Will UAW Launch Drive vs. Musk, Tesla?

Jan. 7, 2024—Well-placed sources report that the nation’s largest and most powerful industrial union, the United Autoworkers (UAW), is considering launching an organizing drive against nation’s loudest anti-union spokesman, Elon Musk, and his non-union electric car company, Tesla.

Musk, who believes that unions are among the pernicious evils of modern society and inhibit economic progress, has asserted that he would move his production facilities outside the U.S. rather than submit to a union contract.

The UAW, fresh from its strike victory against the “Big Three” U.S. automakers this past fall, which secured a fair contract, protecting its members against inflation and efforts to reduce benefits, reportedly believes that a battle with Musk is inevitable and that it was propitious to wage the fight during this Presidential election year when candidates will tend to be more sympathetic to workers’ causes than to the eccentric and outspoken young, multi-hundred billionaire.

UAW officials are also said to view Tesla as vulnerable, as Musk, like other electric car maker executives had gambled on there being a bigger market for EVs than has materialized. And while Tesla and other electric car producers had their best quarter ever in sales in the last quarter of 2023, they failed to make serious headway in overall market share and are well behind their projections. This has left automakers, Telsa included, scrambling to cut potential losses from over-investment in production.

The union leaders believe that when Musk, as expected, refuses to accede to their organizing and contract plans, he will be vulnerable to an international boycott campaign. “He will go bonkers,” said a union source, “and only expose himself further as the fascist he is.”

The union also sees some of the handwriting on the wall. Tesla recently delayed plans for a new “gigafactory” in the northern border state of Neuvo Leon, Mexico, (for which Tesla has already received land-use permits from Mexico’s federal Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources), which had been intended to meet ramped-up demand.

“Musk is not stupid,” another source said. “He knows what is coming and will try to shift production to lower-wage areas.” Musk has repeated arguments similar to those of Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, an advocate of what he calls “Stakeholder Capitalism,” who says that supposed far-sighted policymakers, seeking alleged benefits for future generations (in this case by promoting the substitution of EVs for gasoline-burning vehicles), have the right to demand that current workers make sacrifices now for the benefit of those who come after them.

“That’s all the same old garbage,” said a union source. “Let the workers sacrifice and the rich make super profits. Musk claims his workforce thinks like him. Let’s get in there and organize and see if that is so.”

Musk, who acquired the Twitter social media platform in October 2022, functioning as its CEO until June 2023—it was rebranded X in July 2023—avowing that he would allow free speech, has reportedly threatened to fire anyone who speaks favorably about unions.