The United Auto Workers International Union has filed a complaint against the electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla on behalf of the 400 some employees recently terminated as part of a performance review, according to 
recent reports.
It should be noted here upfront that the 400 some employees in question may well (and probably don’t) have anything to do with the complaint being filed — unions often use mass firings as an opportunity for organizing and PR.
The United Auto Workers International Union (UAW) filed its complaint alleging unfair labor practices at the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) Oakland office.
Reuters provides more information: “Tesla in October fired about 400 employees including associates, team leaders and supervisors, Reuters reported, citing a former employee. Performance reviews can result in promotions and occasionally in employee departures and no action was taken based on their feelings on unionization, Tesla said in an email to Reuters on Thursday.
“Roughly 20,000 ULPs are filed with the NLRB by unions like the UAW as an organizing tactic, the company said. UAW said in February it will greet Tesla’s Fremont, California, assembly plant workers with ‘open arms’ in a bid to unionize the factory. NLRB, the US agency in charge of enforcing labor law, in late August filed a complaint against Tesla, saying it found merit to workers’ complaints about unfair labor practices.”
As you may recall, we speculated (without any substantiation) that the firings may have had something to do with the UAW’s unionization efforts at Tesla’s Fremont facility. While this news doesn’t really add anything definitive to that line of thought, it does make the matter seem somewhat more interesting.
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