California Opens Investigation into Tesla Workplace Conditions • Hacker News Board

Re: California Opens Investigation into Tesla Workplace Conditions

#221

Post by rawland » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 5:58 AM UTC

Animats wrote: post #119

"... ideologically motivated attack by an extremist organization working directly with union supporters to create a calculated disinformation campaign against Tesla. The piece even includes an interview with Worksafe – the same organization that the UAW enlisted to publish a negative report against Tesla last year, and whose board includes labor union officials and advocates. "[1] - from Tesla's own site. Wow. That s…

The author line of the blog post reads 'The Tesla Team'.

However, I'm not surprised there is no single person putting her name on this blog post.

Having said that, I can imagine that unions are disliked here on HN / in the US due to various reasons. In the end, from what I witness, they care significantly for human rights across companies. If they weren't there, companies would squeeze out life of the low-end workers at a significantly higher rate, than they already do.

It's a funny thing: Move fast and break things. This basically stops working, when 'things' are humans.

Re: California Opens Investigation into Tesla Workplace Conditions

#222

Post by icebraining » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 6:02 AM UTC

gniv wrote: post #139

danso wrote: post #2

Related: the two Reveal reporters who worked on the investigation are currently doing an IAMA: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/8d7khd/were_two_inves...

From that thread: > Have you investigated any other auto manufacturer? > (ajpreports) I haven't nor has Will. But maybe that's our next venture! That diminishes their credibility a lot in my mind. This is a type of investigation that should be done by people with experience in the area. Especially on a company that pushes the envelope like Tesla.

Some auto manufacturer has to be their first. Why not Tesla?

Re: California Opens Investigation into Tesla Workplace Conditions

#223

Post by tareqak » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 6:04 AM UTC

freedomfries wrote: post #218

majormajor wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want the electric car transition to succeed, but if Tesla's becoming a bad actor in their quest to be the biggest winner, than I don't think that's helpful for the overall effort anymore.

> if Tesla's becoming a bad actor in their quest to be the biggest winner, than I don't think that's helpful It's still super helpful. We need to advance our tech at all costs. It's the only thing we have on this continent. We've gifted foreign nations with our manufacturing industries and gutted the American middle class, and the entrails have been used to lift 250,000 people a day out of poverty since 1990. This is…

The comparison to China is whataboutism and/or a false equivalence. Chinese work practices and available legal recourse might be worse than what Americans have today, but that doesn’t mean Americans have to sacrifice their quality of life to remain competitive. The application of “breaking a few eggs to make an omelette” to workplace injuries is also insensitive at best: what if a family member or friend in your life suffered the same? Would that individual be a “broken egg” for someone else’s potential “omelette” in your opinion?

We might not be able to stop all workplace injuries, and I totally agree that Elon Musk has accomplished a lot in his all of his ventures to date; however, if Musk’s path to future success requires further harm towards his customers and/or his employees, then I’d rather wait for someone else to accomplish the same without any lives being in jeopardy.

Re: California Opens Investigation into Tesla Workplace Conditions

#224

Post by icebraining » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 6:14 AM UTC

avs733 wrote: post #210

kistaro wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's Toyota, we're talking about Tesla.

This is absolutely and utterly false. Toyota's manufacturing is moving in almost the exact opposite direction of Tesla's and it is working much better.

I think kistaro was making a joke about Toyota's infamous acceleration problem.

Re: California Opens Investigation into Tesla Workplace Conditions

#225

Post by on_and_off » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 6:37 AM UTC

taf2 wrote: post #167

on_and_off wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am fine, thanks. I really enjoy not needing a car and don't enjoy driving, even a nice one. The various reports of low quality of Tesla's cars (like their doors :/ ) have also contributed to suppress any tesla envy. If I really needed a car right now, I would start by comparing the different ones on the market, Tesla is not the only player in town anymore.

Uh ok... clearly you have no idea about what a Tesla is or maybe never driven one or even ridden in one... why are you commenting on things you have no experience in?

or maybe I just have .. gasp .. a different opinion than you

Re: California Opens Investigation into Tesla Workplace Conditions

#226

Post by watwut » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 6:47 AM UTC

notyourday wrote: post #115

watwut wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God is simpler then original theory of evolution which is simple the current evolutionary theory. Occam razor favors simplications over careful analysis.

Actually it is reverse. Evolution is much simpler as a theory than an idea of God creating everything correctly

By correctly you mean "in present state"?

Re: California Opens Investigation into Tesla Workplace Conditions

#227

Post by watwut » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 7:02 AM UTC

api wrote: post #123

watwut wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe we should stop using the razor, because it us way too often wrong. I the absence of evidence, you don't know and eithe admit that or guess probabilities.

"Razors" of this sort are only rules of thumb that tend to be right often enough to be useful. They are not laws of nature.

But here it was used as an argument - I am right because it is simpler explanation. Doing that is a fallacy and doing that after you personally phrased both theories so that the right one is simple is manipulation combined with fallacy.

The "Now use Occam's Razor." demand is wrong use of Occam's Razor. It is dishonest rhetoric that uses Occam's Razor as math theorem rather then rule of thumb.

Re: California Opens Investigation into Tesla Workplace Conditions

#228

Post by 8bitchemistry » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 7:15 AM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #69

StudentStuff wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole play with making their own tooling seems ill conceived at Tesla's small scale, and it has definitely set the Model 3's production back quite a bit.

Sounds like a replay of Next.

I was thinking the same thing: the over-engineered automation reminds me of the NeXT computer production line that Steve Jobs built: https://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/24/business/all-next-inc-s-p...

Re: California Opens Investigation into Tesla Workplace Conditions

#229

Post by danso » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 7:51 AM UTC

freedomfries wrote: post #218

majormajor wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want the electric car transition to succeed, but if Tesla's becoming a bad actor in their quest to be the biggest winner, than I don't think that's helpful for the overall effort anymore.

> if Tesla's becoming a bad actor in their quest to be the biggest winner, than I don't think that's helpful It's still super helpful. We need to advance our tech at all costs. It's the only thing we have on this continent. We've gifted foreign nations with our manufacturing industries and gutted the American middle class, and the entrails have been used to lift 250,000 people a day out of poverty since 1990. This is…

> We need to advance our tech at all costs.

If this is he primary directive, then what kind of business practices wouldn't be justified?

Re: California Opens Investigation into Tesla Workplace Conditions

#230

Post by danso » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 7:57 AM UTC

briandear wrote: post #128

lovich wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The company could just improve the situation enough that the workers don't want to unionize. Losing your agility isn't a good enough argument to convince people to not negotiate a better situation for themselves when you are literally destroying their bodies. It's not even like they are acting the same as the rest of the industry. Directly in the article it says that they have much higher injury rates than the rest o…

They are saying Tesla isn’t reporting injuries and then they say Tesla has higher injuries? If they aren’t being reported, then what’s the source of that claim? Do we know for a fact that other companies aren’t also (allegedly) underreporting? Reporting about Ford or GM is far less sexy than Tesla, so there could be less incentive.

Did you read the original investigation (the one referred to in the submitted article)? It says quite clearly that Reveal was given data from Tesla's internal tracking system.

https://www.revealnews.org/article/tesla-says-its-factory-is...

> Reveal compared records from Tesla’s internal tracking system, obtained from a source, with the official logs, which were requested by an employee and provided to Reveal.