14 ms·

Tesla workers: To hell and back again

74 points by mcone 9y ago

thsowers 9y ago
Elon's recent email[0] to employees in response to higher injury claims in the Fremont factory is probably relevant [0]: > “No words can express how much I care about your safety and wellbeing. It breaks my heart when someone is injured building cars and trying their best to make Tesla successful. Going forward, I’ve asked that every injury be reported directly to me, without exception. I’m meeting with the safety team every week and would like to meet every injured person as soon as they are well, so that I can understand from them exactly what we need to do to make it better. I will then go down to the production line and perform the same task that they perform. This is what all managers at Tesla should do as a matter of course. At Tesla, we lead from the front line, not from some safe and comfortable ivory tower. Managers must always put their team’s safety above their own.”
- gist 9y ago
  > and would like to meet every injured person as soon as they are well It's 'caring theater'. He thinks he is the President meeting with people getting the purple heart for service. Such utter bullshit. [1] [2] [1] The fact that he says he wants to be personally involved in the process is what puts it over the edge. I mean he is running how many companies? [2] And to front run any legal or PR issues. Create an emotional block for the harmed to take things a step further. "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer".
  - manmal 9y ago
    I'm quite sure he is doing internal PR, keeping up the team morale. It's not so much about caring (aka patronizing), but more about giving workers the feeling that they are all rolling up their sleeves together. IMO it's the only strategy that keeps teams together in times of high stress. People become very sensitive to "boss issues" if the work or workload sucks. To prevent burnout, workers have to feel that they are cared for, and their work appreciated. I'm sure you were in such a high stress situation yourself before - if team spirit stays intact, you feel strong and maybe even euphoric. As soon as things go downhill, you will soon think of bailing out.
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      One way of making workers feel unappreciated is to run your factory in such a way that more of them are injured than in similar facilities run by your competitors.
    - gist 9y ago
      > but more about giving workers the feeling that they are all rolling up their sleeves together Sure and maybe to show his appreciation he will invite all of them to use some of the great things that he gains or has that they don't (material or otherwise) for the herculean effort. They aren't all created equal and his equal we all know that. Would think especially the factory workers on the floor. And I am a owner and not a worker. So this isn't about the downtrodden or me feeling abused in a similar situation. Hasn't happened. It's about being realistic and quite frankly in all honesty jealousy of someone that can flip such stuff which I was never able to do even if it would benefit me. Couldn't be that dishonest. Not saying that it isn't an effective technique (your point). It is.
    - maxerickson 9y ago
      Yes of course it is PR. The thing people are wondering about is whether it is disingenuous bullshit PR.
  - gordon_freeman 9y ago
    Please look past the reasons you have described. What Elon is saying is that he will personally meet the injured workers and hear from them what happened with the process and why the injury happened. Then he'd go back to the process by performing it himself and find the root cause. He will then make sure that these processes are improved so no such incidents happen again. I read similar stuff in The Toyota Way book where workers kept complaining to the management about poor manufacturing processes leading to the injury and poor quality incidents and then the management made sure these processes are constantly improved (Kaizen).
    - gist 9y ago
      > Then he'd go back to the process by performing it himself and find the root cause. Right. That is what I am calling out. The fact that he will do this is ludicrous and certainly not anywhere near the best use of his time. We are not talking about a small mom and pop or lean startup with limited resources. > and then the management made sure these processes The CEO of Toyota? Almost certainly not. Undercover boss type things or spending a few hours in a call center or store or anywhere to get a seat of the pants feel for things? Sure.
      - hwillis 9y ago
        In both Tesla and SpaceX it's part of the culture that safety worries are elevated to very high levels very quickly. There was one guy (vet, nontechnical something or other) in SpaceX who was fired for abusing this, but what struck me most about the story was how he was in repeated contact with the technical person directly under Musk before he went directly to Musk himself. It seemed like that had all been fine, and he was only fired after refusing to let it go with Musk (plus IIRC he was basically out of his depth with the issue). Musk is ultraproductive and works very closely with his employees. Tesla only has two factories; it's on a much more manageable scale than something like Toyota.
  - rustynails 9y ago
