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Tesla Workers Launch Union Campaign in New York

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Re: Tesla Workers Launch Union Campaign in New York

#121
post #111
post #30

They’re labelers, which are being quickly replaced by automation. This is a bid to secure their jobs long-term.

Idk why people are downvoting me, it’s 100% facts. Google “Project Vacation”

I didn't downvote you, but this part describing their motivation reads as opinion, not facts:

"This is a bid to secure their jobs long-term."

I'm not anti-opinions, just responding to your 100% facts comment.

Re: Tesla Workers Launch Union Campaign in New York

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of a union is not job security. It's about giving workers collective power they may not otherwise have. What would people do with this theoretical collective power? Probably job security combined with restrictions on work. Do as little as you can while being guaranteed a paycheck. What people want is protection from being fired for no reason. How can people be fired for no reason? There is always a reason,…

I feel like you missed my point that it is not in a union's interest to protect low-performing workers. A union cannot survive without jobs, and union members are just as frustrated as anyone else when someone is not pulling their weight. To your point about labor restrictions, unions gave us two day weekends and forty hour weeks. Modern labor practices are almost entirely defined by things unions fought for and stan…

All of this is true but there are companies that were driven out of business due to unrealistic demands from their union. As you pointed out, humans are quite often irrational and there's no reason to think that unions will always act in a rational manner that protects workers from losing their job through employer bankruptcies. Certainly, it is the goal to prevent that from happening, but humans being humans, often don't see how a particular short-term goal can end up harming their long-term goals. Of course, most companies, no matter how profitable, will cry poverty to each union request that's going to have costs to the company, so an adversarial relationship builds, with both sides insisting the other is acting in bad faith. Plenty of times, it's true for both sides.

Re: Tesla Workers Launch Union Campaign in New York

#123
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EXACTLY no one can name a single crime committed by a company. Its only the union orgs within them. Look at Enron. The only crime commited by Enron was in its ultra left wing accounting depts. Those poor C levels were nothing but heros!

Yeah, I don't know why the Saintly unions get tarred like that. Just because some engage in racketeering and have ties to organized crime, right? It's so weird!

Even if someone were to believe you that unions are inherently prone to crime and corruption in a way unique to any other organization, here in the states they have a tiny fraction of the influence they had 100 years ago. You're talking about the unions ties to the mob like we're all living in 1930s Chicago or something.

Re: Tesla Workers Launch Union Campaign in New York

#124

Tesla should take the initiative and bring in a co-operative German-style union or they are going to get stuck with an antagonistic UAW or similar.

I don't think you understand how powerless the UAW is now. Car companies don't need to stay in Detroit.

Re: Tesla Workers Launch Union Campaign in New York

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon Musk's dad was a South African millionaire. Bill Gates' mom was on the board of directors of a bank and gave him an intro to IBM execs. [0] Bezos parents invested 250k to fund Amazon. [1] Upper middle class is generational wealth already if it passes a generation. [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/05/how-bill-gates-mother-influe... [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/02/how-jeff-bezos-got-his-paren...

Yeah those parents are all upper middle class. None of them are at all comparable to the owners of a company like VW, Tesla, or Amazon. And none of them were "heirs who own the majority of stock" nor support your claim that "just because the companies change doesn't mean the owners do". Edit to reply: You don't need to tell me about the social mobility of people living in poverty. I was born into a family of construc…

You can call it "upper middle class" all you want, but to the vast majority of the population those folks would simply be "rich".

I'm not as concerned as you with the various strata of richness and the mobility between them.

I'm much more concerned with the social mobility of people living in poverty, which is pretty bad in the US compared to Europe. [0]

Key factor in that? Unions.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Social_Mobility_Index

Re: Tesla Workers Launch Union Campaign in New York

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of a union is not job security. It's about giving workers collective power they may not otherwise have. What would people do with this theoretical collective power? Probably job security combined with restrictions on work. Do as little as you can while being guaranteed a paycheck. What people want is protection from being fired for no reason. How can people be fired for no reason? There is always a reason,…

I feel like you missed my point that it is not in a union's interest to protect low-performing workers. A union cannot survive without jobs, and union members are just as frustrated as anyone else when someone is not pulling their weight. To your point about labor restrictions, unions gave us two day weekends and forty hour weeks. Modern labor practices are almost entirely defined by things unions fought for and stan…

So according to you unions are rational, omnisciencet and benevolent agents, while entrepreneurs are dumb irrational idiots who will randomly fire people all the time for wearing a green shirt.

