Workers at Tesla’s Gigafactory in South Buffalo, New York claim that the plant is infested with bed bugs. If that wasn’t bad enough, management has also apparently sprayed the facility with toxic chemicals that haven’t worked and are making them sick, according to the New York Post.
A Tesla employee shared a video of a bed bug she claimed was crawling on the floor of her workspace with WKBW Buffalo. She anonymously told the reporter that the situation “makes me feel like they’re treating people in general as not human.” Non-disclosure agreements mean employees have to share their experiences anonymously.
A spokesperson for OSHA told WKBW that they had received dozens of calls regarding bed bugs inside the Gigafactory. Still, anytime they’d ask questions, management would tell OSHA it was looking into the problem, but they wouldn’t get back to them.
To add literal injury to insult, the chemicals the company was spraying in the factory only worked to make employees sick, the Post reports. Apparently, workers could smell chemicals in the air, and chairs still had residue sprayed on the back of them.
“It was white, it looked almost like a film on the backs of some people’s chairs and jackets, because there was no warning ahead of time.”
Employees told the outlet they were told by managers and co-workers that the sprayed chemical was Steri-Fab.
According to Steri-Fab’s website, once it’s sprayed onto a surface, it needs 15 minutes to dry before it’s safe to come into contact with. Before then, it’s harmful to inhale or touch and can cause skin and eye irritation.
Workers at the 1.2-million-square-foot factory that procures the Tesla Solar Roof and Supercharges and workers on Autopilot software – tell WKBW they were feeling side effects from the chemicals.
“Me and a few co-workers’ eyes started burning, they also got very puffy and I started to have some breathing issues,” one Tesla staffer told WKBW.
Another employee emailed the outlet saying: “Many other workers including myself had symptoms of dizziness as well as throat swelling, nausea and burning eyes.”
“The chance of being around potentially toxic chemicals doesn’t make me feel comfortable,” the staffer added, noting that employees have been using their paid time off or sick days to avoid going into the office.
Osha says it is investigating the situation at the Gigafactory, but it doesn’t have any specific workplace standards for bed bugs, WKBW says. It will now look into whether Tesla followed proper controls for any chemical uses.