NEW ORLEANS – Automaker Tesla did not violate its workers’ right to unionise when it ordered workers at a California assembly plant to stop wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the United Auto Workers logo, a federal appeals court has ruled.
The 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a 3-2 decision last year by the National Labor Relations Board, which said Tesla couldn’t ban union apparel. The court’s opinion noted that Tesla allowed workers to affix “any number or size” of pro-union stickers to company-issued clothing.
“We might have reached a different conclusion had Tesla prohibited union insignia,” said the opinion issued Tuesday by a unanimous panel of three 5th Circuit judges.
The Associated Press emailed Tesla and the UAW for comment.
According to court documents, Tesla issued special black clothing with the company’s name and logo, called “Team Wear,” to employees who worked on cars that had recently been painted. The clothing is issued to prevent workers from accidentally damaging paint that hasn’t fully cured.
Some employees began wearing UAW shirts as an alternative in 2017, a practice the company cracked down on after several months, according to the opinion.
The NLRB ruled in August 2022 that the practice was an “overly broad” uniform policy, and ordered it stopped.
But the appeals board said the company’s policy didn’t prevent the union from getting its message across to employees.
“The Team Wear policy – or any hypothetical company uniform policy – furthers a legitimate employer interest and neither discriminates against union communication nor interferes with non-work time,” Judge Jerry Smith wrote for the panel.
The opinion comes as the 5th Circuit prepares to hear arguments in another union-related case involving Tesla, the NLRB and its Fremont, California assembly plant.
A 5th Circuit panel ruled in March that Tesla CEO Elon Musk unlawfully threatened to take away employees’ stock options in a 2018 post on what was then Twitter, amid an organising drive by the UAW. The post was made before Musk bought the platform and renamed it X.
The board upheld an NLRB order to take down the tweet. But that order was vacated after the full 5th Circuit, which currently has 16 full-time judges, voted to hear the case. A hearing in that case is still pending.
The panel that issued this week’s ruling included Smith, nominated to the appeals court by the late President Ronald Reagan; Leslie Southwick, nominated by former President George W. Bush; and Stephen Higginson, nominated by former President Barack Obama.