    And what would you have him do? Let's assume for a moment, he's telling the truth. He's tried to improve assembly process. He's asked to personally be in the loop. He's said he'll do the task himself to make an assessment. Alternatively, if he lies, that's another matter. He has made a commitment and he can be measured against that. Don't get me wrong. Nobody is so naive to believe everybody's perfect. However, I'll give Musk the benefit of the doubt and watch closely. We need to move back to a philosophy of objective fact, unambiguous statement of intent, being measured against that intent. If you have value to add, please do. However, throwing Machiavellian observations into the ring is unlikely to provide value unless something was missing from the article or you can tie it to an objective fact.
- manmal 9y ago
  He is definitely trying to instill leadership by showing that he is "one of them": http://blog.startwithwhy.com/refocus/2015/07/management-vs-leadership.html http://blog.startwithwhy.com/refocus/2015/07/management-vs-l...
- spenrose 9y ago
  "relevant"? Sure, it's relevant, but let's dig in a bit. The article presents on the record statements that assert Musk's statement does not reflect Tesla managerial practices and priorities in the factory. So, some possibilities: 1) The article is BS and Musk's statement reflects the real state of Tesla manufacturing-labor principles. 2) Musk's statement and the article are both accurate and work habits will change, which means Tesla will voluntarily reduce output. No worries, they have lots of capital and can afford to slow the rollout. 3) Musk's statement and the article are both accurate but Musk is being undermined by mid-level managers he can't control. Poor hapless ineffectual Elon. 4) Musk's statement is deceptive PR. He is in control and forced to choose between hitting ship targets (widely reported as crucial to Tesla's survival) and reducing worker injuries, he is choosing the former.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    Real head scratcher.
  - ori_b 9y ago
    4) Musk didn't realize how bad things were, had an "Oh shit" moment, and decided to fix it.
    - spenrose 9y ago
      I meant for 2) to cover that, but your phrasing is helpful.
- pmoriarty 9y ago
  Is any independent party actually going to hold Musk to account on this, to make sure he and his managers do and continue doing what he says? Or is this just going to be a news blip that's forgotten as Tesla's stock surges and Musk makes other sensational news? Are there any consequences for failure here?
  - snovv_crash 9y ago
    I know there was a similar safety push at Anglo Gold mines in South Africa. The biggest policy change was that a board member or C-level officer had to be the one to inform family, in person, of any employee deaths. Suddenly safety was a number one priority, and employee deaths dropped by an order of magnitude. As for Musk? Well, considering that he's spent time in the past sleeping at the assembly lines to make sure stuff is going well, I don't see him reneging on this.
- peterwwillis 9y ago
  "Going forward, I’ve asked that every injury be reported directly to me, without exception" Does no one else see how this is an intimidation tactic?
  - gpm 9y ago
    No... Are you claiming that meeting Elon would be intimidating and the 'threat' of that would prevent people from reporting injuries at all? For anything even remotely serious that seems unlikely to have an impact, if you're injured enough to need medical care I don't think that "management will find out" is going to dissuade you from making whatever reports you need to get medical care. Or do you mean he is intimidating the managers into taking injuries seriously? In that case, yes, I guess you could call it that. But I definitely support that sort of intimidation.
  - 1123581321 9y ago
    It's the opposite of an intimidation tactic. If there are managers who hide accidents, line employees know they can go straight to Musk and a) get the safety issue dealt with, b) get the bad manager fired. A CEO of Alcoa famously required any injury to be on his desk within 24 hours and some high level executives were fired for not taking it seriously when the information emerged through indirect channels. The ultimate result was dramatically improved safety for ~10,000 employees. Elon Musk is certainly taking a page from Alcoa's playbook here.
    - peterwwillis 9y ago
      That's correlation, not causation. Reporting an injury to a CEO does not reduce injuries, it just keeps the CEO informed. In Alcoa's case, the safety record improved because the CEO made safety the number one priority over even profits, and this led to a culture shift that examined small inefficiencies and led to improved quality as well as improved safety practices. Reducing harm requires actually implementing a harm reduction strategy. Informing the CEO of every single injury can tell them when the plan isn't working [as they receive each report], but it also fails to tell them it is working, because they don't necessarily know why they aren't hearing reports. You don't need to personally receive these reports as a CEO. This is just Musk being a control freak. Usually, CEOs implement policies like "inform me immediately every time X happens" because they don't want to get caught off guard when something bad happens. I dealt with a similar thing at a previous job, and it definitely instilled fear in a lot of people, but it never addressed the cause of the concern. Churning on injuries to reduce specific causes of specific injuries is not a culture shift, it's reactionary.
- j45 9y ago
  Doing the task himself on the production line is a key differentiator that separates the rhetoric to being able to have realizations that people on the floor already have had. Managers may know how to manage, but the best people who know how to do the technical job, and how to do it best are always the folks on the production line.
fullshark 9y ago
