Slave-like by American standards maybe, not Chinese. In the US Janesville GM pays assembly workers $28/hr in 2008 before closure, and nowadays anywhere between $20-$35 and they enjoy a strong union and good pension.

A few labor lawsuits show that in China Tesla wage starts at ~$4.5/hr while BYD ~$1.7/hr. Tesla also limits overtime to 36 hrs/mo by China labor law, while gov allows BYD workers to clock 441.5 raw hours in a single month. Pension and union is basically non-existent. And the reason why ppl work at BYD instead of Tesla is by clocking monstrous overtime they actually make more despite lower hourly pay.

There are reasons why Tesla consistently ranks in China 1st/2nd by sales. One of them is Chinese workers are the ones exploited by sweatshops and a government only nominally communist so they are paying the price, while Western customers are enjoying good ol' NIMBYism.