  To your point about labor restrictions, unions gave us two day weekends and forty hour weeks. Modern labor practices are almost entirely defined by things unions fought for and standardized. The restrictions we have on work now didn't nebulously appear from the goodwill of employers.
What enabled more leisure and higher living standards for workers was harnessing efficient sources of energy, especially in the 19th century and creating machines to do a lot of hard work. Without efficient energy and machines, everything has to be done by humans, so reducing work hours means worse living standards. The fact that living standards were rising while cutting back on hours tells you there was something else doing the hard work and that was machines powered by efficient energy sources. That was the real enabler of leasure, cozy office work and high living standards.

Re: Tesla Workers Launch Union Campaign in New York

#127
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a union protects people who are not doing their job from being made to do it, that is an argument for chosing a different union not against unions in general.

In the US, you don’t really have the luxury of picking a different union. This is one reason unions suck in the US.

You do, sort of (though I get what you mean) even as an individual, even though it's less common and affects the benefits you get from being a member, and you may risk still paying dues to the recognised union (if there is one, and your state allows agency fees).

At the larger scale, your choice is to try to convince your co-workers.

The downside of joining a minority union / members only union is not that different in the US as elsewhere, in that you generally have no legal right to be treated as a bargaining agent or in the case of some such unions they explicitly don't even try get recognition.

But even the US has examples of minority unions being voluntarily given some degree of representation:

https://eu.freep.com/story/money/cars/2014/11/12/uaw-volkswa...

Re: Tesla Workers Launch Union Campaign in New York

#128
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know someone who saved companies from bankruptcy, usually heavy industries. When he get hired he install security cameras and other measures and after a few week usually find out that a lot of people are constantly stealing valuable materials from the company. It’s always people in the union with some friends that work on the floor. It always strikes me how unions in the US are subject to these kinds of casual st…

The structure of unions is such that it facilitates and encourages seniority as well as corruption including ties to the mob. It's no accident that unions are targets of corruption by the feds for various forms of malfeasance.

You mean CEOs?

Re: Tesla Workers Launch Union Campaign in New York

#129
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Honestly a big part of why I quit my last job was too many unproductive/unreliable coworkers. Unproductive? Then you must really be exercised about the heirs who own the majority of stock, who can and often do siphon off the created wealth of those working and creating wealth, via dividend profit of expropriated surplus labor time. Oh, I see no such complaint. Just some co-workers who are "unproductive".

Why is it only the heirs? Shouldn’t your issue be with all future stockholders beyond the original founders and venture capitalists? Although I assume you’d feel similar about the venture capitalists? You wouldn’t happen to own any stocks, would you?

Don't forget that many workers end up with stock too, either via options, grants or other mechanisms. Or maybe they just buy the stock because they things going well at the company.

Re: Tesla Workers Launch Union Campaign in New York

#130
post #78
post #2

As someone who has only worked in "right to work" states, it always strikes me as absurd that people seek "job security" through a 3rd party agency rather than by individual performance and developing personal relationships. Honestly a big part of why I quit my last job was too many unproductive/unreliable coworkers. Am I just Stockholm Syndromed?

this take is kind of breathtaking? There's an entire history of workers unions in the US and around the world, famous spurring events like the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory disaster, surely you aren't just waving the entire subject off as "absurd", thinking that whole factories of garment workers for example would have success via "individual performance" ? like they'd have fire exits just for the better performing wor…

It exemplifies the "individual exceptionalism" attitude of many Americans, wherein they attribute all their successes to themselves and all their failures to external forces beyond their control.
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