I know Musk likes to take risks and push his companies and employees to the brink, but given the massive demand for the model 3, Tesla stock price, and 1.8 billion funding they just got, it seems like they can afford to create better working conditions for their workers.
- valuearb 9y ago
  You mean the massive 18 weeks of funding they got for their capital needs?
  - simonbarker87 9y ago
    They don't lose $180m per week though, do they? They have income to offset a portion of their capex? Or did I misinterpret the article?
    - 101km 9y ago
      Tesla has been spending an average of $100 million a week on capital expenses, mostly to manufacture the Model 3, according to chief financial officer Deepak Ahuja.
    - ww520 9y ago
      Income requires vehicle delivery.
      - chillydawg 9y ago
        Not with pre-orders.
        valuearb 9y ago
        Pre-orders only have tiny deposits, and can't be booked as revenue until delivery.
      - simonbarker87 9y ago
sixQuarks 9y ago
I'd have to think Tesla sees the "human equation" as being the biggest and/or most unpredictable cost of car manufacturing, and Elon's stated goal of being the world's best manufacturer - with the focus on "building the machine that builds the machine", means they are going to try to automate everything. If I was an auto worker, I'd be very concerned. I'm not saying auto workers should stop complaining, but the more they complain and try to unionize, the quicker the automation will come about. They're in a catch-22
- rorykoehler 9y ago
  What kind of world have we created where we fear being liberated from the need to work?
  - Encounter 9y ago
    One where we still need to work to live.
  - cmrdporcupine 9y ago
    Almost like the fundamental problem is --and always has been -- the nature of the ownership of the means of production.
  - brianshaler 9y ago
    "liberated from the need to work" is an interesting way to say "unemployment" The kind of world we have created is one where one must create value in order to have food & shelter. Automation simply funnels more and more of the value created into the pockets of fewer and fewer individuals.
    - JauntTrooper 9y ago
      It reminds me of this article: http://www.theonion.com/article/ibm-emancipates-8000-wage-slaves-806 http://www.theonion.com/article/ibm-emancipates-8000-wage-sl...
    - TaylorAlexander 9y ago
madars 9y ago
I admire the knack Musk has for extracting government subsidies. However, with all that money one could do better than pay $5/hour to your subcontracted workers in California [1] or have one third higher number of injuries than industry average (this article). [1] -- https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/16/elon-musk-tesla-wages-apology https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/16/elon-musk...
- valuearb 9y ago
  Don't you mean the german company Eisenmann should pay more than $5/hour?
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
pmoriarty 9y ago
This reminds me of a passage from Jack London's The Iron Heel[1], in which the protagonist tells a man who owned the Sierra Mills about an injured worker: "He lost his arm in the Sierra Mills, and like a broken-down horse you turned him out on the highway to die. When I say ‘you,' I mean the superintendent and the officials that you and the other stockholders pay to manage the mills for you. It was an accident. It was caused by his trying to save the company a few dollars. The toothed drum of the picker caught his arm. He might have let the small flint that he saw in the teeth go through. It would have smashed out a double row of spikes. But he reached for the flint, and his arm was picked and clawed to shreds from the finger tips to the shoulder. It was at night. The mills were working overtime. They paid a fat dividend that quarter. Jackson had been working many hours, and his muscles had lost their resiliency and snap. They made his movements a bit slow. That was why the machine caught him. He had a wife and three children." "And what did the company do for him?" [the owner's daughter] asked. "Nothing. Oh, yes, they did do something. They successfully fought the damage suit he brought when he came out of hospital. The company employs very efficient lawyers, you know." The the owner's daughter doesn't believe him, and goes to the injured worker to see for herself: "How did you happen to get your arm caught in the machine?" I asked. He looked at me in a slow and pondering way, and shook his head. "I don't know. It just happened." "Carelessness?" I prompted. "No," he answered, "I ain't for callin' it that. I was workin' overtime, an' I guess I was tired out some. I worked seventeen years in them mills, an' I've took notice that most of the accidents happens just before whistle-blow. I'm willin' to bet that more accidents happens in the hour before whistle-blow than in all the rest of the day. A man ain't so quick after workin' steady for hours. I've seen too many of ‘em cut up an' gouged an' chawed not to know." ... With the exception of the terrible details, Jackson's story of his accident was the same as that I had already heard. When I asked him if he had broken some rule of working the machinery, he shook his head. "I chucked off the belt with my right hand," he said, "an' made a reach for the flint with my left. I didn't stop to see if the belt was off. I thought my right hand had done it--only it didn't. I reached quick, and the belt wasn't all the way off. And then my arm was chewed off." ... His mind was rather hazy concerning the damage suit. Only one thing was clear to him, and that was that he had not got any damages. He had a feeling that the testimony of the foremen and the superintendent had brought about the adverse decision of the court. Their testimony, as he put it, "wasn't what it ought to have ben." And to them I resolved to go. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Iron_Heel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Iron_Heel
