Death threats, sexist remarks: Big tech companies with a small heart?
- A worker at Tesla's Fremont plant has accused the company of poor working conditions.
- Factory workers have reached out to the United Auto Workers to form a union.
- Elon Musk to investigate and publish the results.
FollowTesla CEO Elon Musk has now been refuting allegations of poor working conditions at its factory. The news came to light when Jose Moran, a worker from Tesla's Fremont plant who has worked for the company for the past four years said the workers will be reaching out to the United Auto Workers to form a union.
From frequent injuries as the machines aren't compatible with workers' bodies, low pay, mandatory overtime and more are said to be the issues faced by workers. But, Tesla isn’t the first, and there have been several big tech companies who have been accused of the poor working conditions of its workers.
Death threats
Last year, Apple hit headlines for its work culture, and the news gave us some harsh truth about the working conditions. NDA signed employees, under anonymity, revealed that Apple store employees get paid a meagre sum. There are no bonuses on big sales and if the there is a promotion, and then Apple prefers an outsider over internal promotions. But what came as a shock were death threats from customers.
Needless to say, Apple and Foxconn are often accused on extremely poor working conditions for its employees in China factories including low pay, unhygienic conditions and inedible food.
Amazon's harrowing treatment of workers
The New York Times' Jodi Kantor and David Streitfeld had interviewed about 100 former Amazon employees and the result was shocking. Some harrowing experience came forth including warning a woman suffering from breast cancer about low productivity and losing her job, and asking a woman with a miscarriage to travel the right next day on a business trip. Jeff Bezos wrote a letter stating 'its not the Amazon he knows' and employees facing any issue can write to him directly.
Facebook's sexism
A tell-all book by an ex-employee named The Boy Kings: A Journey into the Heart of the Social Network claimed the poor state of women workers at Facebook. From being propositioned for threesome to making nasty comments like 'I want to put my teeth in your ass', women employees were often treated at secondary help. Apparently, female employees were also asked to wear T-shirts with Zuckerberg's name printed on them on his 22nd birthday. The situation started changing only after Sheryl Sandberg joined the company, reports point out.
Google! Yes you heard that right!
Dropcam founder Greg Duffy had written how selling Dropcam to Google's owned smart home product manufacturer Nest was a mistake. The letter was in response to Tony Fadell blaming the workers for the inability to come with a profitable product. Finally, Fadell had to step down as the chief. A Nest employee was fired for posting memes on Facebook, and later filed a case against Google and Nest.
