California is investigating Tesla for workplace safety

Tesla plant [image credit: Steve Jurvetson @ Wikipedia]

More negative publicity for the electric car maker. The report includes a response from Tesla, in which it says: ‘The injury rate at our Fremont factory is half what it was in the final years of the UAW plant operated by GM/Toyota immediately before us, and we care deeply about the safety and well-being of our people and strive to do better every day.’ Are electric car plants more dangerous than non-electric ones?

Days after reports of possible dangerous working conditions, Tesla is now under investigation by California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health, as Futurism reports.

Well, people, it’s happening: California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) is officially investigating Tesla, according to a statement.

A brief summary of what got us here: On Monday, investigative outlet Reveal published a story with some pretty horrific depictions of workplace injuries happening at Tesla’s factory in Fremont, California that the company had failed to report to the proper authorities.

Tesla refuted the claims in a blog post, in which the company called the story “an ideologically motivated attack by an extremist organization working directly with union supporters to create a calculated disinformation campaign against Tesla.”

And now, Cal/OSHA is getting involved to actually see what’s going down.

While Cal/OSHA’s statement doesn’t specifically name the Reveal story, or where the “reports of workplace hazards and allegations of employers’ underreporting recordable work-related injuries and illnesses” came from, it’s pretty easy to speculate that that’s what prompted the investigation.

Here’s Cal/OSHA’s full statement, emailed to Futurism by a spokesperson.
. . .
This isn’t Cal/OSHA’s first investigation into Tesla’s working conditions. A search of the federal OSHA database reveals 20 such investigations over the past five years.