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Tesla Factory Workers Reveal Pain, Injury and Stress: 'Everything Feels Like the Future But Us' (theguardian.com)
Workers at Tesla's California car factory have been passing out and requiring rides in ambulances, the Guardian newspaper reported on Thursday. The conditions at the factory suggest the lengths the company is going to in order to meet its extremely ambitious production goals, and the tension employees feel between their pride in being part of the company and the stress and exhaustion the company's goals are causing them, according to the report. From the article: Ambulances have been called more than 100 times since 2014 for workers experiencing fainting spells, dizziness, seizures, abnormal breathing and chest pains, according to incident reports obtained by the Guardian. Hundreds more were called for injuries and other medical issues. In a phone interview about the conditions at the factory, which employs about 10,000 workers, the Tesla CEO conceded his workers had been "having a hard time, working long hours, and on hard jobs," but said he cared deeply about their health and wellbeing. His company says its factory safety record has significantly improved over the last year. Musk also said that Tesla should not be compared to major US carmakers and that its market capitalization, now more than $50bn, is unwarranted. "I do believe this market cap is higher than we have any right to deserve," he said, pointing out his company produces just 1% of GM's total output. "We're a money-losing company," Musk added. "This is not some situation where, for example, we are just greedy capitalists who decided to skimp on safety in order to have more profits and dividends and that kind of thing. It's just a question of how much money we lose. And how do we survive? How do we not die and have everyone lose their jobs?" The article also sheds light on the kind of manager Musk is. In early 2016, Musk slept on the factory floor in a sleeping bag "to make it the most painful thing possible. I knew people were having a hard time, working long hours, and on hard jobs. I wanted to work harder than they did, to put even more hours in," he was quoted as saying. "Because that's what I think a manager should do."
Robots don't complain.
Overvalued flash in the pan company is running at a loss and grinding its employees to a pulp.
Tell me a new one.
Instead of sleeping on the factory floor to show solidarity, perhaps he should have spent his time better analyzing production lines for improvement. A good manager doesn't work harder, a good manager works smarter. Add a person here, add a person there, lighten the individual load. Cross train and move multidiscipline employees to various stations based on demand, then move elsewhere when demand lowers.
On top of all that, his vehicles are shit, but that's another story altogether.
...for similarily priced cars the workers seem to be doing fine (although there seem to be only a few left): https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
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Let's call it 120 time. In 3.5 years for 10,000 workers.
How far is that from the normal number of times that people in a modest sized city will call for ambulances?
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
It's no wonder that California Tesla employees are considering joining the UAW. If you don't treat your employees right one at a time, they're going to ask that you do so all at once.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
I worked in an Aircraft Depot for the F15 Fighter as a civilian. Many times during periods like the Gulf Wars we would often work 12 hour shifts 7 days a week. They usually tried to limit that to 2 or 3 weeks because eventually it took a toll on people. After two weeks it's like time starts to blur. You make more mistakes and people get very stressed. Several times people almost came to blows on the job. I remember one guy walking down the back of a fighter and he stepped over an air duct and almost went off the side to the concrete floor. I watched helpless as another guy reached up and grabbed his shirt and snatched him back. We all felt energized by the emergency and the overtime was great but I was glad for some time off. Damn I wish I was 30 again. 100 degree summer heat in a hanger climbing over and inside jets. It would kill me now.
Read that again. 200 times for dizziness and nausia, etc. those things typically coming from environmental exposure to toxins and poorly ventilated chemical vapors. Hundreds more for physical medical problems coming from manufacturing work. If you are to compare numbers on a population and activity basis, make sure you understand what they include first. Compare that number not just to civil population in various work, but to the industry cohort. That's what courts do to find managerial negligence, and may be required here.
Well, we've had ambulances called to the office complex that I work from probably three times in the last year. If I look at the map of the parking lot there are about 400 numbered parking spaces, so assuming that some workers carpool or use some other form of transportation I'd guess there are around 450 employees.
So, for my workplace for one year is 3/450 = .667%
By contrast Tesla's workplace with your numbers is (120/3.5)/10000 = .343%
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I actually did work at an old economy factory producing cars in the medium price range. Never heard any stories compared to Tesla. But the unions were strong at our company, maybe that's why.
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I couldn't get numbers just on workers, but I did find that in 2009 there were 28,004,624 medical transports resulting from 911 calls. Population that year was 306,800,000. That's one medical transport per year per 11 people.
120 transports in 3.5 years for 10,000 people is one transport per 23 people.
While workers are more healthy than the average person, they're also a lot more likely to accept a medical transport for things like dizziness where a person at home would likely just stop painting for the day and get some fresh air.
