Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been ordered to delete a tweet from 2018 that discourages unionization and threatening employees with loss of stock options.
On Thursday, March 25, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) found that the tweet in question, posted on May 20, 2018, was a violation of federal labor laws.
Elon Musk's Anti-Union Views
The case against the Tesla CEO stemmed from the unlawful firing of Tesla worker Richard Ortiz in October 2017.
New York Times reported on Thursday, March 25, that Ortiz was visibly heavily involved in organizing a union that includes distributing leaflets to fellow workers in the company plant's parking lot in Fremont, California.
The company defended the decision and said that Ortiz was fired for posting screenshots of employee profiles to Facebook.
At the time of Ortiz's firing, Telsa served another employee with a warning for taking the screenshots for Ortiz to use.
Fast forward in 2018, Musk infamously replied to a tweet asking him about his views about unions, which he answered that paying union dues and employees giving up stock options is pointless.
Also Read: Elon Musk Says Call For Tesla's Unionization Is Morally Outrageous
He added that while the company does not prohibit its employees from voting union, he implied the company does not see the need, boasting that all employees "already gets healthcare."
Nothing stopping Tesla team at our car plant from voting union. Could do so tmrw if they wanted. But why pay union dues & give up stock options for nothing? Our safety record is 2X better than when plant was UAW & everybody already gets healthcare.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 21, 2018
Court Ruling, Tesla's Appeal, and NLRB's Decision
In 2019, Amita Baman Tracy, an administrative law judge in California, ruled that the actions Tesla took against Ortiz and the unnamed employee violated the National Labor Relations Act in 2017.
According to Bloomberg's report on September 28, 2019, Tracy also ordered Tesla to offer reinstatement and back pay to Ortiz and revoke the warning issued to another.
The judge also ruled that the EV manufacturer must hold a company meeting with Musk's attendance and have him or a representative read a notice stating that the NLRB found the company broke the law.
Tesla had since filed a motion to appeal the 2019 ruling, prompting the NLRB to take over the case and uphold the initial order.
In addition, the NLRB also found that Tesla unlawfully prohibited employees from communicating with the media and unlawfully interrogated workers over suspected unionization efforts.
The board also reversed a former ruling, which found that Tesla did not violate a federal labor law when it discouraged its employees from joining a union.
The United Auto Workers union called the ruling a win for workers who had mustered the courage to stand up against multi-million dollar companies like Tesla.
"While we celebrate the justice in today's ruling, it nevertheless highlights the substantial flaws in US labor law. Here is a company that clearly broke the law and yet it is three years down the road before these workers achieved a modicum of justice," said Cindy Estrada, UAW Vice President and Director of the UAW Organizing Department.
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Written by Lee Mercado
