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Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board

reuters.com

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Re: Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board

#141

Post by URSpider94 »

fastball wrote: post #95
foerbert wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? Don't roads exist to facilitate vehicle transportation? If you need to do construction in order to make roads, what exactly is the point of them? I don't understand what your thinking here is. You're comparing the expected results of a thing existing with possible actions to facilitate conditions for that thing to exist. Why are these supposed to be somehow equivalent or comparable?

I guess I don't understand the bad behavior here. Tesla is allowed to not give anything they want to unionized workers. If you want to force companies to capitulate to unions, cut out the middleman and just force companies to give things directly to workers.

The workers aren’t unionized yet. What the law is clear about, is that you’re not allowed to threaten workers for the act of trying to unionize the workplace.

Re: Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board

#142

Post by pjc50 »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #93
foerbert wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? Don't roads exist to facilitate vehicle transportation? If you need to do construction in order to make roads, what exactly is the point of them? I don't understand what your thinking here is. You're comparing the expected results of a thing existing with possible actions to facilitate conditions for that thing to exist. Why are these supposed to be somehow equivalent or comparable?

I think their point is that the American form of unionization is bunk. If you look to Europe workers are free to choose between many associations of voluntary unions which advocate for their specific interests. They are not forced to have a single representative for negotiations with their employer and are free to abstain from of participation as well.Much like the American voting system and American Congress, unions…

The term for this is "closed shop".

I've no idea why the US unions tend to be closed-shop, possibly because the high antagonism from employers makes it the only stable solution.

Re: Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board

#143

Post by URSpider94 »

fastball wrote: post #77
telaelit wrote: post #55

I wish the NRLB would be much harsher against business owners and executives who engage in anti-union rhetoric and behaviors. People have the right to form unions, lying about losing benefits and lowering pay should be handled much more harshly, there should be actual penalties instead of just having to read a statement and delete a tweet.

Isn't the entire point of a union to give you negotiating leverage? If you need the government to effectively do the negotiating for you by levying fines and such whenever the company goes against the union, what exactly is the point of the union?

The union doesn’t exist yet at their site. The government provides the guarantee of a fair election on whether to unionize, free of threats from either management or the union. Once the site is unionized, the union can indeed defend itself by negotiating with management.

Re: Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board

#144

Post by foerbert »

fastball wrote: post #95
foerbert wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? Don't roads exist to facilitate vehicle transportation? If you need to do construction in order to make roads, what exactly is the point of them? I don't understand what your thinking here is. You're comparing the expected results of a thing existing with possible actions to facilitate conditions for that thing to exist. Why are these supposed to be somehow equivalent or comparable?

I guess I don't understand the bad behavior here. Tesla is allowed to not give anything they want to unionized workers. If you want to force companies to capitulate to unions, cut out the middleman and just force companies to give things directly to workers.

This isn't about any actual negotiation though. This is about a public statement aimed at discouraging even attempting to unionize. This is well before the point where the union and company would be negotiating.

I think it makes a lot of sense to regulate this kind of activity. It's not about forcing companies to 'give in' or not to unions, but about helping to protect the ability for the union to form in the first place.

We can argue forever about how much company statements might influence the ability for unions to form, but at the end of the day the actual regulation here is basically just stopping the company from setting up their own strawmen in hopes of influencing workers. Naturally, it's very easy to talk tough when you're just pretending to negotiate against yourself. Not doing this seems like a pretty mild restriction, so I don't think it's a particularly onerous regulation.

Re: Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board

#145

Post by foerbert »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #93
foerbert wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? Don't roads exist to facilitate vehicle transportation? If you need to do construction in order to make roads, what exactly is the point of them? I don't understand what your thinking here is. You're comparing the expected results of a thing existing with possible actions to facilitate conditions for that thing to exist. Why are these supposed to be somehow equivalent or comparable?

I think their point is that the American form of unionization is bunk. If you look to Europe workers are free to choose between many associations of voluntary unions which advocate for their specific interests. They are not forced to have a single representative for negotiations with their employer and are free to abstain from of participation as well.Much like the American voting system and American Congress, unions…

I don't see how that could be their point. They said nothing about multiple unions, nor is the article in any way related to it.

Re: Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board

#146

Post by londons_explore »

telaelit wrote: post #55

I wish the NRLB would be much harsher against business owners and executives who engage in anti-union rhetoric and behaviors. People have the right to form unions, lying about losing benefits and lowering pay should be handled much more harshly, there should be actual penalties instead of just having to read a statement and delete a tweet.

I mean the quote about options is probably true. It just means employees won't be given any more options.

Unionised workers typically get no or very few stock options compared to industries with no unionisation.

Re: Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board

#147

Post by URSpider94 »

eru wrote: post #120
jakelazaroff wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Individual employees have every bit as adversarial a relationship to management as union members. They just have much less bargaining power.

What do you mean by less bargaining power? As an individual I feel like I have relatively more bargaining power, because when eg talking about pay I just need to convince the company to bump one total comp package, mine. So I can negotiate much more aggressively and get more done, then someone who tried to get the company to raise thousands of pay packages. Also, I have an easy time convincing the company that I am l…

Unions threaten that all employees will quit all.the.time. It’s called a strike. It’s their primary bargaining power. Yes, the workers will eventually come back to work, but only after they gain some concessions from management, and it can be a long time before they come back.

Re: Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board

#148

Post by ear7h »

dnautics wrote: post #65
telaelit wrote: post #55

I wish the NRLB would be much harsher against business owners and executives who engage in anti-union rhetoric and behaviors. People have the right to form unions, lying about losing benefits and lowering pay should be handled much more harshly, there should be actual penalties instead of just having to read a statement and delete a tweet.

for behaviours, yes, but for rhetoric, you're toeing a very dangerous line up against the 1st amendment.

The 1st amendment does not and should not apply to business matters. You don't even need to look far from the subject matter, Musk has gotten in trouble before over misleading tweets. I don't see anyone bring up the first amendment when discussing corporate fraud. Why is it that executives can be accountable to shareholders but not workers?

Re: Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board

#149

Post by URSpider94 »

1996 wrote: post #18
gamblor956 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Union contracts are employer specific (and in some cases, facility specific), and if the Tesla factory workers unionized, they could negotiate for stock grants. The threat was that Tesla would revoke stock option grants if the workforce unionized, or refuse to negotiate over the availability of stock options, which is illegal under current federal labor regulations. No, most other automakers don't offer stock, becaus…

> Union contracts are employer specific (and in some cases, facility specific), and if the Tesla factory workers unionized, they could negotiate for stock grants If it was my factory, I would cut the stock grant and fire them all - unionized or not - to end a clear message to the other factories: "you only have one job, while I have more than one factory"

Thank you for proving why unions are needed, and why they often have an adversarial relationship with management.

Re: Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board

#150

Post by onion2k »

samr71 wrote: post #30
dundarious wrote: post #16

Earlier 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.

Suggesting a union is bad because it'd be good "for the benefit of a privileged few" is a bit ironic when the company is mamaged by a man who is in the running for the title of Richest Man in the World.
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