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Tesla workers report explosions, concussions and robot injuries at Texas factory
- Waterluvian 3y agoI once visited the Fremont factory for a week and was required to do safety training. The person went on about how the training is only in English and you must know English to complete it. He had everyone say hi and something about themselves and about 1/3 didn’t speak any English. He just decided to keep going anyways and everyone completed safety training. I’m not sure how typical that is in the industry. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that it’s totally normal.
- paulryanrogers 3y agoOSHA asleep at the wheel?
- ysavir 3y agoThat's alright, they got full self driving
- arcticbull 3y agoMust be in a WayMo then.
- ggm 3y agoDuring the early 19th Century Ford paid for mandatory language lessons, to make cheaper immigrant labour viable in his plant. (he was remarkably "socialist" at times, for an avowed racist nazi-supporting anti-unionist providing high quality housing and out-bidding his competitors on wages. Strange man.) During the worst periods of South African apartheid, the mining industry had it's own lingua franca which it taught all migrant workers coming into the deep mines.
- armatav 3y agoThey just spoke Afrikaans; still common to the mines/rural jobs today, regardless of genetics.
- ggm 3y agoOdd. I have a history book I can't lay my hands on right now (books in storage) which said there was a mining jargon for the Swahili, Xhosa, Sesotho and Swazi workers they all had to learn. It's called Fanakalo. Apparently its like a pidgin with a lot of Bantu. But if you say they gave up and just used Africaans I can believe it.
- hobs 3y agohttps://www.sahistory.org.za/article/fanakalo-language-mining-culture https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/fanakalo-language-minin...
- colechristensen 3y ago[flagged]
- wahnfrieden 3y agoBogus meme that fascists love repeating endlessly
- arcticbull 3y ago> The “zi” in Nazi is for socialism. This is so absurd, because it relies on the premise that if something has a name, that name must accurately represent the thing. After all if it did not, why would they call it that? Why indeed. We know this is obviously false by counterexample. The Democratic People's Republic of North Korea isn't exactly a democracy no matter which 'bits you scratch out', is it? > States which (as of 2022) use the term "Democratic Republic" in their official names also include many that do not hold free elections and have been rated as "undemocratic" or "unfree" by organizations that gave such ratings. Algeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, North Korea, Laos, Nepal, and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic do not hold free elections and are rated as undemocratic "hybrid regimes" or "authoritarian regimes" by the Democracy Index (The Economist).[1] The lesson here is to watch what people do, not what they say or call themselves. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_republic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_republic
- slabity 3y ago> The Information reported some of the gruesome incidents that have occurred at the Gigafactory in Austin, Texas, where one out of every 21 workers were reportedly hurt in 2022. The data is derived from the required injury reports Tesla submits to OSHA. Can anyone familiar with OSHA/factory safety laws explain to me how a facility that reports 1/21 workers being injured in a single year isn't immediately shut down and fully investigated? Is this a manipulation of reported data? Or does OSHA really have no teeth regarding this situation?
- InvestorType 3y agoHow does this compare to other car manufacturers in the US? What about China and Mexico? Strange that The Verge and the Information don't provide those statistics...
- geepytee 3y agoFWIW some of these 'injuries' are basically paper cuts.
- justrealist 3y agoYes this is one of those situations where responsible employers report more minor injuries, and then it is used against them by people who don't know better. Guess what... the meatpacking plant in Iowa with 98% undocumented immigrants is not reporting all their injuries because they are threatening their workers with deportation.
- terminous 3y agoFWIW, no they aren't.
- granzymes 3y agoThere are multiple reported injury rates that measure different things, just as there are multiple reported unemployment rates. This particular metric would indeed include a paper cut. A better metric is the number of injuries that required time off from work or reassignment of duties. That’s something that Tesla reports, but the article doesn’t include it.
- paulryanrogers 3y ago> ....contractors installing metal grating for elevated walkways in the factory fell to the ground due to a lack of protective equipment. Some of the metal walkway fell on top of them. Incredible. With stories like this it's amazing the whole place wasn't shutdown by regulators until management can demonstrate competence.
