Tesla Tells California Employees to Shut Down Model X and S Production with 'Limited Paid Opportunities'

Urian B., Tech Times 13 December 2020, 09:12 pm

On the very same day that Elon Musk, the Tesla CEO announced to his employees that they will need to increase their production "as much as possible" for the reported remainder of this year, the company has been said to send out an email to its employees in Fremont, California. The email stated that the factory will be shutting down its Model X and Model S production line for a total of 18 days to start on December 24.

Tesla announces 'limited paid opportunities'

According to the particular CNBC report that was made on Saturday, Tesla had offered its employees working on those production lines a full weeks pay as well as a few days of given paid holiday time. Nonetheless, employees were then asked to take up five unplanned as well as unpaid day offs. This was said although the email reviewed by the particular outlet reportedly states that there will be certain "limited paid opportunities" for the workers in order to support the other parts of the Tesla factory.

According to the story reported by Gizmodo, this is a current time of struggle for most people due to the pandemic and Tesla has also slashed pay for its employees' salaries during the early months of the COVID-19 reportedly from April up to June. The company had also reportedly placed some of the hourly workers on a particular unpaid leave.

Tesla COVID-19 work

With this being said, the article notes that this move, although quite unfortunate, will still be understandable for production in order to be affected by the whole pandemic, of course, only if this is truly the underlying case. Tesla, for particular reasons, still did not acknowledge this reality of the situation through its own announcement towards employees, according to CNBC. Instead, it was said that the company wanted workers to allegedly "take the opportunity" in order to both rest and also spend more time along with friends and families.

The email reportedly said, according to the transcription of CNBC, that the company would like its employees to take the opportunity in order for them to both refresh or even spend more time with their family. This is why Tesla will be giving them a whole week's pay for the particular week of January 4. There will also reportedly be limited paid opportunities for employees to be able to support yet other shops or even volunteer for certain deliveries during some of the given time.

Tesla message 'production halt'

Gizmodo then stated that this is quite a messed up way of announcing a production halt. As noted in the email, this production halt is not mentioned at all by Tesla. It was also said that workers could choose to "volunteer" to deliver the said vehicles. Although there is no mistake in offering employees paid opportunities to be able to deliver vehicles, especially if the particular factory is still facing a demand crunch, however, it is a different thing to expect the employees to deliver these vehicles without pay. There is not clarification given as of the moment as to whether the said opportunities will be paid.