Union swag at Tesla is in. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) stated that Tesla’s current dress code policy was unlawful. Specifically, the half the place it solely allowed workers to put on Tesla or different pre-approved black tee shirts. That coverage meant union swag was not allowed — a hindrance to anybody making an attempt to arrange or present union solidarity.
Tesla’s coverage went into impact in 2017, and workers had been reportedly told they couldn’t wear shirts baring the United Auto Workers logo. Tesla tried to justify its costume coverage to the board claiming that its black shirts forestall harm to vehicles and it wanted to take care of “visual management” of its workers. The NLRB rejected this.
“With today’s decision, the Board reaffirms that any attempt to restrict the wearing of union clothing or insignia is presumptively unlawful,” stated NLRB Chairman Lauren McFerran. Special circumstances live on and permit employers to use minor restrictions, corresponding to dimension and placement of the union insignia.
A prominent example of a “special circumstance” classification is how Wal-Mart argued that customer-facing workers wanted to take care of skilled apparel. While it could be troublesome for union supporters at Tesla to put on a crimson shirt (the widespread colour for union solidarity) with the UAW emblem, Tesla can’t prohibit them from sporting the brand itself.
Tesla enforced a rule prohibiting the sporting of t-shirts with any emblem in addition to the Tesla emblem throughout a union drive.
The employer would enable workers to put on their very own black t-shirts with supervisory approval, however not black t-shirts with a union emblem.
— NLRB (@NLRB) August 29, 2022
Labor organizing at Tesla wasn’t halted by the costume code. In 2019, a decide dominated that the corporate had been sabotaging unionization efforts. The NLRB additionally compelled Musk to delete anti-union tweets from 2018. In March of this yr Tesla CEO Elon Musk even invited the UAW to carry a union vote. That was much less a name for safeguarding labor rights on the firm and extra an apparent dare on Twitter to show unionization isn’t obligatory at Tesla. “I’d like hereby to invite UAW to hold a union vote at their convenience. Tesla will do nothing to stop them.” Musk stated on the time.
While no vote has occurred, organizers ought to have a better time exhibiting solidarity due to the NLRB’s newest ruling.