- dagmx 3y agoElon has a very close relationship with the Texas government as can be seen by the very brazen investigation from Ken Paxton into media matters. From the beginning, the appeal of Texas for Elon has been lower regulatory oversight.
- pixl97 3y ago[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- metaphor 3y agoYou left out the kicker: > OSHA inspected this incident and fined the contractors.
- lotsofpulp 3y agoHow is that a kicker? If you hire someone to do work at your place of business (or home), and they fail to take the necessary precautions, why would you be held responsible?
- actionfromafar 3y agoYou kicked the can so far down the road I can't even see it anymore!
- metaphor 3y agoThe parent's remark suggests Tesla management was responsible and at fault; OSHA's disposition begged to differ, and that part was conveniently omitted from context.
- manicennui 3y agoI hope the robots are okay.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- glxxyz 3y agoThat was how the headline sounded to me too.
- leetharris 3y ago[flagged]
- jrflowers 3y ago> This article is just links to other articles with absolutely no data or real analysis. This is unconscionable. Many of the other linked Verge articles include links to external information sources in the first couple of paragraphs, and the fact that it takes two clicks instead of one means that The Verge is fabricating stories.
- whiddershins 3y ago[flagged]
- russdill 3y agoIn that news organizations who choose to print negative information about musk or his companies may only do so knowing that musk is highly litigatious?
- px43 3y agoTo be clear, this is something that's been happening over the course of the past few years. This is not, as I was originally led to believe by this deceptive headline, an active Skynet scenario.
- glxxyz 3y ago"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by neglect, ignorance or incompetence."
- actionfromafar 3y agoWhen the company is family and takes care of you, you don't need unions.
- InvestorType 3y agoThis is not an indication that the workers aren't taken care of or that safety isn't a priority. On average there is one injury per 21 worker years. That includes minor bumps and scrapes.
- actionfromafar 3y agoThat includes reported bumps and scratches.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- syspec 3y ago> Tesla workers report explosions, concussions, and grisly robot injuries at Texas factory Oh wow, I hope the robots are okay!
- jtriangle 3y ago>where one out of every 21 workers were reportedly hurt in 2022. Yeah, I've worked places where if you got a papercut you had to report it to HR. They had a web portal for it. Had to do it in order to receive a band-aid once. We were also strictly forbidden from having medical supplies on-prem. No advil, no bandaids, no nothing. I'd assume those numbers are high because of a similar system in place there.
- MadnessASAP 3y agoThe article specifically calls out unreported incidents and hazards that Tesla ignored. How are you drawing the conclusion that Tesla overreports injuries?
- HeyLaughingBoy 3y agoAnd then there's common sense. I got a papercut once and asked my manager where I could find band-aids because the company nurse wasn't in that day. He took me to a first-aid station and said "I'm technically supposed to fill out an injury report but I'm not going to bother if you don't want me to." We both agreed that doing that for a paper cut would be stupid and got on with our days.
- InvestorType 3y ago[flagged]
- doubloon 3y ago"When a worker presented a solution to fix the issue, they were reprimanded that shutting it down would slow production output." There is an entire book about this called The Machine that Changed the World, written in 1990. It is about how American car builders, like General Motors, had this philosophy all through the 70s and 80s, to never stop the line because it slowed production, and ignore people making suggestings, just fix everything in rework (after the car is finished). At the same time, Japanese automakers were adopting the philosophy of stopping the line when there are issues, in fact you are trained to do this, then root-causing the problem, fixing it, and listening to workers (and in fact, many engineers have to start out working on the line). Japanese makers improved quality and production efficiency at the same time, something Americans thought was contradiction in terms, and this is why the Japanese won in the 80s and 90s. Since then basically every single automaker that is still in business has adopted pieces of that philosophy. I dont understand why Tesla seems to be thinking they can ignore 100+ years of knowledge and experience in manufacturing wisdom. I have seen ex-Tesla people on the internet even call factory workers "button pushers". This is not what factory workers are in a modern manufacturing system, everyone is part of a team whose goal is to eliminate waste and improve production process efficiency, the idea you can just let things spray metal everywhere and ignore people with solutions is mind boggling in 2023.
