United States: NLRB orders Elon Musk to delete a tweet threatening employees tempted by union representation

Could Twitter become a new terrain for industrial relations? That idea is perhaps not so appealing to the US National Labor Relations Board, which has ordered electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla to ask its chief executive Elon Musk to delete a tweet from 2018, in which he said: “Nothing stopping Tesla team at our car plant [in Fremont, California, ed] from voting union. Could do so tmrw if they wanted. But why pay union dues & give up stock options for nothing? Our safety record is 2X better than when plant was UAW & everybody already gets healthcare.” The federal agency also asks the Tesla chief to stop threatening employees with retaliation for supporting a union organisation and generally not to infringe union rights in any way. Meanwhile Tesla has been ordered to post a notice of illegal labour practices at its Fremont site and a notice of the decision regarding the tweet at all of its US plants. The United Auto Workers, the union targeted by Musk at the time, welcomed the NLRB’s decision. Its vice president Cindy Estrada said: “This is a great victory for workers who have the courage to stand up and organize in a system that is currently stacked heavily in favor of employers like Tesla who have no qualms about violating the law.” She nonetheless bemoaned the fact it had taken so long for action to be taken. The tweet is not the only “unfair labor practice” from the Tesla CEO that the NLRB disapproves of, as the company had banned its employees from communicating with the media and from asking permission to distribute union materials. The NLRB also confirmed a prior court decision that deemed the dismissal of a trade union representative (at another factory) as illegal and ordered Tesla in 2019 to rehire the individual and pay back wages he had lost out on. Elon Musk is yet to delete the tweet in question.