Report Claims Tesla Employees Face Unsafe Working Conditions

As electric car manufacturer Tesla gets ready to deliver more and more of its mass-market Model 3 car to waiting consumers, a new report sheds light on potentially unsafe working conditions at the company. A report from Bloomberg Businessweek claims workers at Tesla’s Fremont, California, plant are overworked and, at one point, were asked to walk through raw sewage on the job.

The Thursday feature from Bloomberg focused primarily on Tesla’s push to meet production demand for the Model 3, which starts at $35,000. If CEO Elon Musk and the rest of his team are successful, they could make a huge dent in the automotive market with a relatively affordable electric car. However, Tesla simply could not produce Model 3s at an acceptable rate.

Nowadays, Tesla is manufacturing Model 3s in a large tent outside the factory in order to meet demand. Musk has tweeted photos from within the facility in recent months.

The crux of Bloomberg’s report is that employees at the Fremont facility regularly work shifts as long as 12 hours, with 16-hour shifts happening on occasion. Employees, both current and former, described the Tesla factory one with a culture of employee exhaustion and burnout. Newcomers would lose energy and become "like zombies" within weeks, one Telsa production associate told Bloomberg. At times, the company reportedly provides free Red Bull energy drinks to employees to keep them upright.

Apparently, there is so much pressure to be productive that factory workers had to wade through raw sewage after it spilled on the floor. Tesla, for its part, said plumbing was not a problem and it had not heard of managers telling anyone to do that.

Tesla workers are not unionized, as Musk has spoken out against the idea in the past. The Fremont plant has previously been accused of not only unsafe working conditions but also of unchecked racism by employees.

The company recently laid off nine percent of its workforce as it struggles to attain profitability.