Tesla accused of ‘retaliation’ by AI team over union drive

Automaker Tesla was accused of firing data labelers for the Autopilot driver-assistance system as ‘retaliation’ for attempting to unionise. The company said the terminations were due to ‘poor performance’.

In response to false allegations → https://t.co/hh2wtXziP8

— Tesla (@Tesla) February 17, 2023

Earlier, workers sent a letter to Tesla chief Elon Musk, expressing their intention to unionise. The labelers told Bloomberg that they even skip bathroom breaks because of the company’s close monitoring.

According to Workers United, a day after this the automaker laid off more than 30 workers.

The organization filed a complaint with the U.S. National Labor Relations Board, accusing the company of unlawful firing aimed at ‘to hinder and retaliate against their union activity’.

Workers United urged the agency to seek a federal court injunction to prevent irreparable harm to workers’ rights as a result of the automaker’s unlawful conduct.

Tesla called the allegations ‘false’ and rejected any link between the layoffs and the union campaign. The cuts affected 4% of the Autopilot data-labeling team due to ‘poor performance’, according to the company’s blog.

According to Tesla, the layoff targets were known as early as February 3, 2023, a week before the letter to Musk was sent. Management also notified managers in advance about the start of layoffs of underperforming workers on February 12.

In July 2022, Tesla laid off 200 employees from the Autopilot development team.