Since April 17, 2022, some Chinese Tesla employees have literally been living in their factory to get around health restrictions due to Covid-19. They sleep on mattresses on the floor and in sleeping bags.
It is a vision of work that is unthinkable in our country. In China, in the city of Shanghai, workers at a Tesla electric vehicle factory have been forced to live in seclusion in their factory since April 17, the site reports. Bloomberg† These measures to resume production despite the health restrictions were announced to them in a memo for the American media to consult.
As surprising as it may seem, this measure is in response to a request from Chinese officials in Shanghai who have encouraged companies to restart production. The city, one of China’s economic hubs, has been hit hard by the epidemic and is subject to very strict health measures. This system, which is called “closed-loop system” in French, consists of organizing the life of the workers in the factory.
Mattresses on the floor
According to the memo, they are therefore given a mattress to put on the floor, a sleeping bag, three meals a day and the sum of 400 yuan (about 58 euros) a day to work under these conditions. A space is reserved for sleeping moments, while two others are installed, one for showering and washing, the other for physical activities. The last workers to enter this eerie system, far removed from our labor laws, did so just before midnight on April 17, thanks to waivers that allowed them to bypass the city’s strict lockdown. The first three days they have to take a daily test, have their temperature taken twice a day and wash their hands four times a day, twice in the morning and twice in the afternoon.
In total, nearly 400 workers would live like this. Only workers who live in areas considered the least contaminated and who have received two injections are allowed to go out and back in on certain occasions. This system should enable Tesla to achieve its goals and delight the Chinese government, which does not want its economy to grind to a halt. Elon Musk’s company plans to produce 2,100 cars per day, or more than 180,000 vehicles in the first quarter.
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