- KRAKRISMOTT 3y ago> I dont understand why Tesla seems to be thinking they can ignore 100+ years of knowledge and experience in manufacturing wisdom. I have seen ex-Tesla people on the internet even call factory workers "button pushers". This is not what factory workers are in a modern manufacturing system, everyone is part of a team whose goal is to eliminate waste and improve production process efficiency, the idea you can just let things spray metal everywhere and ignore people with solutions is mind boggling in 2023. Because EVs are much simpler, and more specifically, Tesla's engineering philosophy is to simplify (and save money) where possible. They shave away features and use software to supplement where possible such that the final product can be easily and cheaply manufacturered. Of course the lack of emphasis on GD&T and traditional craftsmanship is exactly why their build quality is so shoddy. Functional yes, but shoddy.
- tooManyXperts 3y agoI've spent many years in the places which, most of you arm-chair-experts have never seen (lets just call it "the places of heavy metal"): - "mega-bucks companies" don't care about federal, state, local laws. they only care about their corporate policy, - "mega-bucks companies" typically have toothless safety managers, but they generally can't stop things after ops goes over their head, these safety managers+programs exist mostly as a front, - corporations exist in order to insulate most employees (especially "managers") from personal responsibility from "bad things happening," - employees which are injured to anything past a minor extent are taken into a back room with HR, given the instruction of: 1] take a large payment (paid through the same channel as their paycheck) 2] never speak of the incident to anybody, EVER, including any co-workers, lawyers, and anybody else (although they can tell their spouse and their personal physicians), 3] must resign from their position (not always!), or they are terminated without cause (right-to-work state) as part of their backroom settlement, 33] maybe they forge retroactive "resigned/termed the day before" in order to get around the osha reporting (can't report an injury happening "today" about an employee who "quit yesterday" ha ha ha), 4] they have to give 90%+ of the money back if the employer can prove (in court) that the employee broke their bye-bye agreement. edit more: of course this is all probably illegal, but they are giving the person just enough money to be sure they will not want to talk. MANY become injured as the goal, of getting this type of large lottery payment. some payments are 10x the pay of the entire year, and these are just poor people, they ALWAYS take the money. so the employee that got blown up by the moulding machine probably got a huge backroom offer to claim they had resigned the day before the incident, or they were terminated without cause (right-to-work state), that's why there was nothing to report to osha in terms of personnel injuries. oldest trick from the book. video footage is suddenly unavailable if it is too inconvenient for the HR narrative. they do a similar with drug tests after you cause an accident: if you know you'll fail, you just clock out and go home. nobody asks because everybody knows. first thing the next day, they pull you in for the drug test that you're ready to pass. that being said, most employees who get injured at work are usually high (edit: they're high most days, and then either high or not high in the moment they get injured) sorry for my english but you gringos don't build anything anymore because it's too difficult to keep shit under wraps, unless it's a right-to-work state. in the old days of american making goods, people were injured all the time. think I am bullshitting? go make some farmer friends, and make some mechanics friends, eventually you'll know friends-of-the-friends who have missing fingers, etc., and they laugh as they tell you the story. they laugh because they got paid to lie. they laugh because they were paid to never say they got paid. they laugh because the actual way they got hurt is too bad to say. blood mist cloud. one of you data freaks should plot the: 1] illegal immigration rate in right-to-work vs not states 2] the lack of osha reports in such right-to-work states compared to those same industries in the not states - I bet you do not find the same amounts of industries in the not-right-to-work states! 3] overwhelming osha compliance in not-write-to-work states you may find something interesting. AI can not come soon enough for these business leaders, all of these get-hurt-on-purpose workers will be gone!!! I think the only difference is, those who get hurt for the payment, and those who were just trying to do a good job and were hurt honest by the system.