Elon Musk, UAW spar over Tesla plant conditions

The United Auto Workers signalled Friday that it’s gathering support to unionize Tesla’s assembly plant after someone claiming to be an employee of the automaker publicly criticized the company over factory conditions.

The UAW confirmed Friday that Tesla workers “have approached the UAW, and we welcome them with open arms.”

The union said those workers included Jose Moran, who published a blog post Thursday on a site called Medium alleging that “preventable injuries happen often,” workers are forced into “excessive mandatory overtime,” dissent is stifled and compensation is inadequate.

Tesla’s California factory is the only assembly plant owned by an American automaker that is not unionized. All General Motors, Ford and Fiat Chrysler plants in the United States are unionized, while none of the foreign automaker plants in the country have unions.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk disputed Moran’s claims in a Twitter message Thursday to tech blog Gizmodo, saying that mandatory overtime is limited, compensation is sufficient and the accusations are “morally outrageous.”

“Our understanding is that this guy was paid by the UAW to join Tesla and agitate for a union. He doesn’t really work for us, he works for the UAW,” Musk said, without providing evidence.

The UAW shot back Friday: “Mr. Moran is not and has not been paid by the UAW. We would hope that Tesla would apologize to their employee, Mr. Moran, for spreading fake news about him.”

Organizing the Tesla plant would reflect a major victory for the UAW, which has failed repeatedly to add a foreign auto plant to its roster of unionized factories.

UAW president Dennis Williams said in May that the company remained interested in unionizing the plant.