simonbarker87 9y ago
When plants like Nissan's in Sunderland (UK) have worked out how to make well over 500K cars per year incorporating a luxury brand car (Infiniti Q30), a mid range crossover company cash cow (Qashqai) and an electric car (Leaf) safely with a strong track record of keeping workers safe there is simply no excuse for this at all. No worker in modern day manufacturing should be concerned for their safety at work, ever. I am a fan of Tesla and Musk but this line in the email pasted in by thsowers irks me and signals to the underlying issue: "Managers must always put their team’s safety above their own" No Elon, every employee's safety is equal and is more important than your TACT time.
- QuercusMax 9y ago
  I interpreted that sentence differently: managers are not the ones on the factory floor getting injured. By reporting injuries, they may be concerned for the safety of their career, and think by covering them up they'll avoid black marks on their record.
  - simonbarker87 9y ago
    Potentially what he meant and probably a fairer interpretation. I run a (small) factory and my wife works as an engineer at the aforementioned Nissan plant so I tend to have a less forgiving attitude toward people who seem to disregard worker safety. I remember when I toured the BAE submarine plant 10 years ago in Barrow in Furness being told that 1 death per month was considered standard and kind of ok in the early days of that plant - terrifying and thankfully not the case anymore.
- bumblebeard 9y ago
  Yeah, there's really no excuse for the safety record at Tesla's factory. At least the workers seem to be organizing so hopefully things will improve soon. Also FYI it's takt time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takt_time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takt_time
  - simonbarker87 9y ago
alkonaut 9y ago
If you try to get a company off the ground yourself or with a small group of friends - then you might need some crunch time to not burn through your funding before you can sustain it. But if you are a decade old company employing thousands and doing this sort of startup style crunch time then something is wrong. Don't set deadlines that will require worker burnout and workplace accidents to meet. If they meet the production targets with greatly increased burnout and accidents then there can't be cake and bonuses, heads must roll.
mogewai 9y ago
I would absolutely not trust a car made by rushed employees. The risk of failure is so high it's not even funny.
lagadu 9y ago
> long hours, mandatory overtime I find it pretty shocking that this is legal at all.
std_throwaway 9y ago
In many ways Tesla is the China of America.
- dilemma 9y ago
  America's Foxconn. Just not as well run.
  - std_throwaway 9y ago
    That's a better analogy, thanks.
Roboprog 9y ago
Few people are injured when a software sweatshop screws up, at least until the software gets out into the wild and fails a critical purpose. Running a factory with heavy machinery might be a different beast, o ye masters of the office hell hole :-) Just sayin'
throw2016 9y ago
Elon has a long rope to hang himself with because he is generally not perceived as a small minded person. It's sometimes easy for founders to forget while they can take a lot of pressure on themselves its unfair to expect the same level of performance from others, who may not be as vested as the founders. Passion doesn't scale.
Waterluvian 9y ago
I spent two weeks at that plant and therefore went through safety training on the first day. It was eye opening to see just how serious-not-serious they treated the whole thing. The supervisor asked each person to introduce themselves as a way of proving they could speak and understand English, and therefore the training. When a few failed, he gave a lecture about how critical safety training is and that this wasn't the Spanish class, but then simply moved along and eventually graduated everyone. The class was also full of not so bright people. I'm sorry, I'm not sure the politically correct way of talking about this. But the kind of people I wouldn't trust for a second with my life. This was my first and only time in a factory so I'm not sure how par that all is for the course.
- sbierwagen 9y ago
  The class was also full of not so bright people Welcome to the wonderful world of manufacturing. Remember, half the population has an IQ under 100. Manufacturing employs these people.
Animats 9y ago
“We’re building the cars for the future with the work process of the past.” - Tesla employee Most accidents in manufacturing plants come from repetitive tasks which carry some small degree of risk each time they're done. Loading a stamping machine is the classic example. Those have to be engineered out of the production process. It's about reach limitations and pinch points and guarding, not "safety awareness". It's about finding the places where a simple error once in every million times results in someone losing a finger. Someone using a machine might do a few thousand cycles in a shift. A million in a year. A "one in a million" accident can be an annual occurrence for each employee. This is why production processes have to be made much safer than one might expect. It's risk times time that gets you. Tesla is new at this stuff. It takes a while to find all the sharp points in a factory and fix them. It also usually takes outside pressure from a union or OSHA.

