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

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

#311
post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They pretty beautifully baited Sen. Elizabeth Warren into running her mouth today. She wrote - " I'll fight to break up Big Tech so you’re not powerful enough to heckle senators with snotty tweets. " If she brings an anti-trust suit against them, it will be so easy for Amazon's lawyers to argue that she is only doing so to violate their first amendment rights, which she full out admitted to today.

They baited Warren by lying about the fact that Amazon warehouse / delivery employees have to urinate in bottles to meet deadlines? The tweets from their account caused significant negative press for Amazon on news and social media across the world. Amazon is a global company, this kind of disdain for employees isn't looked upon as favourably in other countries. It's bad for business. Especially from an official PR c…

> the fact that Amazon warehouse / delivery employees have to urinate in bottles to meet deadlines?

Amazon does not want its employees to piss into bottles. But sometimes employees (predominantly male I hope) do piss into bottles, because they did not plan correctly, or just had to go while on the road. If caught, these employees (and their managers) are then reprimanded. If they get a chance to defend themselves, of course they claim it was due to the deadline, not poor planning or bladder control or uncommon hygiene ethics.

Amazon factually states: Hey, if we required our employees to pee into bottles to meet deadlines, do you seriously think people would work for us, and not 100s of other low-paid jobs which don't have that medieval requirement?

Politicians: Hey, this you?! I have lots of pictures of bottles with piss! Where is your snotty reply now? You say that your employees do not have to piss into bottles, so how come I have those pictures?! Huh?!

It is embarrassing to both sides. Especially for official government employees (who also don't have to pee into bottles to meet deadlines, but I am sure you can turn up at least some pictures: if not, find any traces of cocaine use in the Capitol, then posit that the US congress have their senators use cocaine in the toilet to meet deadlines. Or, you know, bi-partisan plan to have low-skilled employees share in the American dream made possible by Amazon, but I guess that does not fit inside a tweet).

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

#312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They pretty beautifully baited Sen. Elizabeth Warren into running her mouth today. She wrote - " I'll fight to break up Big Tech so you’re not powerful enough to heckle senators with snotty tweets. " If she brings an anti-trust suit against them, it will be so easy for Amazon's lawyers to argue that she is only doing so to violate their first amendment rights, which she full out admitted to today.

Senators don't bring antitrust suits against anyone, as far as I know. That would be a separate branch of government.

Senators can pass laws increasing the grounds for antitrust actions.

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

#313
post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it's okay for a business to treat employees so badly they find they have to piss in bottles? And it's okay for their official PR twitter account to lie and say it doesn't happen? But it's not okay that a politician says they're going to do something about it?

Politicians should not be threatening to silence people or companies, regardless of whether the latter are lying or treating people badly. If Amazon is breaking employment law or anti-monopoly law or anything else it can be fined or broken up. What it should not be is silenced.

The problem is not that Amazon is criticising politicians. The problem is that Amazon doesn't need to care; it'll get loads of money anyway. I need to care about what I say, because if I upset people, they'll stop interacting with me.

If Amazon started running adverts about a giant space monkey that wanted to eat the moon, what would happen?

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

#314
The entire concept of unionization seems unnecessarily confrontational. It does not need to be this way. Corporations are creations of the state. There is nothing preventing the state to require significant representation of employees in every board of directors. This board representation could support management that better reflects employee participation, e.g. Sociocracy. In this way, labour and capital could work together in a more integrated manner, avoiding much of this unnecessary conflict. Or, at least moving the conflict to more granular level of problem solving where views can be grounded in real-world challenges.

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

#315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question: what's wrong with these tweets?

The peeing in bottles thing is true. Sanders is 1% of half of Congress. Not dictator of Vermont. They lied about what Warren said.

Vermont has a tiny population, Sanders has massive influence. If he wanted to work on mobilizing change in his state he could. Now a better counter argument is he is elected to work in the federal government, so his constituents don’t expect him to effect change in their state law.

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

#316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything you're saying applies to union organizers though, which do exists before the union is formed. And the entire point is that the union forming could be bad for workers in various ways, so if I was a worker I would want to be made aware of what could possibly go wrong before I joined the effort to unionize and no longer had a choice in the matter after the union is fully formed and going strong.

How could the organisers know what future members want then the company spend much effort on preventing workers from talking to each other?

How do companies spend so much effort preventing workers from talking to each other?

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

#317
post #314

The entire concept of unionization seems unnecessarily confrontational. It does not need to be this way. Corporations are creations of the state. There is nothing preventing the state to require significant representation of employees in every board of directors. This board representation could support management that better reflects employee participation, e.g. Sociocracy. In this way, labour and capital could work…

The biggest confusion I have is everybody seems to approach Amazon and Tesla unionization as "hopefully it happens so workers will get better wages!"

I could be wrong but... I'm pretty sure Amazon and Tesla pay great relative to their space. Relatively demanding, sure. I get it. We've all seen the article where some Amazon worker urinated in a bottle because "the job is just so ruthless!". They employ hundreds of thousands of workers worldwide. If it was that bad, I think they'd have a harder time hiring.

I could have sworn I read that if you are a hardworking Amazon warehouse worker, they'll train you for a more technical job. That seems like a pretty good benefit. I'm sure most Amazon warehouse jobs start in the $15-20/hr range. How much better can you really get for what is essentially reading a screen, grabbing something off of a shelf, and putting it in a box? Maybe drive a forklift/unload a truck with a pallet jack.

I feel like the same people who want Amazon to unionize so workers can get better wages + healthcare, also don't want Amazon to kill mom + pop shops. Ok... How is a mom and pop shop supposed to pay $20/hr with healthcare for a warehouse worker when they don't have AWS money falling from the sky?

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

#318
To understand the political evolution of Western democracies, it is instructive to read about the alliance between rent-seeking labor unions and the Democratic Party in the largest Western democracy, the US:

https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-trou...

It is also worth noting that virtually every major news company has a fully unionized workforce who essentially can't be replaced and have a financial conflict of interest in how the public perceives left vs right policies and parties.

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

#319

Calling this tweet "anti-union" seems like spin. It is pointing out facts that one might want to consider before deciding to unionize. The fact that employees lose stock options when they unionize isn't so much a threat as it is a fact about how unions work because historically unions are against any kind of incentive or merit pay so they refuse options as compensation. It is a fact that UAW hasn't negotiated options…

I'm a very pro-union guy, so I'll give my five cents just for the sake of discussion:

Firstly, I don't know the context in which this was tweeted, but looking at it, it's not in my opinion egregiously or "obviously" anti-union, but the definition of this is of course a legal one and not a subjective one, so it doesn't really matter what any of us "think" is anti-union, what matters is the legal text in the region where it is tried. With that said, I'd also like to state my opinion that I think it's at least quite unprofessional for any senior executive to voice any kind of anti-union sentiment regardless of how mild it is, I would expect that both parties keep to certain standards of discussion and avoiding bad faith, which in my mind means not discarding the entire raison d'être of the other party.

Secondly, pointing out that unions are opposed to individualized salary negotiations is hardly a criticism of unions as much as it is a statement of fact. If the unions cannot meet this point in debate but need to revert to legal action, I think that speaks to the sad state of pro-union ideology today.

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

#320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought there are 'out of pocket maximums' set by the government to avoid that? The most that individuals will have to pay out-of-pocket in 2020 is $8,200 and $16,400 for families.

>The most that individuals will have to pay out-of-pocket in 2020 is $8,200 and $16,400 for families. If you have good insurance, sure. If you're unemployed, one bad illness or injury means instant bankruptcy.

We have ACA now, anyone can get affordable insurance.
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