Tesla Inc. will give most hourly workers at its Nevada gigafactory roughly 10% raises starting in January, CNBC reported late Monday.
Citing internal materials it obtained, CNBC said most hourly workers’ pay at the Sparks, Nev., battery factory will rise from $20 to $22 an hour at the low end and from $30.65 to $34.50 an hour at the high end.
Tesla
TSLA,
did not immediately respond for a request for confirmation or comment.
The pay raises may be part of an effort to dampen union support at the facility. The United Auto Workers said last month it was launching a push to unionize workers at Tesla, Toyota
TM,
and several other automakers. Toyota and Honda announced raises for its nonunion U.S. workers in early November, soon after the UAW settled its strike with the Big Three automakers, delivering significant pay hikes.
“To all the auto workers out there working without the benefits of a union: Now it’s your turn,” UAW President Shawn Fain said in a November video.
Tesla and its chief executive, Elon Musk, have staunchly opposed union efforts. In 2019, the National Labor Relations Board ruled Tesla had unlawfully discouraged its auto workers in Fremont, Calif., from forming a union. In November, the NLRB dismissed a union claim that Tesla had illegally fired workers in Buffalo, N.Y., in retaliation for trying to unionize.
Tesla is currently in the middle of a labor dispute with unions in Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark.
Tesla shares have soared about 105% year to date, compared to the S&P 500’s
SPX
23% gain.