74 points by mcone 9y ago

Elon's recent email[0] to employees in response to higher injury claims in the Fremont factory is probably relevant [0]: > “No words can express how much I care about your safety and wellbeing. It breaks my heart when someone is injured building cars and trying their best to make Tesla successful. Going forward, I’ve asked that every injury be reported directly to me, without exception. I’m meeting with the safety team every week and would like to meet every injured person as soon as they are well, so that I can understand from them exactly what we need to do to make it better. I will then go down to the production line and perform the same task that they perform. This is what all managers at Tesla should do as a matter of course. At Tesla, we lead from the front line, not from some safe and comfortable ivory tower. Managers must always put their team’s safety above their own.”

gist 9y ago
> and would like to meet every injured person as soon as they are well It's 'caring theater'. He thinks he is the President meeting with people getting the purple heart for service. Such utter bullshit. [1] [2] [1] The fact that he says he wants to be personally involved in the process is what puts it over the edge. I mean he is running how many companies? [2] And to front run any legal or PR issues. Create an emotional block for the harmed to take things a step further. "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer".
- manmal 9y ago
  I'm quite sure he is doing internal PR, keeping up the team morale. It's not so much about caring (aka patronizing), but more about giving workers the feeling that they are all rolling up their sleeves together. IMO it's the only strategy that keeps teams together in times of high stress. People become very sensitive to "boss issues" if the work or workload sucks. To prevent burnout, workers have to feel that they are cared for, and their work appreciated. I'm sure you were in such a high stress situation yourself before - if team spirit stays intact, you feel strong and maybe even euphoric. As soon as things go downhill, you will soon think of bailing out.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    One way of making workers feel unappreciated is to run your factory in such a way that more of them are injured than in similar facilities run by your competitors.
  - gist 9y ago
    > but more about giving workers the feeling that they are all rolling up their sleeves together Sure and maybe to show his appreciation he will invite all of them to use some of the great things that he gains or has that they don't (material or otherwise) for the herculean effort. They aren't all created equal and his equal we all know that. Would think especially the factory workers on the floor. And I am a owner and not a worker. So this isn't about the downtrodden or me feeling abused in a similar situation. Hasn't happened. It's about being realistic and quite frankly in all honesty jealousy of someone that can flip such stuff which I was never able to do even if it would benefit me. Couldn't be that dishonest. Not saying that it isn't an effective technique (your point). It is.
  - maxerickson 9y ago
    Yes of course it is PR. The thing people are wondering about is whether it is disingenuous bullshit PR.
- gordon_freeman 9y ago
  Please look past the reasons you have described. What Elon is saying is that he will personally meet the injured workers and hear from them what happened with the process and why the injury happened. Then he'd go back to the process by performing it himself and find the root cause. He will then make sure that these processes are improved so no such incidents happen again. I read similar stuff in The Toyota Way book where workers kept complaining to the management about poor manufacturing processes leading to the injury and poor quality incidents and then the management made sure these processes are constantly improved (Kaizen).
  - gist 9y ago
    > Then he'd go back to the process by performing it himself and find the root cause. Right. That is what I am calling out. The fact that he will do this is ludicrous and certainly not anywhere near the best use of his time. We are not talking about a small mom and pop or lean startup with limited resources. > and then the management made sure these processes The CEO of Toyota? Almost certainly not. Undercover boss type things or spending a few hours in a call center or store or anywhere to get a seat of the pants feel for things? Sure.
    - hwillis 9y ago
      In both Tesla and SpaceX it's part of the culture that safety worries are elevated to very high levels very quickly. There was one guy (vet, nontechnical something or other) in SpaceX who was fired for abusing this, but what struck me most about the story was how he was in repeated contact with the technical person directly under Musk before he went directly to Musk himself. It seemed like that had all been fine, and he was only fired after refusing to let it go with Musk (plus IIRC he was basically out of his depth with the issue). Musk is ultraproductive and works very closely with his employees. Tesla only has two factories; it's on a much more manageable scale than something like Toyota.
- rustynails 9y ago
  And what would you have him do? Let's assume for a moment, he's telling the truth. He's tried to improve assembly process. He's asked to personally be in the loop. He's said he'll do the task himself to make an assessment. Alternatively, if he lies, that's another matter. He has made a commitment and he can be measured against that. Don't get me wrong. Nobody is so naive to believe everybody's perfect. However, I'll give Musk the benefit of the doubt and watch closely. We need to move back to a philosophy of objective fact, unambiguous statement of intent, being measured against that intent. If you have value to add, please do. However, throwing Machiavellian observations into the ring is unlikely to provide value unless something was missing from the article or you can tie it to an objective fact.
