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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

#321

Post by CryptoPunk »

boustrophedon wrote: post #22
meddlepal wrote: post #11

Earlier 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.

> And Tesla should be allowed every opportunity to stop them. We've tried this. People died over it. We enacted laws to prevent it from happening, so that labor can stand on equal ground with capital.

>>We've tried this. People died over it. We enacted laws to prevent it from happening, so that labor can stand on equal ground with capital.

This is simply not true, except in the most pedantic and disingenuous sense.

There were violent strikes by some groups of unionized workers, that broke the law, and that resulted in some deaths, if that's what you're referring to. There is absolutely no reason this thuggery should have been rewarded by giving the strikers what they demanded, which was the abrogation of the company owners' private property and contracting rights.

As it happened, US industry, and with it US wages, grew much faster before society gave into the unions, when the US was still a free market where people had a sacred right to freely contract.

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

#322

Post by aphextron »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #320
aphextron wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Sure, if you have $500 a month laying around no problem.

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

#323

Post by cfn »

cactus2093 wrote: post #302
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it's like amazon entire business model is based on exploitation of labor Wait till you find out how the electronics and clothes in your house are made and how the materials they're made from are sourced or what the workforce that picks the fruit and vegetables you see in the supermarket, endures. It is rarely (never?) discussed in the west how all the consumer goods are cheap simply because the supply chain relies o…

The percentage of humans living in poverty around the world has never been lower [0]. How is that just spin? I also can’t relate to your “all we hear about” point at all. I feel like I really have to go out of my way to find any discussion about anything good in the world, the vast majority of what I hear is negative takes like yours about how everything is horrible and everyone is oppressed. [0] https://data.worldba…

It really depends on the definition of poverty. I pretty much took the argument you are making for granted until recently. I mean, how can we argue against raising people out of poverty, right? But recently I watched this interview with Paul Kingsnorth and he makes a compelling case for why these numbers don't tell the whole story. I am linking to the middle of the interview more or less this is mentioned but the whole interview is quite interesting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojZjl8M921U&t=2534s

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

#324

Post by cycomanic »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #214
cosmodisk wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GDP per capita has very little to do with it. The main differences between the US and Europe,when it comes to tech are these: 1) VC sector in Europe is where the US one was 20 years ago. 2) The US, even though it has states, it's still pretty much one market,while Europe,even when talking EU, is a collection of counties with very different cultures, languages,and attitudes towards innovation (e.g. Scandinavia is almo…

> In Germany, there are a lot of so called 'hidden champions' - companies that are small but focus on some higher end, niche products, e.g. oil filters,special purpose ball bearings,etc. Which is great, but manufacturing those products doesn't generate the kind of cashflow or global influence that US tech companies generate. Curious how many people here praising these hidden champions has worked for or wishes to work…

I'm curious which companies you talk about, because there are a lot of statistics that many of these companies have significant higher R&D spending than most big corporations (certainly more than many famous SV companies). I also know of two people who joined one of these companies one came from a research postdoc position and made it to head of R&D (like a vice president I guess) within 5 years, another came from a slightly higher level, but also quickly made it to a similar position.

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

#325

Post by api »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #317
clcaev wrote: 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 tho…

I listened to a podcast recently about Amazon union drives and apparently the big gripe isn't wages but working conditions. The almost universal sentiment is that people are treated like robots. Breaks are so rare and short that pissing in bottles or defecating in bags is common. Sometimes people have to choose between relieving themselves and eating since the break is too short for both. Most of the people interviewed wanted more humane working conditions.

There are many worse places to work, but that's whataboutism and using that argument leads to a race to the bottom.

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

#326

Post by dbspin »

clcaev wrote: 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…

This exists in Germany, it's called codetermination - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codetermination_in_Germany#:~:....

It's not an alternative to a union, but an additional right. Workers can also form councils at shop floor level - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_council

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

#327

Post by cinntaile »

loceng wrote: post #306
cinntaile wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they not get stock options? Sounds like a punishment for voting union?

Punishment? It's negotiation. It's Elon stating that Tesla won't be putting stock options on the table, but a union still could then negotiate - they could potentially negotiate to refuse to work unless they're getting stock but it sounds like Tesla is drawing the line there because they believe that their stock is valuable and will become much more valuable; employees will have to decide for themselves if they want…

So if I tell you that you can join a union but if you do you won't get stock options, then I have negotiated with you?

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

#328

Post by sudosysgen »

cactus2093 wrote: post #302
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it's like amazon entire business model is based on exploitation of labor Wait till you find out how the electronics and clothes in your house are made and how the materials they're made from are sourced or what the workforce that picks the fruit and vegetables you see in the supermarket, endures. It is rarely (never?) discussed in the west how all the consumer goods are cheap simply because the supply chain relies o…

The percentage of humans living in poverty around the world has never been lower [0]. How is that just spin? I also can’t relate to your “all we hear about” point at all. I feel like I really have to go out of my way to find any discussion about anything good in the world, the vast majority of what I hear is negative takes like yours about how everything is horrible and everyone is oppressed. [0] https://data.worldba…

Sadly for the argument, this decrease in poverty only happened as a result of China - if you remove China there basically is no difference anymore.

If you adjust your definition of poverty to local inflation, you also barely see any difference anymore.

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

#329

Post by sudosysgen »

missedthecue wrote: post #123
villgax wrote: post #85

people need to look at the AmazonNews twitter handle, spews corpo BS at every turn almost like some intern got hold of that account

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.

That won't work, because she's been talking about breaking up Amazon for years now.

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

#330

Post by hnarn »

clcaev wrote: 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…

I admire that you keep an open mind in a subject that is normally extremely infected, but I think your perspective shows a slight lack of understanding for the history of labor conflict around the world. I don't know if you'll find it helpful, but I'll just chime in on some of your points:

> The entire concept of unionization seems unnecessarily confrontational.

Unionization is confrontational by definition because it's the materialization of completely opposing interests. A unified workforce that can make collective demands on their employer is economically never in the interest of the employer.

> There is nothing preventing the state to require significant representation of employees in every board of directors.

There is not a single doubt in my mind that this would be seen by almost anyone as an extremely left-wing policy. When you say "there is nothing preventing the state" I'm not sure what you mean, unless you have a country with a very left leaning populace there is no way this would fly. For an example from my country, have a look at "employee funds".[1] The purpose was essentially to tax companies, use the money to buy stock in the companies, and give ownership to a part of the companies to trade unions. So, in a way, exactly what you mention. Remember that this was attempted in a country that had a post-war social democratic majority for decades, and even then it didn't work.

> In this way, labour and capital could work together in a more integrated manner, avoiding much of this unnecessary conflict.

Again, the conflict between labor and capital is not "unnecessary", it's built into the power relation. While everybody benefits from the company doing well in the long run during an equilibrium where everybody's happy, in the short term, changes to the benefit of the employer are often negative to the employees, and vice versa.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employee_funds

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