Samuel Messidor
The Fifth Circuit Court has ruled in favor of Tesla’s ban on wearing union t-shirts on its production lines. This reverses the 2022 NLRB decision on the matter, which stated that union apparel could not be limited unless the apparel jeopardized worker safety or could damage machinery.
The court justified its decision by referencing a 1986 Supreme Court case where a Jewish Air Force officer was denied the right to wear a yarmulke with his uniform. In 1986, the court ruled that the First Amendment did not apply as strictly to the military as to civilians because “to accomplish its mission the military must foster instinctive obedience, unity, commitment, and esprit de corps.” The Fifth Circuit echoed this language in its ruling in favor of Tesla, claiming that “The uniform requirement fosters discipline, promotes uniformity, encourages esprit de corps, and increases readiness,” and, also quoting the 1986 case, “the traditional outfitting of personnel in standardized uniforms encourages the subordination of personal preferences and identities in favor of the overall group mission.” In this case, the “group mission” is apparently the ability of capitalists to exploit the workers more efficiently.
Tesla claims wearing shirts displaying union slogans creates unsafe working conditions because management relies on black shirts to visually distinguish between sections of workers. The union shirts in question, worn in a 2017 unionization drive, were black.
Tesla and its celebrity “richest man in the world” CEO Elon Musk are serial union busters. In February 2023, just one day after workers publicly announced their unionization drive, the corporation fired 30 workers from a Buffalo, NY plant in retaliation for their organizing efforts. In November, the NLRB declared the terminations lawful.
Meanwhile in Scandinavia, the worker action against Tesla is growing into a regional strike involving unions across multiple countries in response to Tesla’s refusal to sign onto a collective bargaining agreement with Swedish mechanics.
