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Comment by sudhirj | Hacker News Reader

This is almost exactly the same kind of headline as Apple being blamed for the Foxconn suicides or injuries. The sub-contracting relationship exists for a reason. The actual employer in question takes on liability for their employees, and saying that Tesla wanted work done quickly is zero excuse. Tesla wanted exactly what was in the contract, and Mark III was trying to give them what they charged for.

If I go to a restaurant that offers 30 minutes or free service, you cannot possibly drag me into it if the cooks cut safety corners because the restaurant is docking their pay for late service while overcrowding the tables.

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No, it's not the same. This isn't a contractor doing work entirely under their own care and control and providing a finished product to Tesla. They were working on Tesla-owned electrical equipment within the premises of Tesla's factory.

I supervise the operations of a power generating station. From time to time, I have specialized contractors working in my substation. You can bet your bottom dollar that they work under safety practices approved and audited by myself/representatives of my employer (the site owner). There would never be - as occurred here - an unqualified worker injured by an arc flash on my site because no contractor worker is starting work until isolation, lockout and grounding has been verified by two qualified people.

When work is occurring on a site that you own and control, you have a responsibility to supervise and audit the safety practices of your contractors. The fact that very basic safety protocols weren't being followed on Tesla's site shows that they weren't doing the due diligence that I expect from professionals in the electrical industry.

Just for clarification: are you saying this is how thing should be, or how this works legally?

I can't speak to Cal OSHA rules but where I work, in BC/Canada, yes it would legally be the owner's responsibility. Working for a large multinational it's also our policy in the US and around the world even though it may not be legally mandated in every jurisdiction. By owning our contractors' safety performance, we are trying to remove the perverse incentive that local management had to improve their own stats by contracting everything out at the expense of overall safety.

If you subcontract a company knowing that your demands result in workers working under subhuman or severely dangerous conditions, you are very much responsible for that.

You don't get to subcontract out your moral/social responsibility, even if you're Apple or Tesla, Nike or Adidas or whatever.

Exactly; Big company pays subcontractor an X amount of money for services delivered, subcontractor then tries to get as much profit as possible at the expense of their employees.

IMO subcontracting itself is a problem as well, especially if it's a long-term contract. There's nothing wrong with a company hiring its own (for example) cleaning staff.

If company needs that staff one day in a month, yet subcontractor can utilize that staff 100% of time, there's nothing wrong with subcontracting.

> The sub-contracting relationship exists for a reason

Yes, and that reason is to evade liability and bad PR by providing a disposable company to point fingers at. This is not a good thing.

Also note that Foxconn owns the factories, while in this case Tesla owns the unsafe factory.

As the owner/operator of the premises Tesla is ultimately responsible for the safety of the people that work there, unsafe practices by any individual on premises could cause risk/injury to all others. Subcontracting means you require of the subcontractors that they follow your directions regarding safety.

The suggestion that the work could not be done without stopping production makes it pretty clear that Tesla was involved in that decision, after all the contractor has absolutely nothing to gain from whether or not production is stopped but Tesla definitely does.

At a minimum Tesla's oversight totally failed.

Aka modern slavery.

It's not slavery. As the sub-contractor, it's your responsibility to contract to provide services under conditions that are safe and sustainable. In the restaurant example, don't offer a 30 minute service guarantee if you can't achieve it safely, or, know that on occasion you're going to have to pay out when you fail.

The sucky bit is being the employee of the scummy sub-contractor who promises more than they can deliver, and expects their staff to do bullshit like this to make it up.

its not slavery yet, but its compressing and already uneven playing field so that the lower common denominator is suddenly the only avenue for workers to head to.

I worry more about this in the "gig economy" than the impact of AI/Robots on the work force.

So what you say is either the contractor has to subsidize the restaurant, or coerce employees to do it. Gee, wonder what business contractors are in.

Another question is what business the “restaurant” that can't even hire the cooks is in.

they are saying the contractor should not have accepted the offer, since they cannot fullfill what is asked of them without cutting safety.

That is so easy to say on an online forum, depending on where one is living and people that depend on their income, it isn't always a clear option.

In this case it is a contracting company, not an individual being hired on as a "contractor", who is said to have taken a contract that they could not reasonably fulfill. That is a much less ambiguous situation, and one that seems to be running rampant in businesses these days.

Not really, just accountability at the right level.

Thing is, accountability only happens when it is imposed and validated by institutions.

"Slavery with extra steps."

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