More than a thousand employees of Tesla’s Brandenburg factory, near Berlin, are asking for better working conditions. Labor union IG Metall says that many employees complain about short production cycles, excessive production targets, and staff shortages.

It’s not the first time that Tesla’s German factory is in the news, and not only for appalling work conditions at one of its factories. IG Metall informs that, at Brandenburg, there are serious deficiencies in health and safety at work.

Union action

On Monday at Tesla’s Brandenburg factory, workers came to work with an IG Metall sticker on their t-shirts. These actions continued for the day and night shifts as a protest against the unsafe working conditions at the Californian brand’s factory.

According to labor union IG Metall, more than 1 000 workers complain about poor working conditions. In talks with the union, they refer to extreme working conditions due to short production cycles, staff shortages, and excessive production targets.

Health and safety issues

According to the union, there are also deficiencies in health and safety. Those lead to a high number of accidents and around 30% more sick leaves. “If workers demand any improvements, they either get into trouble or nothing happens”, explains Dirk Schulze, district leader of IG Metall.

Tesla’s Brandenburg factory, near Berlin, opened in March 2022 and employs around 11 000 employees. Since operations started, there have been at least seven serious accidents at the factory, of which three implicated Tesla employees.

Hardcore work policy

This is not the first time that Tesla has made the news about workers’ conditions, and not in a good way. The company’s “hardcore work” philosophy can sometimes gloss over health and safety.

According to the American newspaper The Verge, an investigation found that Tesla’s Californian plant had 3 times as many health and safety violations as 10 other US car factories combined. It was also found that the company misclassified and underreported injuries.