Tesla Plant Director Accuses Employees Of Taking Advantage Of Sick Leave Policy After Managers Make Home Visits To Workers Who Call Out
Many employees spoke out against the company's home visits and the working conditions in the factory.
Kittyfly | Shutterstock A Tesla car plant in Germany has garnered a bit of criticism after they revealed how they deal with employees who are utilizing their sick leave and the measures they go to whenever a worker calls out sick.
In recent weeks, André Thierig, the manufacturing director at Tesla Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg, claimed that they were cracking down on employees who were calling in sick, much to the dismay of the factory's workers.
The Tesla Plant Director accused employees of taking advantage of sick leave police after managers made home visits to workers who called out.
According to the Guardian, Thierig defended the decision to send managers to the homes of workers on long-term sick leave. He sent managers to check on about two dozen employees who have continued to get paid while being on sick leave for the last nine months. He explained that the home visits were common practice in the industry and that the company simply wanted to "appeal to the employees’ work ethic."
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"We will not tolerate some people bending their backs for others who just don’t feel like coming to work," Thierig said, per a report from the German publication Handelsblatt. "There is no room in this factory for people who 'don’t get out of bed in the morning.'"
He argued that some workers at the Tesla car plant were taking advantage of Germany's labor protection laws and that among the factory's 1,500 temporary workers, who operate under similar conditions to full-time employees, the average rate of absence through illness is just 2%.
"In our analyses of attendance at work, some phenomena have become obvious: on Fridays and late shifts, about 5% more employees take sick leave than on other weekdays," Thierig said.
"That is not an indicator of bad working conditions because the working conditions are the same on all working days and across all shifts. It suggests that the German social system is being exploited to some extent."
Unsurprisingly, Tesla plant workers were unimpressed when their managers showed up on their doorsteps.
This move against Telsa's workers has sparked outrage at the trade union IG Metall, which represents a proportion of the 12,000 workers at the German car plant. Members of the union have campaigned against what it has alleged are harsh working conditions with "unreasonably" long hours and a poor health and safety record.
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"Employees from almost all areas of the factory have reported an extremely high workload," Dirk Schulze, a regional director at the union, told the Guardian. "When there are staff shortages, the ill workers are put under pressure, and those who remain healthy are overburdened with additional work."
Thierig attempted to downplay the fact that managers are doing home visits, telling the Guardian that these things weren't unusual in the auto industry. However, according to The Local, home visits are actually quite uncommon, but legal.
Whether or not Tesla is allowed to do home visits doesn't negate the fact that it's infringing on an employee's right to privacy.
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If there is sick time allowed at a company, it is within the right of the worker to use it at their discretion. Sick leave doesn't have to mean that an employee is physically sick and can't come to work, but that they might be going through something mentally that's prohibiting them from being at work.
Instead of meeting them with aggression, employers should question if something is going on that's causing them to call out. But visiting their homes and making them feel uncomfortable isn't the way to go about that.
This type of behavior is not that surprising, considering Elon Musk has a history of demanding perfection from his staff.
After buying Twitter and turning it into X, Musk initiated mass firings and demanded workers be "extremely hardcore." Tesla even laid off thousands of workers earlier this year, with Musk demanding executives fire employees who didn’t meet his standards.
Sounds like this Tesla Plant Director is simply following in the footsteps of a toxic leader.
Nia Tipton is a Chicago-based entertainment, news, and lifestyle writer whose work delves into modern-day issues and experiences.