The announcement sounded a bit like quoting the film “Spaceballs“by Mel Brooks. In the science fiction parody, a spaceship flies at” insane speed “(” ludicrous speed “), which is what the instruments really mean Elon Musk Was it completely serious when he announced on Twitter that the new factory of Tesla in Grünheide, Brandenburg will arise with “unimaginable speed”.
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Musk generally has no problem acting so confidently that he brushes the edge of the comic. The so-called Gigafactory is expected to produce cars as early as next year, which sounds unimaginable. It is less than an hour’s drive from Berlin’s capital city airport, which should have been completed eight years ago. On the other hand: Until a year ago, it was also not certain whether Tesla could actually make profits – now the California car maker is the star of the stock exchanges and is valued higher there than the competition of classic car manufacturers.
The factory near Berlin should be ready to start next summer, state-of-the-art even with its own battery production, plus a development center in the capital. That would be a record-breaking two years after the announcement. For comparison: BMW needed almost four years for its plant in Leipzig, and that was by no means a bad value.
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But what will Tesla be like as an employer in Germany? The job advertisements that the company places, invite you to interpret the text. That “team players” are sought who can “grab it” – for free. That one should speak German and English – standard in a US company. It is remarkable how Tesla always speaks of his “vision” of selling “sustainable mobility” to the world. In this sense, applicants should be able to “take the team to the next level”. And engineers are ready to solve problems on weekends or at night.
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World improvement in 40 hours a week
One quickly thinks of the usual start-up clichés: everyone for the cause, everyone for the company. That often means: with hurray in self-exploitation. Tesla boss Elon Musk himself maintains these pictures: You can’t change the world with a 40-hour week, he wrote on Twitter. He claims to have already worked 120 hours a week, 80 he finds a lot for himself as CEO, but appropriate. It sounds a bit like a measure of passion, a term that is popular with self-proclaimed world improvers.
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On the other hand, you cannot change the world all the time, it is often exhausting enough to build a couple of decent cars – both of which help extended recovery periods.
With Germany, Tesla ventures into a country that has comparatively strict labor legislation. Employees should be protected from exploitation, as is often practiced in Silicon Valley, for example through working time rules that prescribe reasonable breaks. Although there are large unions in the United States, at least in the auto industry, Musk, for example, has so far had little to fear from its factory in Austin, Texas.
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In Germany, on the other hand, it says: “Welcome to the country of participation”. This is how Roman Zitzelsberger, the district manager of IG Metall in Baden-Württemberg put it. There are two things in the sentence: on the one hand, the warning that large industrial companies in Germany cannot be run in the manner of large capitalists, and on the other hand, an honest welcome.
Finally, trade unionists are happy about future-oriented jobs that Tesla will probably offer. “We welcome Tesla’s move to Grünheide,” says Holger Wachsmann, managing director of the IG Metall Ostbrandenburg responsible. “Success models in Germany include codetermination and their works councils. We assume that Tesla will respect the German codetermination culture.”
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Nevertheless, it should be a difficult learning process – for both sides. Wachsmann’s colleagues in Prüm, Rhineland-Palatinate, have had little experience: in 2017 Tesla took over Grohmann, a medium-sized company that specializes in manufacturing robots for the automotive industry. Grohmann had around 700 employees at the time; the sale price was rumored to be $ 150 million, but was not publicly confirmed by any party.
Soon the workers threatened to go on strike, the union demanded that the collective agreement be taken over, or at least more salary. The payment was then 25 to 30 percent below tariff, which was not Tesla’s fault. The new owner had taken over the wage structure.
The trade unionists argued with growing insecurity, they worried about jobs. Founder Klaus Grohmann, who was originally supposed to pass on the new Tesla subsidiary, gave up after a few months. At that time, Tesla had never made an operating profit in any quarter. First it was said that the supplier would continue to serve its old customers – including Daimler, BMW, VW – orders were now canceled in bulk so that the Grohmann specialists could concentrate on Tesla’s Model 3. This monoculture also gave employees a headache.
Reminder: Tesla had massive problems with the Model 3 at the time. The car should be affordable, convince the mass market of electric cars – and lead Tesla into the profit zone. However, manufacturing breakdowns and production deficiencies hailed the start of demanding large-scale production, and the ambitious goals could not be met. At that time there was a permanent alarm at Tesla.
After all, there was obviously more work for Grohmann than expected. Overtime accumulated, especially when working abroad. The production specialists were supposed to get the assembly line production going on bending and breaking.
A lot of work, good supplements
But these efforts had side effects. In February reported the “Wirtschaftswoche”, the Rhineland-Palatinate Ministry of Labor is investigating whether Tesla violates working time regulations. The ministry said that the company was in discussion about this. Tesla said the allegations were “in no way correct”.
The works councils at Grohmann no longer want to comment on the case. The conflict is not over. However, the overall picture also includes: overtime is obviously well paid at Grohmann. As the “Wirtschaftswoche” writes, you get a surcharge of 25 percent for the first two hours of overtime, for each additional 50 percent – and sometimes twice as much on Sundays and public holidays. In this way, the additional work can be made tasty for many employees.
Tesla is definitely demanding. But the company also knows how to make itself attractive – the broad-breasted ego show by Chef Musk also serves that purpose.
Participants from Brandenburg report that Tesla is adept at recruiting events. They conjure up the world change spirit of the electric car pioneer that Musk always strives for. And they spark interest with chic little things, such as the plan for a techno disco on the company roof. This is how young employees are targeted. The boys don’t earn that much yet and don’t have families as often – good conditions for overtime.
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Another advantage of the Grünheide location is its proximity to Poland: there are many well-trained specialists with a lower wage level, Tesla specifically addresses them. In the corporate environment, there is talk of a third of the 12,000 employees with whom Tesla officially plans to come from there, many as day commuters. This is quite common in the region, otherwise the number of positions cannot be filled.
Some now fear that such colleagues could be much more suffering and cheaper. But Tesla will not get its skilled workers, technicians and engineers too cheap, because even without Tesla they are in great demand on the job market. And of course you only want “the best specialists”, someone like Musk doesn’t do it underneath.
So is it a collective agreement? So far not at Grohmann. For Grünheide, Tesla would have to become a member of the Association of Metal Employers, which is still open. On the other hand, one thing can be certain: Whenever employees demand more money, Tesla should first offer its own shares. That was already the case with Grohmann, but when the papers were not yet rated so highly. Whether this is an attractive offer is primarily a question of belief.
At the moment, Tesla has hired “a three-digit number” to Grünheide. Here, too, it will probably continue at an unimaginable pace.
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