“I am actually bored with approving orders to purchase extra espresso cups.”
Mug of Demise
Other than union busting and underplaying environmental concerns, Tesla’s operations in Germany are coping with yet one more disaster: tens of hundreds of espresso mugs mysteriously vanishing.
As German information company Deutsche Welle reports, managers have needed to order a daft variety of them over time.
“I am simply going to provide you a determine,” Gigafactory Berlin plant supervisor Andre Thierig informed workers throughout a current employees assembly. “We have purchased 65,000 espresso mugs since we began manufacturing right here. 65,000!”
“Statistically talking, every of you already has 5 Ikea espresso cups at dwelling,” he added. “I am actually bored with approving orders to purchase extra espresso cups,” threatening to take away all cutlery from break rooms.
Good Cuppa
Whereas Thierig’s remarks garnered him a energetic response from the gang, stolen espresso mugs are solely the tip of the iceberg. The manufacturing facility within the German state of Brandenburg has been embroiled in controversy even earlier than building started in 2022.
Again in 2020, as an example, the native authorities introduced that it’d acquired a whopping 406 objections to the plant’s building.
Residents even took to the streets, protesting the clearing of a lot of timber and a large pressure on native ingesting water provides and high quality.
Earlier this 12 months, the manufacturing facility needed to be shut down and evacuated after a suspected arson attack left the location with out energy, an incident the corporate later used to elucidate a massive drop in year-over-year sales.
A month later, a swarm of masked protesters broke down a fence and stormed the grounds, highlighting widespread displeasure with Tesla’s plans to increase its operations.
“Corporations like Tesla are there to save lots of the automobile business, they’re not there to save lots of the local weather,” anti-Tesla group Flip Off the Faucet spokesperson Esther Kamm told Wired on the time.
In the meantime, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has tried to draw expertise by constructing a “mega rave cave.” The nightclub opened its doors final week.
However whether or not these efforts will likely be sufficient to persuade them stays to be seen. The corporate has actively fought in opposition to its Berlin-based workers from unionizing. Whereas nearly all of employees voted against union representatives of the highly effective business union IG Metall in March, the union has made vital progress, as Electrek reported earlier this month.
In brief, Tesla employees have already needed to cope with mass layoffs, notoriously unsafe working conditions, rampant discrimination, and low pay.
No less than in Germany, they get to take a mug or three dwelling for his or her troubles.
Extra on Tesla Berlin: Protesters Break Fence, Swarm Tesla Gigafactory
