Dear colleagues,
the second works council election in the history of Tesla Grünheide is right around the corner. And for the first time IG Metall will present its own list running in the election. This FAQ serves to adress the most urgent questions we receive as well as to debunk some of the most common myths that are circulating in regards to the works council election.
The election will take place on the 18th, 19th and 20th February 2024.
Yes! The list is called "IG Metall - Tesla Workers GFBB" and contains 106 candidates from all areas of the Gigafactory.
Everyone that is a Tesla Grünheide employee and and that is at least 16 years old. Also those from temp agencies (such as Manpower) are eligible to vote, if their stay with the company perspectively exceeds three months of engagement at Tesla
There will always be more money with a collective agreement than without it! Employees join trade unions in order to improve their working conditions, not to make them worse. Why should IG Metall sign collective agreements that would effectively mean that you as members would earn less than before?
This cannot happen, especially because the members of IG Metall always vote on the demands and the negotiated result in their respective companies. No collective agreement is signed without the consent of the union’s members. And if you‘d actually earn less with a collective agreement, in this case Tesla would save a lot of money: what is management so worried about then?
Good works councils and collective agreements by IG Metall ensure a fair and transparent procedure for promotions. That means: equal opportunities for all! It is not relationships with superiors or official training that are decisive, but rather skills, competences and performance!
How to get promoted to a higher position at Tesla now, after all remains unclear and non-transparent. It often depends on who you know and with whom you have a good personal relationship. It is not uncommon for colleagues to be held out for months with the promise of a better position, while rarely receiving it in the end. Many employees rightly see this as a great injustice and a lack of appreciation.
IG Metall collective agreements clearly state: What is paid is the job requirements and what you have to be able to do, not the official level of training absolved prior tot hat – this assures fairness and transparency.
It really doesn't matter how you acquired the needed skills: it could in training, on the job, on the computer at home or at the workbench in your house garage.
In its collective agreements, IG Metall also advocates the possibility of qualification and training for all. Works councils with a trade union majority are required for the consistent implementation of collective agreements of sorts.
To sum it up: in IG Metall's collective agreements, pay is based on the activity on the job and not on what qualifications you have previously completed.
IG Metall will always fight for higher pay for all employees, without exception.
This is nothing but a hollow threat:
1.) Tesla wants to rise quickly and expand. In order to do that, the company needs the plant in Grünheide and the planned plant expansions Not expanding Grünheide or even abandoning the factory is not an option at all. It would set Tesla back in the race for the top spots in the highly competitive e-car-market.
2.) The fact that the workforce would organize itself in IG Metall and will at some point strive for a collective agreement was an option from the very start.
In Germany, the workforce in the automotive industry is well organized in trade unions, works councils usually have union majorities and collective agreements apply everywhere. Elon Musk also knew this when he chose Grünheide as Tesla’s next location Europe.
To conclude: Elon Musk will decide whether or not to expand the plant, regardless of whether the workforce here is organized or not. And for any worst-case-scenario, there are many examples of successful union resistance to plant closures, for example at Daimler in Berlin-Marienfelde.
Membership in IG Metall costs each member 1% of their gross salary (before taxes). Those who earn a lot pay a little more, those who earn less pay a little less in accordance with the idea of solidarity and sticking up for one another in the trade union.
IG Metall is financed exclusively by its members' contributions, which means that it does not accept any money neither from the state nor from companies. It therefore remains independent in the interests of its own members and cannot be blackmailed. The IG Metall strike fund is also filled from the membership fees. If the employers are unwilling to listen to good arguments and IG Metall has to call for strike, its members can rely on strike pay from that fund.
Membership fees are used to finance IG Metall's offices, its staff, its services for members (e.g. legal protection and strike pay) as well as for the materials for the electoral campaign run by the IG Metall lists in works council elections.
The members of IG Metall have already achieved a great deal at Tesla: sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly. On the one hand, Tesla's wage system already refers to the collective bargaining standards set by IG Metall in other collective agreements; on the other hand, the actions of IG Metall members and supporters at Tesla are already made an impact.
In October 2023, over a 1000 colleagues pledged their allegiance to IG Metall by wearing stickers during their shift, which followed shortly afterwards by a pay rise.
If just wearing a sticker can convince the Tesla management to hand out a pay rise, just imagine what might be possible if even more colleagues took part in IG Metall actions in the future?
IG Metall is constructed by its members in their companies and therefore can never come "from the outside". The union consists of its active union members at Tesla. It is them carrying the union movement and leading it.
What IG Metall does, demands and agrees at Tesla is therefore also decided by its active members in the company.
There is no such thing as "the" IG Metall. It is built in each company by its members and adapts to every company's specific circumstances everywhere.
But what unites all IG Metall members is the common goal of good working and living conditions. They all know that they can best be achieved in a collective initiative.
Colleagues in other automotive companies, other industries and even apprentices and students looking for a good industry job in the future - they all support the IG Metall members at Tesla because they know that a trade union can only succeed when many support each other.
Companies should compete with each other based on the quality of their products and not based on the competition of who can push wages down the most.
Works councils are an important instrument for improving working conditions. For fundamental and long-term improvements at Tesla however, a collective agreement is needed through which - among other things - higher wages, more vacation days and fewer working hours can be implimented - none of which a works council can do within its range of possibilities.
Nonetheless, works councils can regulate many things in the interests of the workforce. This is why IG Metall members for the upcoming works council election are running with a list of their own.
However, the works council is limited in what it can do. Negotiations on pay levels for example, require the union, as only the union can conclude a collective agreement and - if necessary - enforce it by the means of a strike.
Union busting is a concept developed in the USA and involves a whole range of measures. It usually starts with simple, seemingly naive conversations with superiors (that are interrogations in reality) and end with open propaganda in mandatory so-called „captive audience meetings“, where lies about unions are spread repeatedly.
Its aim is to portray the union as an enemy, as external and as harmful to the company and its workers. It is of great importance to keep that in mind during the electoral campaign. Management has a plan and discussions about the union (especially with superiors) are therefore rarely unplanned. The german "General Equal Treatment Act" (AGG) stipulates that you may not be discriminated against for being a union member and, legally speaking, employers and/or superiors are not even allowed to ask whether you belong to a union or not.
Similarly, you are not obliged to make your trade union membership public if you do not wish to do so. If conversations about the electoral campaign or IG Metall seem interrogative you, you can always refer your superiors to the General Equal Treatment Act or ask where their unusual interest in IG Metall suddenly came from.
Have you experienced/observed situations that seemed like targeted actions against the union and/or individual union members? Report anti-union activities to us via the contact formular on this homepage!
IG Metall is a democratic organization. It is politically independent, but never neutral. It fights solely for the interests of its members: for livable working conditions and wages and for a good life. It is resolutely opposed to fascism and discrimination through racism and sexism and is committed to the democratic co-determination of workers in their workplace.
With around half a million members with a migration background, it is therefore also the largest migrant organization in Germany and the largest single trade union in the world with almost 2.2 million members.
IG Metall is a democratic organization. It is politically independent, but never neutral. It fights solely for the interests of its members: for livable working conditions and wages and for a good life. It is resolutely opposed to fascism and discrimination through racism and sexism and is committed to the democratic co-determination of workers in their workplace.
With around half a million members with a migration background, it is therefore also the largest migrant organization in Germany and the largest single trade union in the world with almost 2.2 million members.
