If they want to work for the UAW, then they should join GM or other factories. Why join Tesla if you really wanted to work for the UAW?
Or Tesla’s workers can collectively decide for what’s best for themselves?
Or individually?
Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board
101–110 of 623 posts
Re: Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board
#102To repeat the key info from this case that makes one question the NRLB ruling (from reddit originally): The tweet is https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/998454539941367808 > Nothing stopping Tesla team at our car plant from voting union. Could do so tmrw if they wanted. But why pay union dues & give up stock options for nothing? Our safety record is 2X better than when plant was UAW & everybody already gets healthcar…
> Richard Ortiz was fired after the incident , but because Tesla did not have standing rules against browsing employees' profiles on Workday or screenshotting them , apparently that's not allowed. The real question is if they'd have been fired for doing that if they weren't a union organizer. And perhaps more importantly, whether you'd be able to convince a judge that looking up co-workers on an internal directory an…
I don't see how it isn't a firable offense given that it violates the confidentiality agreement that lists termination as a possible consequence of violation.
So it seems to me that what Oritz did must qualify as protected activity...
Re: Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have no problem with unions so long as membership is entirely voluntary for every employee. The problem I have is coercive collectivism. Also, is there any evidence that collective action returns a sustainably larger slice of corporate revenues?
Tesla’s CEO is the richest human on the planet and we’re worried about workers taking too much? If Elon’s stressing over sustainability, let him take the pay cut.
Well, Tesla's CEO is just one of the workers of Tesla, too.
Re: Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board
#104Re: Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
An example of such an economy IRL?
Lots of small-community, low-tech societies (very much “pre-capitalist” in the view of either capitalist or Marxist teleogical economic descriptions).
Low tech societies still have capital. I was looking at givedirectly recipient stories, https://live.givedirectly.org/newsfeed/search?search=Kenya+C.... Almost everyone uses their money to invest in their home, livestock, or children's education. The push and pull between capital and labor absolutely exists here.
Re: Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board
#106Re: Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
That logic doesn't hold if you share a belief in Tesla's stated mission "to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport", and also want to be in a union -- which is a reasonable set of beliefs and desires to hold. And I don't see how unions would be intrinsically incompatible with Tesla's mission or operations. There's no reason I know of to hold that it is an immutable fact that Tesla's workers are non-union -- s…
Unionizing Tesla would almost certainly not "accelerate the advent of sustainable transport". More likely cause it to wither and stagnate for the gain of a privileged few as we saw with GM et al.
What makes you so sure about that? Do you have any examples of how unionized workers produce less sustainable business then non-unionized workers? I don’t think Detroit is a good example as auto-workers in Europe still produce plenty growth for their business, while mostly belonging to a union.
Re: Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
Whether or not Leninism is real Socialism is a different question (there's a reason, though, why other socialists, including Marxists, have called it State Capitalism, though.)! What is undisputable is that these are three different things: 1. Recognizing the conflict between labor and capital as a real and significant factor in capitalist society, and 2. Advocating Marxism, and 3. Advocating Leninism. The societies…
> Recognizing the conflict between labor and capital as a real and significant factor in capitalist society, and [...]
Nah, the real conflict, if any, is labor and capital vs land.
Re: Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
And Tesla should be allowed every opportunity to stop them. I guess Tesla broke the law in this case, but I do not really agree with the ruling and the law. Musk should be allowed to present the possible downsides.
Sounds like you should crack a history book open.
Depending on your biases, you pick a book that'll confirm them.
Re: Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unionizing Tesla would almost certainly not "accelerate the advent of sustainable transport". More likely cause it to wither and stagnate for the gain of a privileged few as we saw with GM et al.
All German car manufacturers are heavily unionized. VW has one of the strongest unions in Germany and is one of the largest car manufacturers in the world.
That's fine for companies in industries that are reasonably mature. But if you want to start a new company in a dynamic industry, Germany is very much not where you want to be.
German GDP per capita is about 45k, as compared to 65k per capita in the US. But that hides a lot. Germany's most productive city is Berlin. Berlin's GDP per capita is....45k. The US on the other hand has cities like San Francisco, with a GDP per capita of 98k, fully 2x that of Germany's best city.
That isn't an accident. Germany and most of Europe have no tech sector to speak of as a direct consequence of their labor and regulatory policies. The EU is a huge economic block, comparable in scale collectively to the US or China, and it has a highly educated population. And yet, it has near zero presence in the most important industry of the 21st century. That's a staggering indictment of their economic policy. 2nd and 3rd tier US cities have more tech than Europe does.
Tesla would never have gotten off the ground anywhere in the EU, and our climate change prospects would be a lot worse off for it. If we want to solve the major problems facing the world, it's going to require major innovation, and that isn't going to come from EU style market regulation.