The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has accused electric car manufacturer Tesla of violating labour law by preventing employees in Orlando, Florida from discussing workplace matters. According to Bloomberg, the Tampa regional director of the NLRB filed a complaint against Tesla in September, alleging that the company broke the law by instructing employees not to discuss their pay with others and not to talk about the termination of another employee. Additionally, the complaint claims that Tesla management told employees “not to complain to higher level managers” about their working conditions.
This is not the first time that Tesla has faced complaints from the NLRB. In 2021, the agency found that the company had violated US labour laws by firing a union activist and threatening workers’ benefits. The NLRB ordered Tesla to rehire union activist Richard Ortiz and to remove all references to disciplinary action from his files. The agency also ordered Tesla CEO Elon Musk to delete a tweet that the court had deemed a threat to employees’ benefits if they joined a union. The tweet remains live and Tesla is currently appealing the NLRB’s ruling in court.
An NLRB spokesperson told Bloomberg that a judge will hear the complaint filed by the Tampa regional director in February. However, companies can appeal the decisions of NLRB judges to the agency’s members in Washington and then to federal court, meaning that any corrective action may take several years to be implemented.
