Over 1,900 people are employed at the facility, and more than 800 are assigned to Autopilot labeling. Their pay begins at $19 per hour, and they are leading the charge (no pun intended) for unionizing. It’s important to point out that these workers are not organizing with the UAW but rather the Service Employees International Union affiliate, Workers United.
The organization has had a successful track record of unionizing employees across the country, including those from Starbucks. Ironically, the union’s first successful Starbucks unionization effort was with a location only six miles away from this Tesla plant.
Tesla has yet to comment on the employees’ union effort, and it isn’t likely to since the carmaker lacks a PR department. At the time of writing, Musk has not commented about the situation on Twitter.