manmal 9y ago
He is definitely trying to instill leadership by showing that he is "one of them": http://blog.startwithwhy.com/refocus/2015/07/management-vs-leadership.html http://blog.startwithwhy.com/refocus/2015/07/management-vs-l...
spenrose 9y ago
"relevant"? Sure, it's relevant, but let's dig in a bit. The article presents on the record statements that assert Musk's statement does not reflect Tesla managerial practices and priorities in the factory. So, some possibilities: 1) The article is BS and Musk's statement reflects the real state of Tesla manufacturing-labor principles. 2) Musk's statement and the article are both accurate and work habits will change, which means Tesla will voluntarily reduce output. No worries, they have lots of capital and can afford to slow the rollout. 3) Musk's statement and the article are both accurate but Musk is being undermined by mid-level managers he can't control. Poor hapless ineffectual Elon. 4) Musk's statement is deceptive PR. He is in control and forced to choose between hitting ship targets (widely reported as crucial to Tesla's survival) and reducing worker injuries, he is choosing the former.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  Real head scratcher.
- ori_b 9y ago
  4) Musk didn't realize how bad things were, had an "Oh shit" moment, and decided to fix it.
  - spenrose 9y ago
    I meant for 2) to cover that, but your phrasing is helpful.
pmoriarty 9y ago
Is any independent party actually going to hold Musk to account on this, to make sure he and his managers do and continue doing what he says? Or is this just going to be a news blip that's forgotten as Tesla's stock surges and Musk makes other sensational news? Are there any consequences for failure here?
- snovv_crash 9y ago
  I know there was a similar safety push at Anglo Gold mines in South Africa. The biggest policy change was that a board member or C-level officer had to be the one to inform family, in person, of any employee deaths. Suddenly safety was a number one priority, and employee deaths dropped by an order of magnitude. As for Musk? Well, considering that he's spent time in the past sleeping at the assembly lines to make sure stuff is going well, I don't see him reneging on this.
peterwwillis 9y ago
"Going forward, I’ve asked that every injury be reported directly to me, without exception" Does no one else see how this is an intimidation tactic?
- gpm 9y ago
  No... Are you claiming that meeting Elon would be intimidating and the 'threat' of that would prevent people from reporting injuries at all? For anything even remotely serious that seems unlikely to have an impact, if you're injured enough to need medical care I don't think that "management will find out" is going to dissuade you from making whatever reports you need to get medical care. Or do you mean he is intimidating the managers into taking injuries seriously? In that case, yes, I guess you could call it that. But I definitely support that sort of intimidation.
- 1123581321 9y ago
  It's the opposite of an intimidation tactic. If there are managers who hide accidents, line employees know they can go straight to Musk and a) get the safety issue dealt with, b) get the bad manager fired. A CEO of Alcoa famously required any injury to be on his desk within 24 hours and some high level executives were fired for not taking it seriously when the information emerged through indirect channels. The ultimate result was dramatically improved safety for ~10,000 employees. Elon Musk is certainly taking a page from Alcoa's playbook here.
  - peterwwillis 9y ago
    That's correlation, not causation. Reporting an injury to a CEO does not reduce injuries, it just keeps the CEO informed. In Alcoa's case, the safety record improved because the CEO made safety the number one priority over even profits, and this led to a culture shift that examined small inefficiencies and led to improved quality as well as improved safety practices. Reducing harm requires actually implementing a harm reduction strategy. Informing the CEO of every single injury can tell them when the plan isn't working [as they receive each report], but it also fails to tell them it is working, because they don't necessarily know why they aren't hearing reports. You don't need to personally receive these reports as a CEO. This is just Musk being a control freak. Usually, CEOs implement policies like "inform me immediately every time X happens" because they don't want to get caught off guard when something bad happens. I dealt with a similar thing at a previous job, and it definitely instilled fear in a lot of people, but it never addressed the cause of the concern. Churning on injuries to reduce specific causes of specific injuries is not a culture shift, it's reactionary.
j45 9y ago
Doing the task himself on the production line is a key differentiator that separates the rhetoric to being able to have realizations that people on the floor already have had. Managers may know how to manage, but the best people who know how to do the technical job, and how to do it best are always the folks on the production line.

fullshark 9y ago

I know Musk likes to take risks and push his companies and employees to the brink, but given the massive demand for the model 3, Tesla stock price, and 1.8 billion funding they just got, it seems like they can afford to create better working conditions for their workers.

