It is very hard to believe that such a decision would be made as a simple communication mistake. It just shows the lack of values from the people running this organization.

In a company of ten thousand employees, I have no problem giving benefit of the doubt that two instances of wrongful termination could be done by mistake. It's not unreasonable to imagine that an HR department might screw up at least 0.02% of the time when having to manage ten thousand individuals making ten thousand individual decisions with regards to their response to a pandemic.

Besides, it just doesn't ring true to me. Had this been intentional, they would have been far more careful and not set themselves up for the most predictable made-for-media firing scandal you could possibly envisage. Companies deal with firings all the time, they know to avoid this sort of thing. That's basically the point of an HR department.

Let's hope that if these were mistakes, that the former employees affected can receive at least an apology and explanation, and perhaps offers to restore their position (it sounds like one of them has a tentative return offer).

If accidental, and assuming a continuous-improvement policy within the company, it could also be an opportunity to understand how the wrongful terminations took place.

It's you who are being very naive about Tesla. If this was a simple mistake, HR would have just reverted it immediately after the workers pointed out the issue. The article mentions that the workers contacted HR and presented their correspondence with managers concerning their attendance, to no avail.

When they double down on the mistake in light of the evidence it becomes intention and not 'miscommunication'.

I don’t disagree, nor do I think that conflicts with anything I said.

I suspect it's not entirely a mistake. When Tesla offered to let workers take unpaid leave, they probably didn't mean for it to last until "when covid-19 is over" as these workers wanted.

> I suspect it's not entirely a mistake.

Like Tesla calling their driving assistance “auto-pilot”.

You mean full self driving?

“ All new Tesla cars come standard with advanced hardware capable of providing Autopilot features today, and full self-driving capabilities in the future...”

https://www.tesla.com/autopilot

You’re right Tesla is guilty of marketing features that don’t exist today but will “in the future”.

But hey they disclose the truth in the fine print (Autopilot is not autonomous), so nothing to see and god forbid we accurately call it what it is “driver assist“ instead of autopilot or even the as of yet non-existent “full self driving”:

“Current Autopilot features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous.”

Hm, then Musk, who is notoriously not careful with his words, should have clarified long before it reached this point.

I certainly wouldn't call Musk a careful communicator, but it sounds like the notice these workers received was the clarification. The headline may be a bit misleading: the article says these weren't unconditional pink slips, and HR gave the workers the option of setting a date to return to work.

Yes, upon more careful reading, especially this part, I see what might be the issue:

>The workers... said they both received the notices last week from Tesla's human resources department citing their apparent failure to show up and the company's inability to reach them. The workers provided evidence of their continuing correspondence with managers.

Communicating directly with managers is not the same as communicating with HR; it seems like HR opened up a big list of people who hadn't clocked in in x days and sent them all termination-unless-you-say-otherwise notices.

The question I don't see answered in this article: Did HR communicate an end to the unpaid leave arrangement? I won't contend that that should have been clear from the start, since the situation changes by the day; but at least a little bit of "We're starting to wind down the unpaid leave program based on guidance from county authorities about the safety of ... etc, please arrange to resume your work by $Date,"

Its not a mistake, as a worker you are not obligated to come to work if you don't want to, likewise Tesla is also not obligated to pay you for not working.

The article says the leave was unpaid.

Debatable when the CEO publicly makes a statement to that effect that you “detrimentally relied on”.

Not to mention the CEO was actually breaking the law by reopening, in practice this worked out to violate the law by coming to work or get fired...

In reopening he broke a local order that was preempted by a state law, which is why he got away with it. His lawyers advised him that he had a strong case before he acted.

Well when Tesla gets sued and settles, they will never have to admit liability, so we will never know.

And it’s not about musk breaking the law...it’s about him telling his employees to break the law and firing those that didn’t...did musks lawyers advise them as well?

law is not absolute, nothing wrong with challenging the law if you think its unjust.

> nothing wrong with challenging the law if you think its unjust.

That’s a straw man...the CEO fired people who didn’t break the law at his direction. He didn’t give a damn if the employees felt the law was just or not. Forcing employees to break the law or fire them is absolutely wrong.

Company should be able to fire people at any reason any time, nothing wrong with that.