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California Opens Investigation into Tesla Workplace Conditions

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Re: California Opens Investigation into Tesla Workplace Conditions

#101

Post by tedunangst »

vkou wrote: post #81
idoh wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's crazy. What happened, generally speaking? Was he hit by something, or more along the lines of a receptive stress injury?

Which part of this story is crazy? That someone got injured working at an automotive plant, that they were strongly encouraged to do overtime, or that their employer declined to assume any liability?

Specialist engineer doing failure analysis doesn't sound like one of the more injury prone jobs. I mean, I don't know what happened, I just don't associate that job description with debilitating injuries, so it does sound a little crazy.

Re: California Opens Investigation into Tesla Workplace Conditions

#102

Post by netsec_burn »

IBM wrote: post #84

It's really surprising to me see posts critical of Tesla highly upvoted on HN these days. It tells me the narrative around Tesla is finally starting to break down, and naturally the stock price has declined from its highs as well. A few years ago most of the comments here would have been much more sycophantic. It's very refreshing to see. edit: Ok maybe it's not completely gone yet.

Because we all want Tesla to succeed. It's competition in an industry that needs what Tesla is trying to bring to market. It will also greatly benefit the American economy to be the first to mass produce inexpensive electric cars.

So personally, I read comments like yours and wonder who you are and why you feel it is necessary to be critical of that motive.

Re: California Opens Investigation into Tesla Workplace Conditions

#103

Post by ucaetano »

api wrote: post #39
ucaetano wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Translation: "Things in the universe happen for no greater reason at all, they just happen according to a small and simple set of laws that describe the behavior of matter-energy and space-time" vs. "There's a being, which is conscious, all-knowing and all-powerful, sitting somewhere, or actually nowhere, that uses its power to set things in motion or not, depending on its mood, and how it likes some people, but by n…

You've shown that it is possible to shorten or lengthen sentences by picking less or more applicable or "conceptually dense" words. Example: "the wall is black" vs "the wall absorbs a significant fraction of the visible light spectrum." God in some form is indeed a simpler and more straightforward concept than evolution, especially when you consider the whole of evolutionary theory beyond Darwin. It's a very deep and…

> God in some form is indeed a simpler and more straightforward concept than evolution, especially when you consider the whole of evolutionary theory beyond Darwin. It's a very deep and complex subject.

Not really, because you don't actually have to describe evolution. It is a natural outcome of the most fundamental laws of physics.

You only need the fundamental laws of physics, everything else is a derivation from it.

Putting god into it means you need the same laws of physics, plus god, who also breaks the laws of physics. It doesn't simplify anything.

Re: California Opens Investigation into Tesla Workplace Conditions

#104

Post by riffraff »

sf_rob wrote: post #11
austincheney wrote: post #3

Does Tesla have automation problems? They appear to be having atrocious labor conditions while putting out a very small quantity of product compared with absolutely everybody else.

Musk in an interview last week said as much (re: automation). He claims that the Model 3 line was over-automated so now they're tearing out sections for rework while doing more with the labor on hand. (Although they're about to also install new sections from their German automation subsidiary so it goes both ways).

what does "over automated" mean?

Re: California Opens Investigation into Tesla Workplace Conditions

#105

Post by idoh »

tedunangst wrote: post #101
vkou wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which part of this story is crazy? That someone got injured working at an automotive plant, that they were strongly encouraged to do overtime, or that their employer declined to assume any liability?

Specialist engineer doing failure analysis doesn't sound like one of the more injury prone jobs. I mean, I don't know what happened, I just don't associate that job description with debilitating injuries, so it does sound a little crazy.

Yeah that's the angle I was taking. Doing failure analysis seems like it involves observation and thinking, hard to see how you get injured doing that unless it is a freak accident.

Re: California Opens Investigation into Tesla Workplace Conditions

#106

Post by danielvf »

StudentStuff wrote: post #45
kyrra wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your friend already pursued legal avenues with no results, it may be worth having them reach out to news companies to see if he can get some attention (especially in-light of California starting this investigation). Bad press with case-study sort of issues is always a great way to get things fixed.

Its horrifying how Musk treats his workers, its very reminiscent of what Amazon does to most of its employees here in Seattle. Unpaid overtime for warehouse workers? Definitely, as long as the worker doesn't squawk to L&I! Work your developers 10 hours a day, then guilt trip them to coming in on Sunday? Amazon does this constantly. Tesla, SpaceX and Blue Origin seem to have the same work culture as Amazon, even Micro…

Just for the record, while I've heard enough terrible things about Tesla and SpaceX to never consider working there, I know someone at Blue Origin and, at least as of a year or two ago, he reported that the hours and stress were way better than the aviation/rocket industry average. He was very happy. Employee turnover at Blue Origin is low.

Re: California Opens Investigation into Tesla Workplace Conditions

#107

Post by StudentStuff »

filoleg wrote: post #92
freeone3000 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"even" Microsoft? Microsoft, home of the individual office, 8-hour workday, #7 in Fortune's Best Places to Work? There's a lot to dislike about bigcorps, but the working environment isn't one of them.

Yeah, have to agree here. From personal observations, as well as other people I know who work there, MSFT work/life balance is hard to beat. Ofc it varies by team, so I can only talk about what I have personally encountered

In the recent past, Microsoft had pretty awful work/life balance. It has improved measurably over the past couple years, but some teams are still pretty bad, and the people I know who are higher up (esp. if they aren't software devs) consistently work over 60hrs a week.

Re: California Opens Investigation into Tesla Workplace Conditions

#108

Post by mschuster91 »

rgbrenner wrote: post #96
mschuster91 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> even when it costs them more and results in lower quality. The advantage of keeping much knowledge in-house is that you are not subject to extortion campaigns (e.g. the Prevent/VW dispute. In addition you - are always exposing your internal knowledge to the part vendor and have to rely on the vendor protecting your IP from other customers, so "inventing here" works out better. - are not bound to endless rounds of w…

Yes, but that isn't what I'm talking about.. for example, Tesla produces seats in house.. they're low margin and labor intensive. And Tesla runs an assembly line in their factory that makes them cost even more. Other auto companies outsource this part. There's no special IP here.. Not everything that Tesla touches is special. A seat is a seat.

> they're low margin and labor intensive

... and thus very vulnerable to strikes or arbitrary price hikes. Yes, a seat is a seat, but once you're locked in into a vendor, you are locked in.

Tesla wants to avoid lock-ins as far as possible and especially something where a switch to a different manufacturer is as difficult as a seat. You can switch a vendor for a simple plastic part in a matter of days if the need arises (and the 3D data for the forming process is your IP), or do multi-vendor sourcing from the start - but try switching your seat vendor, that ain't gonna be cheap nor in a reasonably fast time frame.

Re: California Opens Investigation into Tesla Workplace Conditions

#109

Post by mixmastamyk »

Don't know about Tesla, but have heard horror stories about SpaceX here in LA. 60+ hour weeks, butts in seats, whole depts fired/walkouts, sweatshop conditions, etc.

Some folks are still not aware that these practices lower productivity. shrug

Re: California Opens Investigation into Tesla Workplace Conditions

#110

Post by greglindahl »

IBM wrote: post #84

It's really surprising to me see posts critical of Tesla highly upvoted on HN these days. It tells me the narrative around Tesla is finally starting to break down, and naturally the stock price has declined from its highs as well. A few years ago most of the comments here would have been much more sycophantic. It's very refreshing to see. edit: Ok maybe it's not completely gone yet.

Anti-sycophantic comments are just as annoying, don't you think?
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