valuearb 9y ago
You mean the massive 18 weeks of funding they got for their capital needs?
- simonbarker87 9y ago
  They don't lose $180m per week though, do they? They have income to offset a portion of their capex? Or did I misinterpret the article?
  - 101km 9y ago
    Tesla has been spending an average of $100 million a week on capital expenses, mostly to manufacture the Model 3, according to chief financial officer Deepak Ahuja.
  - ww520 9y ago
    Income requires vehicle delivery.
    - chillydawg 9y ago
      Not with pre-orders.
      - valuearb 9y ago
        Pre-orders only have tiny deposits, and can't be booked as revenue until delivery.
    - simonbarker87 9y ago

sixQuarks 9y ago

I'd have to think Tesla sees the "human equation" as being the biggest and/or most unpredictable cost of car manufacturing, and Elon's stated goal of being the world's best manufacturer - with the focus on "building the machine that builds the machine", means they are going to try to automate everything. If I was an auto worker, I'd be very concerned. I'm not saying auto workers should stop complaining, but the more they complain and try to unionize, the quicker the automation will come about. They're in a catch-22

rorykoehler 9y ago
What kind of world have we created where we fear being liberated from the need to work?
- Encounter 9y ago
  One where we still need to work to live.
- cmrdporcupine 9y ago
  Almost like the fundamental problem is --and always has been -- the nature of the ownership of the means of production.
- brianshaler 9y ago
  "liberated from the need to work" is an interesting way to say "unemployment" The kind of world we have created is one where one must create value in order to have food & shelter. Automation simply funnels more and more of the value created into the pockets of fewer and fewer individuals.
  - JauntTrooper 9y ago
    It reminds me of this article: http://www.theonion.com/article/ibm-emancipates-8000-wage-slaves-806 http://www.theonion.com/article/ibm-emancipates-8000-wage-sl...
  - TaylorAlexander 9y ago

madars 9y ago

I admire the knack Musk has for extracting government subsidies. However, with all that money one could do better than pay $5/hour to your subcontracted workers in California [1] or have one third higher number of injuries than industry average (this article). [1] -- https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/16/elon-musk-tesla-wages-apology https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/16/elon-musk...

valuearb 9y ago
Don't you mean the german company Eisenmann should pay more than $5/hour?

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

pmoriarty 9y ago

This reminds me of a passage from Jack London's The Iron Heel[1], in which the protagonist tells a man who owned the Sierra Mills about an injured worker: "He lost his arm in the Sierra Mills, and like a broken-down horse you turned him out on the highway to die. When I say ‘you,' I mean the superintendent and the officials that you and the other stockholders pay to manage the mills for you. It was an accident. It was caused by his trying to save the company a few dollars. The toothed drum of the picker caught his arm. He might have let the small flint that he saw in the teeth go through. It would have smashed out a double row of spikes. But he reached for the flint, and his arm was picked and clawed to shreds from the finger tips to the shoulder. It was at night. The mills were working overtime. They paid a fat dividend that quarter. Jackson had been working many hours, and his muscles had lost their resiliency and snap. They made his movements a bit slow. That was why the machine caught him. He had a wife and three children." "And what did the company do for him?" [the owner's daughter] asked. "Nothing. Oh, yes, they did do something. They successfully fought the damage suit he brought when he came out of hospital. The company employs very efficient lawyers, you know." The the owner's daughter doesn't believe him, and goes to the injured worker to see for herself: "How did you happen to get your arm caught in the machine?" I asked. He looked at me in a slow and pondering way, and shook his head. "I don't know. It just happened." "Carelessness?" I prompted. "No," he answered, "I ain't for callin' it that. I was workin' overtime, an' I guess I was tired out some. I worked seventeen years in them mills, an' I've took notice that most of the accidents happens just before whistle-blow. I'm willin' to bet that more accidents happens in the hour before whistle-blow than in all the rest of the day. A man ain't so quick after workin' steady for hours. I've seen too many of ‘em cut up an' gouged an' chawed not to know." ... With the exception of the terrible details, Jackson's story of his accident was the same as that I had already heard. When I asked him if he had broken some rule of working the machinery, he shook his head. "I chucked off the belt with my right hand," he said, "an' made a reach for the flint with my left. I didn't stop to see if the belt was off. I thought my right hand had done it--only it didn't. I reached quick, and the belt wasn't all the way off. And then my arm was chewed off." ... His mind was rather hazy concerning the damage suit. Only one thing was clear to him, and that was that he had not got any damages. He had a feeling that the testimony of the foremen and the superintendent had brought about the adverse decision of the court. Their testimony, as he put it, "wasn't what it ought to have ben." And to them I resolved to go. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Iron_Heel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Iron_Heel

