US Labor Sec: Elon Musk ‘not opposed’ to unionization ‘if workers were interested’

(Source: Tesla)

United States Labor Secretary Marty Walsh said during a recent conversation with Tesla frontman Elon Musk, the CEO reiterated he was not opposed to unionizing the electric automaker’s workforce if employees showed interest.

“We had a good conversation,” Walsh said in an interview with Yahoo! Finance Live. “We talked about the economy and manufacturing. We talked about a bunch of things. I did ask the question about unionization. He certainly said he is not opposed to it. He said if the workers were interested, he would love to have the conversations.”

Musk Tweeted recently he was not opposed to the United Auto Workers union (UAW) coming to Tesla’s Fremont factory in Northern California to hold a vote. “I’d like hereby to invite UAW to hold a union vote at their convenience. Tesla will do nothing to stop them,” Musk said.

Walsh’s comments essentially mirror those of Musk’s Tweet, which was published on March 3. Musk has maintained for some time that Tesla treats its employees well; well enough that none of them would support unionizing at the factory. “Our real challenge is Bay Area has negative unemployment, so if we don’t treat and compensate our (awesome) people well, they have many other offers and will just leave!” Musk stated.

The Fremont factory. (Credit: Tesla)

Critical of unionization for several years, Musk most recently commented on the case of a $2.2 million embezzlement scheme by a former UAW treasurer in Detroit. Musk said earlier this week that the UAW’s slogan is “Fighting for the right to embezzle money from auto workers! The UAW stole millions from workers, whereas Tesla has made many workers millionaires (via stock grants). Subtle, but important difference,” Musk commented.

A former secretary-treasurer of UAW Local 412 in Detroit pleaded guilty to embezzling union funds and money laundering. Timothy Edmunds, the former secretary-treasurer, “systematically drained” the Local’s bank accounts, which amounted to about $2.2 million, a report from Reuters said.

Walsh visited Tesla’s new Gigafactory Texas earlier this month. “It’s an amazing facility there, 10 million square feet. It’s one of the biggest buildings I have seen,” Walsh said. “It’s challenging though, he built it on basically a landfill. We talked about that. We talked the culture of how he thinks about a company. We talked about a lot of different issues.”

Walsh and Musk’s meeting was among the first acknowledgements of Tesla by the Biden Adminsitration. Musk, along with Tesla enthusiasts, have regularly called out Biden and other political figures for ignoring the company’s contributions to the global electric vehicle market. Biden finally acknowledged Tesla during a press conference in February.

I’d love to hear from you! If you have any comments, concerns, or questions, please email me at joey@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @KlenderJoey, or if you have news tips, you can email us at tips@teslarati.com.

Joey Klender: Joey has been a journalist covering electric mobility at TESLARATI since August 2019. In his time at TESLARATI, Joey has broken several big stories, including the first images of the Tesla Model S Plaid, the imminent release of the 4680 Model Y through EPA certification, and several expansions to the Lucid AMP-1 factory in Arizona, to name a few. His stories have been featured in several publications, including Yahoo! Finance, Fox News, CNET, and Seeking Alpha. In his spare time, Joey is playing golf, watching MMA, or cheering on any of his favorite sports teams, including the Baltimore Ravens and Orioles, Miami Heat, Washington Capitals, and Penn State Nittany Lions. You can get in touch with joey at joey@teslarati.com. He is also on Twitter @KlenderJoey.
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