Maybe it's about cutting costs for new project ramp up, or maybe they are trying to get rid of leakers / security threats / bad eggs, or both.
Tesla fired hundreds of employees in past week
131–140 of 161 posts
Re: Tesla fired hundreds of employees in past week
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
> and so labor groups that are entrenched in legacy car manufacturing wish to prevent Tesla from accelerating those companies' decline. You say this but Tesla got absolutely spanked in the last 3 quarters in its auto division by the supposedly inferior unionized likes of Chevrolet, Fiat, Nissan and Toyota. ALL of them got much more affordable offerings out to market before the Model 3 was ready. Fiat managed to get r…
What do you mean by "absolutely spanked"? They have out delivered all the other brands you mention this year, by number of sales and dollars,in and have a huge backlog of pre-orders. https://insideevs.com/monthly-plug-in-sales-scorecard/
Given that the Bolt premiered this year, was only available in California for the first 2 months, and had no pre-orders before December... those are extremely good numbers.
Especially since: conspicuously absent from this list is the Model 3. What month is it again? What month was the Model 3 supposed to launch?
Re: Tesla fired hundreds of employees in past week
#133It's important to keep in mind that Tesla (like Walmart, Whole Foods, and Amazon) has been targeted by big labor for infiltration and union formation [1] [2] This is not necessarily because working conditions make workers feel that they would prefer the tradeoffs of unionization, but simply because Tesla is much more competitive without its workforce unionized, and so labor groups that are entrenched in legacy car ma…
> significant power granted by favorable laws that far exceed the market power they derive simply from organizing labor That is the whole point of unions, yes. Union membership/power has been steadily decreasing over the past 50 years. To me, it seems disingenuous to refer to "big labor" as if they're some sort of powerhouse given the way that corporate interests have been chipping away at them. Also, not that I have…
> Union membership/power has been steadily decreasing over the past 50 years. To me, it seems disingenuous to refer to "big labor" as if they're some sort of powerhouse given the way that corporate interests have been chipping away at them.
Some states have passed less union-friendly laws, and firms have located to those states and have massively invested in robotics and automation simply to avoid the morass associated with having a unionized labor force.
When unions are too strong (such as they have been in the past) they take too much for their own members at the expense of the health of the firm, and the firm dies.
In the case of the automakers and the auto worker pensions, the pensions were negotiated as defined benefit plans and backed by the PBGC. Lawmakers failed to require firms to pay adequate PBGC premiums, and so when the companies failed taxpayers are left holding the bag.
Workers need to have power, but unions are on the decline because they got too greedy and resulted in massive (and inefficient) economic shifts to route around them. Thus they are less relevant now than in years past, but significant harm has been done. This is not just the fault of the unions, but of the politicians and firms that colluded to make the pension deals possible and who refuse to let dying firms simply die.
Unless we want to go back to a world where everyone aspires to become a "lifer" at a firm and retire after holding one job for his/her whole working life, unions really can't offer much. The economy shifts much more rapidly now and I'd be shocked if skills that are highly marketable this year are still marketable in 10 years.
Re: Tesla fired hundreds of employees in past week
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your link indicates they aren't covered by the WARN act. It is fewer than 499 employees and less than 33% at a single facility.
Ah, good eyes. I wasn't sure quite what the threshold was. I've seen companies get spanked for a pattern of layoffs which stay just below the threshold, so there's that. If there's a plausible case that this is targeted at union organisers / organisation, there's that as well, though prosecution at the national level strikes me as unlikely, even with Musk's testy relationship with the Trump administration. There's al…
I am entirely unfamiliar with California's regulations.
But, unless the penalty is insignificant, it seems unlikely that they'd flagrantly violate the law. It seems very likely that they were advised by legal council and followed those recommendations. The visibility of Tesla makes me suspect they are very likely to be aware of both optics and law.
Disclosure: I am invested in Tesla and have been since the early days. However, I've made every effort to remain objective,
Re: Tesla fired hundreds of employees in past week
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
TIL. ETA: this is getting downvoted; I have enough karma that I don't care about being downvoted but for the record, I am sincere that Today I Learned.
Reddit style, low value add comments tend to get downvoted on HN.
I mean like I said, I don't really give a shit about being down voted, it's not about to get me hell banned or anything but: cbanek, js2, fjsolwmv and pravula might care that i am glad to be informed and my original comment was actually a question and not just me being a dick.
Re: Tesla fired hundreds of employees in past week
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
TIL. ETA: this is getting downvoted; I have enough karma that I don't care about being downvoted but for the record, I am sincere that Today I Learned.
Reddit style, low value add comments tend to get downvoted on HN.
It's not low value. You get a good gauge of others' sentiment with that kind of comment triplet. That social information is worth more than the value of the person who learned the information silently upvoting the evidentiary response, with no follow-up comment left behind.
Re: Tesla fired hundreds of employees in past week
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
> significant power granted by favorable laws that far exceed the market power they derive simply from organizing labor That is the whole point of unions, yes. Union membership/power has been steadily decreasing over the past 50 years. To me, it seems disingenuous to refer to "big labor" as if they're some sort of powerhouse given the way that corporate interests have been chipping away at them. Also, not that I have…
> Union membership/power has been steadily decreasing over the past 50 years. To me, it seems disingenuous to refer to "big labor" as if they're some sort of powerhouse given the way that corporate interests have been chipping away at them. Some states have passed less union-friendly laws, and firms have located to those states and have massively invested in robotics and automation simply to avoid the morass associat…
I'm sorry, but as someone who's reflexively pro-union and admittedly not versed in the issues you're talking about, you'll need to provide some better references for me to understand what you're talking about specifically. The citations you've provided don't back up your claims at all -- I don't doubt that Tesla and the like are targeted by unions, but you'll need to reference more than the US labor law and one guy's salary to convince me that they do more harm than good.
Re: Tesla fired hundreds of employees in past week
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some of them just routinely fire the bottom 10% every year.
That feels like a good reason to fire 100% of whoever is in charge of interviewing/hiring.
I'm not a fan of firing the bottom 10% of annual 360 reviews, but, do you think that having a 10% false-positive rate on interviewing/hiring is outside the realm of possibility?
EDIT: Just so you know ... the cumulative quarter average (done annually) cull of the bottom 10% (people who have been put on improvement plans 3 quarters ago), is done by people that have nothing to do with interviewing/hiring. You'd probably be firing the wrong folks.
Re: Tesla fired hundreds of employees in past week
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
That feels like a good reason to fire 100% of whoever is in charge of interviewing/hiring.
I'm not a fan of firing the bottom 10% of annual 360 reviews, but, do you think that having a 10% false-positive rate on interviewing/hiring is outside the realm of possibility? EDIT: Just so you know ... the cumulative quarter average (done annually) cull of the bottom 10% (people who have been put on improvement plans 3 quarters ago), is done by people that have nothing to do with interviewing/hiring. You'd probabl…
Outside the realm of possibility? No. But if 10% of my work (I'm a warehouse worker) had to be thrown out I'd have been fired within a month.
Re: Tesla fired hundreds of employees in past week
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reddit style, low value add comments tend to get downvoted on HN.
It's not low value. You get a good gauge of others' sentiment with that kind of comment triplet. That social information is worth more than the value of the person who learned the information silently upvoting the evidentiary response, with no follow-up comment left behind.
There's got to be some kind of Muphry's Law about talking about downvotes, and I ought to know better by this point.