(Bloomberg) — Elon Musk is no friend of unions. Labor officials at his rivals are cheering on workers at Tesla Inc.’s German factory to organize anyway.
Unionists from Volkswagen AG, Mercedes-Benz AG and BMW AG are backing efforts to set up a works council at the plant near Berlin in a vote scheduled for Monday, according to a video from the country’s powerful IG Metall union.
“We are a premium manufacturer, you are a premium manufacturer,” said Daniela Zimmer, a labor representative at a Porsche plant in Leipzig.
“So let’s work together to ensure that your working conditions also are premium.”
Tesla’s German factory is designed to eventually churn out as many as half a million cars annually and employ thousands of people in a region with little heavy industry.
Yet Tesla has so far refused to sign the kind of wage agreements that are standard in Europe’s biggest economy, putting the carmaker on a collision course with 2.3 million-member IG Metall.
READ MORE: Elon Musk Takes Tesla’s Endless War on Labor Unions to Germany
Labor officials from a Robert Bosch GmbH plant in Dresden and a nearby ArcelorMittal SA facility also joined the statement, saying they’ll supply the Tesla plant with semiconductors and steel, respectively.
The vast majority of Germany’s large industrial companies have some form of worker representation.
Labor representatives usually account for half of the supervisory board seats at the top companies, and can influence strategic decisions.
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