NV construction groups call on Tesla to reexamine gigafactory hiring practices

Dive Brief:

Construction workers protested Tesla's gigafactory hiring policies outside the company's annual shareholders' meeting Wednesday, while building trade union representatives presented CEO Elon Musk with a letter asking him to adhere to his previous hiring promises, Northern Nevada Business News reported.
Nevada trade union officials said they are concerned about the number of out-of-state workers being brought onto the project, as well as alleged safety violations. They asked Musk to commit to creating good jobs for workers in the state.
Before breaking ground on the gigafactory, Tesla agreed to hire at least 50% Nevadans to perform construction work in exchange for nearly $1.5 billion in state tax incentives.

Dive Insight:

Todd M. Koch, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Northern Nevada, said workers are invested in the management of the project because, as part of their pension plans, they are also Tesla stockholders and want the company to operate "sustainably and ethically."

Koch also referred to a gigafactory jobsite incident in March when workers staged a walk-off after union representatives said that New Mexico-based contractor Brycon Corp. was bringing workers from out of state onto the project. At the time, Koch said Brycon started off using the agreed-upon number of Nevadans, but, as the workload started to increase, Brycon began using out-of-state labor.

This latest protest comes soon after immigrant construction workers at Tesla's painting facility in Fremont, CA, said they were only paid $5 per hour. They said they had been promised $12.70 per hour, but, according to Musk, the subcontractor and general contractor responsible for hiring on the project agreed in writing to pay all workers $55 per hour. In a lawsuit initiated by one of the workers who fell on the job and seriously injured, the workers also said that they were brought from Slovenia on B1-B2 visas to work at the plant, but those visas expressly forbid the type of construction work they were hired to perform.

Tesla revealed this week that it will hold its gigafactory grand opening on July 29, even though it announced the project was only 14% complete earlier this month. The arrival of Tesla and its gigafactory to the Reno area has been credited with a subsequent surge of business in the region. In December, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported that county business licenses increased 41% and that the majority were for trades and construction.