It is an incident that André Thierig, Tesla’s production director for the German plant, called “True beyond words!” A union representative from Germany’s largest metalworker union, IG Metall, has been accused of secretly recording an employee council meeting at the plant on Tuesday. According to Thierig, Tesla “called the police and filed a criminal complaint!”

A person recording a meeting may not seem explosive at first, but the labor unrest at the Berlin-Brandenberg Tesla Gigafactory has been going on for years now, and since German labor laws and practices reflect a foreign society that lacks American freedom, the details may be a bit difficult to understand if you are not familiar with labor politics here in Europe, but you want to know labor politics here.

IG Metall has been duking it out with Tesla in Berlin since the plant first opened. The potential employees of the first hiring were reported, according to IG Metall, that they were offered 20% less than German autoworkers with collective bargaining agreements. Giga Berlin STUCK the only non-union automotive plant in Germany.

There should not be a push towards ‘unionisation’

Contrary to the stereotype you may have in your head, unions are less common in Germany than in the US But that’s not because the labor movement there is as weak as it is here. As is common throughout Europe, the ubiquity of sectoral bargaining means that collective bargaining agreements are mostly for non-union workers.

About half of German workers have collective bargaining agreements, and wage standards and conditions are more worker-friendly across the country. In neighboring France, unions are less common than in Germany, however 96% of workers in the private sector covered by collective bargaining agreements. In other words, labor disputes outside the US may not necessarily revolve around the familiar climax of a card check, and result in employees having a contract and paying dues.

Although there is no union or collective bargaining agreement, all German workplaces with more than 20 employees belong to elected works councils—and that is the core of what is happening in Giga Berlin today. Management-controlled works councils can be boring channels of communication that only prevent conflict between workers and their employers, or, if controlled by a union, they can be a source of pain for the company.

Why IG Metall stayed after a defeat

When Giga Berlin opened, Tesla’s The initial plan for the staff was heavy on managementand all managers helped set up a management-friendly works council. But IG Metall did not just kneel in defeat. In 2023, IG Metall claims that Giga workers secretly complaining about long hours, short breaks, and NDAs which instills fear of retaliation from employers if workers speak up.

In 2024, after the plant is quickly staffed, a new labor council election becomes legally necessary again. The IG Metall slate won a plurality in that election, but not an absolute majoritywhich sets the stage for a food fight between IG Metall and the anti-union head of the works council, Michaela Schmitz.

Also in 2024, Tesla and IG Metall are ahead of Tesla’s practice of sending managers home to workers on sick leave. According to a story in The GuardianDirk Schulze, regional director of IG Metall said that the increase in sick leave is due to “extremely long work,” at the Tesla plant, and said that “those who remain healthy are burdened with more work.” He added that if Tesla’s managers, “really want to reduce the level of disease, they need to break this vicious circle.”

According to the Guardian story, the plant’s manufacturing director, André Thierig, said the visit to the homes of sick employees was an attempt to “appeal to the employees’ work ethic.” According to an article in Junge Welt from December of 2025IG Metall representatives at the works council recently complained that (Per Google Translate) “André Thierig is so happy to talk about IG Metall that he often stops production for it.”

Here’s what makes this conflict so dramatic today

In March this yearthere’s another council election in the works, and things are getting tough in Giga Berlin. A report from December by local TV news station rbb24 laid out the terms of the battle ahead: IG Metall wants a raise, and a 35-hour work week—growing pattern for German autoworkers.

“The discussion about a 35-hour week is a red line for me, we will not cross it,” Thierig said, according to rbb24.

And that brings us to Tuesday’s dramatic meeting that resulted in Tesla filing a criminal complaint against IG Metall for recording a meeting. The incident was Reuters first reportedand later, a memo about this from Tesla was leaked to the Financial Times.

Apparently a non-employee representative from IG Metal attended the meeting, and Tesla says that this person tried to illegally record the audio of the meeting with a laptop, and then got kicked out and had the police confiscate their computer.

In a statement, the IG Metall slate members of the works council called the accusation from Tesla a “blatant and calculated lie,” according to the Financial Times. Also according to the Financial Times, IG Metall’s regional chief Jan Otto claimed that, “Influencing elections with fabricated accusations reminds us of the tactics of authoritarian regimes.”

Is keeping this factory open worth it for Tesla?

It’s worth noting as all this reveals that Tesla isn’t doing well in Europe. Using November last year as a snapshotThe European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association found that Tesla reportedly sold 12,130 new cars in the EU, compared to 18,430 in November 2024, which by my average math is about a 34 percent decrease.

Electrek’s Fred Lambert speculated that Tesla could just shut down the Berlin Gigafactory and blame all this labor unrest. This possibility, Lambert wrote, “allows Elon Musk to spin a potential shutdown or widespread reduction not as a problem of demand, but as a problem of ‘waking up the union’ – sending a message to the rest of the Tesla workforce at the same time. This is a perfect exit strategy.”

And besides, this is Fremont, California, not Berlin, where Tesla is clearing factory floor space to create the exciting new line of Optimus robots. If Tesla no longer a car companyas Elon Musk points out no, what’s the use of one more car factory?