In most large companies, rank-and-file employees may go their entire tenure without seeing the CEO in person or hearing from them directly. Tesla’s German workers near Berlin may get more of Elon Musk than they bargained for, however, as the controversial CEO recently said that he would personally look into the plant’s rising rates of absenteeism.
Musk took to X to say that he was “looking into it” after a user shared reporting on the subject from the German publication Handelsblatt. Tesla’s German factory has seen employee call-ins rise to 17 percent in August, more than three times the rate across the rest of the German auto industry.
Labor laws are stricter in Germany in favor of the worker, and some of Tesla’s tactics have rubbed employees the wrong way. Handelsblatt noted that managers have traveled to sick workers’ homes to investigate their statements, with one slamming the door shut and threatening to call the police.
Around 12,000 people work in the factory where Tesla builds the Model Y, and several have reported “extremely high workloads” and pressure from management on people who call out sick.
These sorts of revelations aren’t uncommon in Tesla’s North American facilities. Musk himself admitted to sleeping in the factory and spending every moment focused on production when the Model 3 ramped up, and many others have cited extreme workloads and extended hours as factors contributing to worker burnout.
[Images: Tesla, Shutterstock]
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