In the 90s I worked at a plywood mill, and we did have a lot less transports than that, but we also didn't call medics for things like dizziness. I had a head injury with lots of blood, enough blood that some of co-workers were freaked out, and I didn't get transported. I stopped the bleeding with a paper towel, and they checked my eyes for signs of concussion, and let me go back to work with the instructions to call if I started acting "weird." From the sounds of it they bought fancy insurance that includes medical transport and they just transport anybody with a problem.
For a few years I was annoyed about the uniform adoration Mr. Musk was getting on Slashdot and in other circles. Then hit-pieces like this one started appearing...
Would the insufferable conditions described in TFA have been described at all — or described using the same terms — if he were still the Progressives' darling for championing "green" causes?
Or has the tone switched, because Musk is a Trump-administration supporter (sort of) — and there is a well-organized smear and boycott campaign against him as a result?
There is a lively discussion on whether or not Musk is a "Trump enabler" — but people, who've already concluded, that he is, will stop at, literally, nothing. Even poisoning the "haters" is becoming a thing — online smears are child's play...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
So my driveway isn't "the real world"? When I park my electric vehicle and charge it overnight, does it transport itself to an alternative universe? Another reality?
I live with an electric vehicle. I suspect I know a lot more than you do about what's realistic.
Those long trips? They are the exception and, as you pointed out, even faster charging is coming soon.
Today, if you have a Tesla, you probably only need to wait about 30 minutes, and that wait can be while you eat or get a coffee. It's not like filling with gas where you have to stand by the vehicle while it is charging. Remember that you just spent 3-4 hours driving, so you probably need a break anyway.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
This sudden media push against Tesla couldn't be part of a United Autoworker's Propaganda campaign to unionize Tesla. The UAW has nothing to lose when Tesla becomes the first company to fully automate car assembly (including the interior and wiring). Other automaker's would never copy Tesla's new automated assembly lines, reducing the number of autoworkers by a large percentage. Unionized Tesla employees would never go on strike to prevent increases in automated assembly. Nothing to see here. Move along.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
Huh?
So your conception is that you would drive for 9 hours and have two hours of stops.... but you would leave your vehicle unplugged during those stops? And then make two hours of charging stops, charging that you could have done during your already planned stop time?
The thing that makes your conception especially puzzling to me is that people already combine "recharging" and break / meal stops when driving gasoline cars. If they pull off the highway to get a meal, they'll also tend to fill up, or vice versa, since they've already had to take an exit, drive into the nearest town, and stop. The only difference with an EV is that you leave the vehicle connected to the "pump" while you're eating.
You're treating a symptom while the disease rages on. The fish rots from the head. Why not cut off the head?
Please tell me you know how to use Google. They're every ~100mi / 150km on almost every interstate in the US (more in more densely populated areas), and this is before the big planned expansion.
Where do you think that chargers are - in the middle of the woods? They're at highway exits, the same sorts of places you find gas stations and restaurants. Generally in the larger cities along the route, where such cities are present.
Click on any charger on the above map. It'll tell you what restaurants (and other things) are around the charger.
Learn to use Google. Period.
Unless you're looking for a vehicle for, say, a trip deep into Canyonlands or the like, it's not a problem. If you're a normal human being who takes interstates to near their destination and then travels less than a couple hundred kilometers off of their turnoff to their destination, there is no problem.
You're treating a symptom while the disease rages on. The fish rots from the head. Why not cut off the head?
look. 13 years of loss. 50 bn market cap.
that is the zenith of overvalued.
at least musk is admitting that it's overvalued and making a loss :D. unlike his last years book shenigans.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
"The article also sheds light on the kind of manager Musk is. In early 2016, Musk slept on the factory floor in a sleeping bag "to make it the most painful thing possible. I knew people were having a hard time, working long hours, and on hard jobs. I wanted to work harder than they did, to put even more hours in," he was quoted as saying. "Because that's what I think a manager should do.""
The best thing a boss can do is ensure he hires enough resources to do the work without pushing everyone over the brink. Occasionally, perhaps, in extraordinary circumstances, people might have to work all hours for a specific goal, but the normal state of things should be to give people acceptable working hours. I was in the military and you accept that when the balloon goes up you may be up and working non-stop, getting kip where you can, but even there it's not the norm. Aside from the brief bursts of action, there are long periods of fairly normal working conditions.
The best boss isn't the one who stays working till midnight to show that he can work harder than everybody else. Nobody feels entirely comfortable knocking off before the boss, so that kind of behaviour drives people to stay longer, work too hard and make themselves stressed, unhappy and unhealthy. The best boss is the one that leaves on the dot, every day, and expects his workers to do the same. That boss might have to take his laptop home and carry on working till midnight, that's just the breaks if you run a company. But he should not be making his employees feel uncomfortable about routinely going home at the end of their standard working hours. Perhaps Musk means well and really is trying to lead from the front, but it's quite likely he's just leading his workforce into exhaustion if he is unable to provide adequate resources to do the required work in the allotted working time.