simonbarker87 9y ago

When plants like Nissan's in Sunderland (UK) have worked out how to make well over 500K cars per year incorporating a luxury brand car (Infiniti Q30), a mid range crossover company cash cow (Qashqai) and an electric car (Leaf) safely with a strong track record of keeping workers safe there is simply no excuse for this at all. No worker in modern day manufacturing should be concerned for their safety at work, ever. I am a fan of Tesla and Musk but this line in the email pasted in by thsowers irks me and signals to the underlying issue: "Managers must always put their team’s safety above their own" No Elon, every employee's safety is equal and is more important than your TACT time.

QuercusMax 9y ago
I interpreted that sentence differently: managers are not the ones on the factory floor getting injured. By reporting injuries, they may be concerned for the safety of their career, and think by covering them up they'll avoid black marks on their record.
- simonbarker87 9y ago
  Potentially what he meant and probably a fairer interpretation. I run a (small) factory and my wife works as an engineer at the aforementioned Nissan plant so I tend to have a less forgiving attitude toward people who seem to disregard worker safety. I remember when I toured the BAE submarine plant 10 years ago in Barrow in Furness being told that 1 death per month was considered standard and kind of ok in the early days of that plant - terrifying and thankfully not the case anymore.
bumblebeard 9y ago
Yeah, there's really no excuse for the safety record at Tesla's factory. At least the workers seem to be organizing so hopefully things will improve soon. Also FYI it's takt time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takt_time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takt_time
- simonbarker87 9y ago

alkonaut 9y ago

If you try to get a company off the ground yourself or with a small group of friends - then you might need some crunch time to not burn through your funding before you can sustain it. But if you are a decade old company employing thousands and doing this sort of startup style crunch time then something is wrong. Don't set deadlines that will require worker burnout and workplace accidents to meet. If they meet the production targets with greatly increased burnout and accidents then there can't be cake and bonuses, heads must roll.

mogewai 9y ago

I would absolutely not trust a car made by rushed employees. The risk of failure is so high it's not even funny.

lagadu 9y ago

> long hours, mandatory overtime I find it pretty shocking that this is legal at all.

std_throwaway 9y ago

In many ways Tesla is the China of America.

dilemma 9y ago
America's Foxconn. Just not as well run.
- std_throwaway 9y ago
  That's a better analogy, thanks.

Roboprog 9y ago

Few people are injured when a software sweatshop screws up, at least until the software gets out into the wild and fails a critical purpose. Running a factory with heavy machinery might be a different beast, o ye masters of the office hell hole :-) Just sayin'

throw2016 9y ago

Elon has a long rope to hang himself with because he is generally not perceived as a small minded person. It's sometimes easy for founders to forget while they can take a lot of pressure on themselves its unfair to expect the same level of performance from others, who may not be as vested as the founders. Passion doesn't scale.

Waterluvian 9y ago

I spent two weeks at that plant and therefore went through safety training on the first day. It was eye opening to see just how serious-not-serious they treated the whole thing. The supervisor asked each person to introduce themselves as a way of proving they could speak and understand English, and therefore the training. When a few failed, he gave a lecture about how critical safety training is and that this wasn't the Spanish class, but then simply moved along and eventually graduated everyone. The class was also full of not so bright people. I'm sorry, I'm not sure the politically correct way of talking about this. But the kind of people I wouldn't trust for a second with my life. This was my first and only time in a factory so I'm not sure how par that all is for the course.

sbierwagen 9y ago
The class was also full of not so bright people Welcome to the wonderful world of manufacturing. Remember, half the population has an IQ under 100. Manufacturing employs these people.

Animats 9y ago

“We’re building the cars for the future with the work process of the past.” - Tesla employee Most accidents in manufacturing plants come from repetitive tasks which carry some small degree of risk each time they're done. Loading a stamping machine is the classic example. Those have to be engineered out of the production process. It's about reach limitations and pinch points and guarding, not "safety awareness". It's about finding the places where a simple error once in every million times results in someone losing a finger. Someone using a machine might do a few thousand cycles in a shift. A million in a year. A "one in a million" accident can be an annual occurrence for each employee. This is why production processes have to be made much safer than one might expect. It's risk times time that gets you. Tesla is new at this stuff. It takes a while to find all the sharp points in a factory and fix them. It also usually takes outside pressure from a union or OSHA.