{"id":120302,"date":"2017-10-26T12:57:19","date_gmt":"2017-10-26T16:57:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedetroitbureau.com\/?p=120302"},"modified":"2017-10-26T12:57:19","modified_gmt":"2017-10-26T16:57:19","slug":"tesla-firings-spark-protests-at-companys-fremont-plant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/2017\/10\/tesla-firings-spark-protests-at-companys-fremont-plant\/","title":{"rendered":"Tesla Firings Spark Protests at Company’s Fremont Plant"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Tesla's firing of hundreds of employees has instigated several employee protests and may have jeopardized tax breaks.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In its search for cash, Elon Musk’s Tesla\u00a0Inc. has been\u00a0able to count on the State of California and local communities\u00a0for support in the form of tax breaks and other types of\u00a0financial incentives\u00a0that routinely accompany economic development around the\u00a0United States.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But the dismissal of hundreds of Tesla employees both\u00a0in Silicon\u00a0Valley and in Fremont, California,\u00a0on the east side of San Francisco Bay, may have put those benefits in jeopardy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Industry News!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While the company will not release a number on how many\u00a0were terminated, estimates range from 700 to more than 1,000.\u00a0The employees, according Tesla, were\u00a0dismissed for\u00a0“performance,” as opposed to laying people off, allows the company to\u00a0sidestep complying\u00a0with state law.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The firings also triggered a protest in front of the\u00a0big Fremont\u00a0plant that is the home of the assembly lines that build the Tesla\u00a0Model S, Tesla Model X and new Tesla Model 3. The protesters, which included\u00a0former Tesla\u00a0workers, were joined by\u00a0local elected\u00a0officials and clergy members, and carried pro-union signs through\u00a0the factory\u00a0parking lot.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cToday we are calling on Tesla, a major employer in\u00a0our\u00a0county, to consider the impact that firing hundreds of people has on\u00a0our\u00a0community,\u201d said Alameda County Supervisor Richard Valle.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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(Tesla raises an additional $500M in cash. For the story, <\/em>Click Here<\/a><\/span>.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThese people are not numbers on a spreadsheet \u2013 they\u00a0are\u00a0our\u00a0mothers and fathers and neighbors.\u00a0They deserve to be treated with\u00a0dignity that\u00a0honors them as working Americans. We are concerned that workers who\u00a0raised their\u00a0voices are among those fired, and we believe they should be\u00a0reinstated.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Labor councils of Alameda, San Francisco, San Mateo\u00a0and South\u00a0Bay, and the California Labor Federation, East Bay Alliance for\u00a0a\u00a0Stronger\u00a0Economy, Silicon Valley Rising and Working Partnerships\u00a0USA also\u00a0have sent letters to Musk protesting the firings and the dismissal\u00a0of pro-union\u00a0union\u00a0employees from the Fremont plant where the United Auto\u00a0Workers has\u00a0begun an organizing drive earlier this year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cAfter working\u00a0hard for\u00a0this company for five years, I was fired without any explanation,\u201d\u00a0said Mike\u00a0Williams, a former Production Associate. \u201cI have my most\u00a0recent performance\u00a0review, and it says that I was ‘consistently strong.’ I have had\u00a0no\u00a0write-ups, no complaints against me. I do not believe I was fired for performance.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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(<\/em>Click Here<\/a><\/span>\u00a0for more about Tesla firing \u201chundreds\u201d\u00a0of employees.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Besides factory workers in\u00a0Fremont,\u00a0the\u00a0firings also included engineers at\u00a0the Palo\u00a0Alto headquarters and come at a crucial time for Tesla, which is gearing\u00a0up to\u00a0produce the Model 3 sedans.\u00a0Tesla has about 450,000 reservations for what will be the company’s most affordable, all-electric car.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The company also continues to struggle financially,\u00a0having\u00a0lost\u00a0$336 million in the second\u00a0quarter.\u00a0Tesla\u00a0stock dipped in the last week, but is still near record highs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Tesla could report a $3 per share, according to\u00a0some analysts. For the year so far, Tesla has lost a total of about $4 per share.\u00a0The\u00a0company\u00a0is also burning through billions in cash as it ramps up production\u00a0of its\u00a0Model 3 sedan.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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(More Tesla trouble as electric semi-truck delayed again to focus on Model 3 problems. For more,\u00a0<\/em>Click Here<\/a><\/span>.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But the stock price in 2017 has laughed off these\u00a0losses: it’s\u00a0up 57%, and at times has surged toward $400 – it’s now trading at $337\u00a0per share\u00a0\u2014 Tesla’s market cap, at just south of $60 billion, is larger than\u00a0Fiat\u00a0Chrysler\u00a0Automobiles and Ford, and neck-and-neck with General Motors.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tesla’s recent dismissal of hundreds of Tesla employees in California sparked employee protests and may have jeopardized tax benefits. TheDetroitBureau.com has details. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20009,"featured_media":113843,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"make":[],"post-state":[],"category_old":[151],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120302"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20009"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120302"},{"taxonomy":"make","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/make?post=120302"},{"taxonomy":"post-state","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post-state?post=120302"},{"taxonomy":"category_old","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category_old?post=120302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}