
The Hidden Workforce Expanding Tesla's Factory - jhspaybar
http://extras.mercurynews.com/silicon-valley-imported-labor/
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pingec
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.

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azernik
They call you an impoverished country because Slavic language = Eastern Europe
= poor hungry alcoholic Russians. Welcome to the US media :-P

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slicktux
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?

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forgetsusername
> _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

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sjwright
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?

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swimfar
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.

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djrogers
> 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.

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wrong_variable
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.

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sbov
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.

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wrong_variable
I do not think Slovenia has terrible labor laws - in fact they get more
vacations days ( 33 ) then american workers !

I am tired of this meme "america has the best labor and environmental laws"

cost of things are higher in america due to inefficiencies - not because of
better quality ( I know it might be hard for you to believe it ! )

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billyjeans
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.

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bardworx
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".

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lovich
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

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

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chmaynard
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.

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rdl
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.

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adt2bt
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.

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pjmorris
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.

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dilliwal
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.

