Tesla employee’s protest is a clash between Silicon Valley, labor

Workers under the electric cars as they move through the assembly line at Tesla Motors, California's only full-scale auto manufacturing plant as seen on Thurs. Feb. 19, 2015, in Fremont, Calif. Workers under the electric cars as they move through the assembly line at Tesla Motors, California's only full-scale auto manufacturing plant as seen on Thurs. Feb. 19, 2015, in Fremont, Calif. Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 45 Caption Close Tesla employee’s protest is a clash between Silicon Valley, labor 1 / 45 Back to Gallery

A Tesla employee has gone public with concerns about safety conditions at the electric-car maker’s Fremont factory, and called for the company’s workers to unionize in an online post Thursday, a move that Tesla said is an effort by unions to organize the plant.

Jose Moran, a production worker at the plant, claimed in a post on the Medium website that long hours and a “constant push to work faster to meet production goals” have resulted in preventable injuries, and that the company has “underestimated the value of listening to employees.”

Moran’s protest points to the tensions Tesla faces as it seeks to ramp up production of electric vehicles at an unprecedented rate. The Palo Alto company sometimes acts like a high-tech startup, where secrecy reigns amid worries rivals will copy its best ideas, but it is also a high-volume car manufacturer, where rank-and-file workers may be more concerned with their wages and working conditions than Tesla’s technological advancement.

Moran’s post offered no examples of specific injuries, but suggested that complaints about difficult and dangerous working conditions are widespread among Tesla’s factory workers.

Gregor Lesnik, a contract worker at the plant, settled a lawsuit over workers’ compensation and wages in 2016 for $550,000 after he was injured in a three-story fall from the roof of a building at the complex.

“Worst of all, I hear coworkers quietly say that they are hurting but they are too afraid to report it for fear of being labeled as a complainer or bad worker by management,” Moran wrote. He also complained that Tesla production workers make less than the average wages in the rest of the auto industry.

A Tesla spokesman characterized Moran’s post as part of an effort to unionize the plant.

“As California’s largest manufacturing employer and a company that has created thousands of quality jobs here in the Bay Area, this is not the first time we have been the target of a professional union organizing effort such as this,” the company said.

“The safety and job satisfaction of our employees here at Tesla has always been extremely important to us. We have a long history of engaging directly with our employees on the issues that matter to them, and we will continue to do so because it’s the right thing to do.”

A line in Moran’s Medium post about “building a fair future for all who work at Tesla” closely mirrors the name of a pro-unionization Facebook page, A Fair Future at Tesla.

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Moran confirmed that he and other Tesla workers were speaking with the United Auto Workers, and said that forming a union was the best route toward improving conditions at the factory. “I don’t think Tesla’s going to do it for us,” he said in an interview. “I don’t think they have our interests in mind.”

Tesla has been cited for more than 30 health and safety violations in California during the last five years, according to state Division of Occupational Safety and Health data. That includes 10 “serious” infractions — a category for workplace hazards that could cause an accident that would most likely result in death or serious harm.

A Cal/OSHA citation issued in September 2015 found that Tesla failed to implement an effective injury prevention program at its Fremont auto plant, which resulted in an employee being injured by a forklift. A May 2015 citation noted eight health and safety violations, one of which resulted in an electrical explosion that “seriously injured” an employee.

The most severe infraction was a 2013 accident at the plant which left three employees severely burned after they were sprayed by molten aluminum. A state investigation found that Tesla failed to maintain the machinery that caused the accident, and the company was fined $71,000.

Shortly after the incident, a Tesla spokeswoman said that “the accident rate at our Fremont factory is nearly twice as good as the automotive industry average.”

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Moran also cited a confidentiality pledge that Tesla workers were asked to sign in November that “threatens consequences” if employees speak out about wages and working conditions.

Bergen Kenny, a consultant to the UAW who works for Storefront Political Media, provided The Chronicle with a copy of the pledge. “Unless otherwise allowed by law or you have received written approval you must not, for example, discuss confidential information with anyone outside of Tesla,” the document says.

Last month, five members of the Assembly wrote a letter to Tesla CEO Elon Musk expressing concerns that the breadth of the agreement “impermissibly violates protected employee activity under state and federal law, including the right to communicate to each other and the public about wages, working conditions and other issues.” The members asked Tesla to revise the policy.

In a letter, Tesla General Counsel Todd Maron responded, “The rights of employees under the National Labor Relations Act and the California Labor Code clearly fit the ‘otherwise allowed by law’ category.” Maron also said the agreement is designed to protect Tesla’s trade secrets and is not intended to discourage communications about wages or working conditions between workers or with third parties.

After reviewing Tesla’s confidentiality pledge, several employment-law attorneys echoed the members’ concerns. Eleanor Morton, an attorney at the firm Leonard Carder in San Francisco, said that the National Labor Relations Board, the agency that enforces federal labor laws, would find the pledge “overbroad and unlawful on its face.”

“If a worker wants to contact some kind of private worker-safety watchdog group, this policy, arguably, could be read to prohibit that. And that’s against the law,” said Morton, who represents employees and unions.

The pledge would have been less problematic, attorneys said, if Tesla had also told its workers what sorts of communications they are allowed to engage in. The focus on prohibited topics could illegally discourage employees from communicating with each other and with third parties.

“This is broadly written, and it could be viewed as trying to preclude employees from talking about being dissatisfied with the terms and conditions of their employment” said Maggie Grover, an attorney at the firm Wendel Rosen Black & Dean who advises employers.

Musk weighed in Thursday afternoon, calling Moran’s credibility into question in remarks he sent via Twitter to technology blog Gizmodo. “Our understanding is that this guy was paid by the UAW to join Tesla and agitate for a union,” Musk wrote. “He doesn’t really work for us, he works for the UAW.”

Moran, who says he’s worked at Tesla for more than four years, rebuffed the notion that he was being paid by the UAW to form a union. Musk’s comment, he said, “goes to show what kind of respect they have to their loyal workers, who go above and beyond for this company.”

Dominic Fracassa and Joaquin Palomino are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: dfracassa@sfchronicle.com, jpalomino@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @DominicFracassa, @joaquinpalomino