Construction workers at Elon Musk’s Tesla Gigafactory in Texas are filing a complaint that claims they were forced to work in unsafe conditions and still have unpaid wages dating back to almost a year ago.
The workers state that subcontractors falsified credentials and did not require workers to be trained in ways that informed them of health, safety and workers’ rights.
‘I’m going to die in this factory,’ one worker told his wife, according to a report in The Guardian. The 2,500-acre Giga Texas, which sits along the Colorado River in Austin and contains 10 million square feet of space, is slated to expand by 68 acres for further ‘industrial-use facilities.’
Construction workers at Elon Musk’s Tesla Gigafactory in Texas are reportedly filing a complaint that claims they were forced to work in unsafe conditions and still have unpaid wages dating back to almost a year ago
‘I’m going to die in this factory,’ one worker told his wife, according to a report in The Guardian
Musk has said the Cybertruck will eventually be built at the facility and he hosted a ‘Cyber Rodeo’ party to celebrate when the building first opened.
Other whistleblowers have alleged wage theft and other labor violations.
Construction workers who spoke to the British news outlet painted a negative picture of their experience working for the mogul. DailyMail.com has reached out to Tesla’s press office for comment.
One worker, who went by the name Victor, said he and his colleagues were told to work on the metal factory roof at night with no lights, labor atop turbines that were blowing smoke without masks and more.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, seen above at the factory’s opening, said Giga Texas is where the Cybertruck will be manufactured
‘Every day, there was a safety issue,’ he told the Guardian.
In one instance, he claims they were expected to keep up production on a flooded first floor, despite that the fact that there was live wiring nearby and cords in the water.
‘Nobody deserves what happened in the gigafactory to happen to them, or their family members, or whomever,’ Victor, a worker who asked the Guardian to withhold his last name out of fear of retaliation, said in an interview, adding: ‘I don’t think it was humane.’
Advocates with the Workers Defense Project, a nonprofit helping the construction workers, claim that local officials didn’t put in place the proper enforcement mechanisms in the wake of fierce competition for the new factor a few years ago.
‘Everything that we’re seeing is complicated by the fact that there isn’t a whole lot of transparency or accountability because they decided not to include that independent monitoring piece, David Chincanchan, Workers Defense Project’s policy director, told the Guardian.
This is not the first time that Musk’s workers have alleged safety violations.
Tesla’s plant in Fremont, California has incurred over $236,000 in fines between 2014 and 2018 for Occupational Safety and Health Administration violations, according to a Forbes report. The Fremont facility has also faced claims of racial abuse.
The company’s plant outside Reno, Nevada, has also seen workers experience a range of different injuries.
‘Everybody’s at fault,’ Victor said. ‘Anybody could have prevented it. Tesla could have prevented it.’
The 2,500-acre Giga Texas, which sits along the Colorado River in Austin and contains 10 million square feet of space, is slated to expand by 68 acres for further ‘industrial-use facilities’
‘Nobody deserves what happened in the gigafactory to happen to them, or their family members, or whomever,’ Victor, a worker who asked the Guardian to withhold his last name out of fear of retaliation, said in an interview, adding: ‘I don’t think it was humane’