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Your Call

What are the working conditions inside Tesla's electric car factory?

Photo by Joseph Thornton via Flickr, used under CC BY-SA 2.0

  

On this edition of Your Call, we’ll discuss recent reporting on the working conditions at Tesla, the manufacturer of futuristic electric cars. How has the company addressed safety?

Reporting on its Fremont factory indicates workers have been sliced by machinery, crushed by forklifts, and burned in electrical explosions. Tesla disputes much of the reporting, and says its injury rate for last year was better than the industry average. The company is being investigated by the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, and complaints against it will be heard by the National Labor Relations Board on June 11. Tesla is worth around $50 billion. What are conditions like for the roughly 10,000 workers on its assembly line?

Guests:

Caroline O’Donovan, senior technology reporter for BuzzFeed News

Will Evans, labor and workplace reporter for Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting

Web Resources:

BuzzFeed News: At Tesla’s Factory, Building The Car Of The Future Has Painful And Permanent Consequences For Some Workers

Reveal: Tesla says its factory is safer. But it left injuries off the books

Tesla: A Not So Revealing Story

Bloomberg: Tesla Workers Claim Racial Bias and Abuse at Electric Car Factory

Mercury News: Elon Musk: Tesla workers don’t want to unionize

Rose Aguilar has been the host of Your Call since 2006. She became a regular media roundtable guest in 2001. In 2019, the San Francisco Press Club named Your Call the best public affairs program. In 2017, The Nation named it the most valuable local radio show.