‘The factory of the future’ Historical continuity and labor rights at Tesla

Abstract

Literature on Tesla, the electric car-maker, has been overwhelmingly positive. Largely written by reporters or technology enthusiasts, the focus is on innovation–how Tesla is shaking up the industry, acting as a ‘disrupter of Detroit’, and launching an electric car ‘revolution’. Tesla’s signature plant in Fremont, California has also been viewed, as CEO Elon Musk puts it, as the ‘factory of the future’. This article changes the focus, looking at the experience of Tesla’s workers and showing that there was nothing futuristic about their working conditions. Like generations of earlier factory workers - especially in auto-making - Tesla workers complained about low wages, high workloads, mandatory overtime, and workplace injuries. Faced with demands for union recognition, Tesla’s opposition also followed broader historical patterns. Placing Tesla within the context of labor relations in auto-making– rather than viewing it as a separate, technology-based start-up–this article argues that Tesla was the factory of the past as much as the future. Ultimately, the questions raised by Tesla’s story were familiar ones of worker rights, despite the product being made. Low wages and lack of collective bargaining had faced millions of American workers for decades. In twenty-first century America, they remain key issues.