Tesla in Germany

In December of 2021, Tesla, the world’s most valuable car company and leading electronic vehicle (EV) maker, was poised to open a massive new plant in Germany. In the U.S., the company had kept unions and any workers’ role in management out of its facilities, but Germany was the home of labor and management codetermination. To avoid codetermination, Tesla had registered as a European Company (Societas Europaea or SE), a legal maneuver that allowed the company to escape Germany’s strict labor laws. Most observers believed that IG Metall, Germany’s largest union, would not let Tesla flout German labor laws and traditions and was preparing for battle. The union represented the bulk of the country’s autoworkers as well as metal, textile, and electrical workers. Analysts described IG Metall as the world’s most powerful union in part because German laws made labor an equal partner in industrial relations with management. To allow Tesla to operate outside the German labor framework would be a