpful

It's still super helpful. We need to advance our tech at all costs. It's the
only thing we have on this continent. We've gifted foreign nations with our
manufacturing industries and gutted the American middle class, and the
entrails have been used to lift 250,000 people a day out of poverty since
1990. This is a serious gift and a serious tragedy at the same time.

Now there is nothing good about herniated disks from 16 hours of holding your
arms over your head every day. I am not defending that. But you have to put it
in perspective. Things are so damn good all the frigging time in America and
Canada, _relatively speaking_, that we look at herniated disks from hard work
like it's some great tragedy that should net each suffering worker $400,000
and a couple years off. But if you lived in China you'd be faced with taking
zero dollars, or going to prison for complaining, or getting caught in one of
the suicide nets on the sides of Foxconn.

So what's it going to be, guy? Are we going to stifle our tech because we
aren't willing to break eggs to make an omelette? Or are we going to let go of
our hatred for the tall poppy and let him do his job?

Let me finish by saying that Elon Musk inspired me to move to the big city and
get a comp sci education 3 years ago, at this point I am now an intermediate-
level dev with great prospects and without Elon Musk striking inspiration and
courage in my heart I would be much more bitter and resentful and lame than I
am now. So I will defend him to the end of the Earth for setting such a
shining and glorious example for me to follow.

~~~
tareqak
The comparison to China is whataboutism and/or a false equivalence. Chinese
work practices and available legal recourse might be worse than what Americans
have today, but that doesn’t mean Americans have to sacrifice their quality of
life to remain competitive. The application of “breaking a few eggs to make an
omelette” to workplace injuries is also insensitive at best: what if a family
member or friend in your life suffered the same? Would that individual be a
“broken egg” for someone else’s potential “omelette” in your opinion?

We might not be able to stop all workplace injuries, and I totally agree that
Elon Musk has accomplished a lot in his all of his ventures to date; however,
if Musk’s path to future success requires further harm towards his customers
and/or his employees, then I’d rather wait for someone else to accomplish the
same without any lives being in jeopardy.

------
rdiddly
_"...an ideologically motivated attack by an extremist organization working
directly with union supporters to create a calculated disinformation campaign
against Tesla"_

vs.

 _"...Tesla failed to report serious injuries on legally mandated reports to
make its numbers appear better than they actually were."_

Now use Occam's Razor.

~~~
eganist
I'm actually willing to give Tesla credit here precisely for that reason --
not because unions are bad (many industries need it, auto included), but
because UAW in my possibly-misinformed mind has been at least indirectly the
cause of a decline in build quality in American cars.

~~~
prolepunk
This is a self-contradictory statement and the end of which you're blaming
unions for something you don't provide evidence.

Citation please.

~~~
eganist
[https://mobile.nytimes.com/2007/09/27/business/27auto.html?m...](https://mobile.nytimes.com/2007/09/27/business/27auto.html?mtrref=undefined)

[https://mobile.nytimes.com/2007/10/28/business/28auto.html](https://mobile.nytimes.com/2007/10/28/business/28auto.html)

[https://mobile.nytimes.com/2007/11/15/business/15auto.html](https://mobile.nytimes.com/2007/11/15/business/15auto.html)

Closest I can get you since all the journal articles are from conservative-
leaning institutions with a vested interest against unionization. All three
articles are about the new contracts UAW signed in 2007 as the auto industry
was collapsing in the United States, all of which cite massive concessions
back to the auto companies. Notably, Ford still got to fold 10 of their
original 16 plants scheduled for closure, GM got to shift away massive
healthcare obligations, and Chrysler managed to substantially reduce their
employment guarantees.

If you were a union interested in a happy balance between company and employee
rather than just making your employees score every short-term dollar that they
could, you wouldn't need to concede like this with one, let alone every, major
United States-founded auto maker.

It's worth noting that GM actually got the biggest haul up front since they
got the opportunity to negotiate first.

------
dollar
This is why you shouldn’t put your business in California. There’s a legion of
highly-paid bureaucrats who have nothing, I mean nothing, better to do than
screw with you.

~~~
_rpd
It was a gamble when he was aiming for the ultra-high automation route - but
now that he is reverting to the big labor route, it seems positively unwise.

------
briandear
Elon Musk is the Preston Tucker of our time — seems to get hammered from all
sides while trying to break the status quo. I have no information to comment
on the validity of any allegations, but it seems like Musk is continually
under attack. I was a moderate Musk fan before, but now I am really hoping for
his success. It seems to me that if you are pissing off everyone, you’re doing
something right.

I highly recommend watching the Coppola film “Tucker, A Man and His Dream.”

~~~
rdiddly
If everybody hates you, you are NOT doing something right. If everybody loves
you, then you're doing it right, and in fact you barely even have to do
anything because everybody's helping you.

~~~
tntn
Listen up, kids! Always do what everyone else is doing, never make anyone mad,
always choose the popular path.

/s

It seems like everything worth doing nowadays results in someone hating you.

~~~
rdiddly
I'm not talking high school here, I'm talking about real life. Popularity and
conformity are orthogonal. In the early stages of doing something, they can be
somewhat opposed, so you'd be partly right in that case. But you push through
that and don't complain, and wait and see what people think whom you've
actually managed to help.

The most worthy path is the one that helps the most people. Not
coincidentally, each of those people you've helped, becomes a supporter of
yours, in some capacity. You become popular. So the worthy path ends up being
the popular path.

That doesn't mean the popular path is always the worthy path. People can
become popular for really stupid reasons and without really helping anybody. I
actually think Musk is such a person; I literally don't think any of his
projects are "worth doing" and you are just gonna have to grant me my opinion
there. So if I'm not impressed with his outlandish narcissistic persecution-
fantasy of _extremist groups_ being out to get him, it's not because he's
doing something worth doing, it's because he's NOT.

