One Worker Killed in Shift Handover at Tesla Shanghai Plant

Image source: China Visual 

BEIJING, April 18 (TMTPOST) — An employee of the welding workshop was crushed to death. The investigation team concluded that Tesla’s risk control measures relied on workers’ voluntary compliance to ensure safety and that there were control loopholes 

A 31-year-old worker was killed in a safety accident at Tesla’s Shanghai plant in February. The Emergency Management Bureau of Shanghai Pudong District recently disclosed an investigation report on the accident.

The report shows that a mechanical accident occurred at a welding workshop at Tesla’s factory on the evening of February 4, which was directly caused by two workers who did not strictly observe relevant safety regulations during the shift turnover. The late shift employee did not padlock the safety door when he entered the hazardous area for cleanup jobs. And the employee on the day shift left the hazardous area without confirming whether the hazardous area was unoccupied before starting the equipment reset. Therefore, the late shift employee was crushed after the equipment was started.

The day shift employee pressed the reset button at 6:43 p.m. At 7:10 p.m., 120 emergency personnel arrived and the injured was sent to the hospital. At 8:58 p.m., the evening shift employee died after all medical measures proved ineffectual.

The accident investigation team found that the accident was caused by the violation of production safety rules: the two workers violated operating procedures, of which the deceased was directly responsible; as Tesla’s risk control measures rely on the workers’ voluntary compliance to ensure safety, there are risk control loopholes and Tesla is to blame, too.

The investigation team recommended that the employee who started the reset of the equipment be penalized according to the enterprise rules and regulations and that the Pudong District Emergency Management Bureau give an administrative punishment to Tesla. The automaker was requested to conduct a risk assessment and hidden danger investigation into all high-risk positions and operations again, enhance safety inspections on the operation site and detect and stop employees from violating rules and regulations to avoid the recurrence of similar accidents.

On April 17, posts by people who alleged they work at the factory appeared on the Internet. They claimed that the company reduced the performance pay of frontline workers after the safety accident occurred, with the cuts amounting to about 2,000 yuan ($291). Employees were upset with this penalty and asked Tesla CEO Elon Musk for help. Musk replied, “Was alerted this weekend. Looking into it”.

Caixin has reached out to Tesla China to verify the authenticity of workers’performance pay cut, but didn’t get any response yet.

Tesla’s Shanghai plant is the automaker’s largest manufacturing hub. Tesla’s financial report shows that the annual capacity of the factory is greater than 750,000 units. According to securities companies in China, the actual annual production capacity of the Shanghai plant is more than 1 million units. The factory builds the Model 3 and Model Y vehicles for the China market and export.

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