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Tesla Workers Launch Union Campaign in New York

bloomberg.com

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Re: Tesla Workers Launch Union Campaign in New York

#161

Post by zzzeek »

nerdponx wrote: post #130
zzzeek wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

yeah that's the baseline attitude of Hacker Newsers, that post went way above and beyond all that in its ignorance :)

Re: Tesla Workers Launch Union Campaign in New York

#163

Post by ecf »

> The Buffalo plant has over 800 Tesla Autopilot analysts with starting pay of about $19 per hour, Bloomberg wrote. The workers are reportedly "in non-engineering roles that contribute to Tesla's automated-driving development, including by identifying objects in images its vehicles capture and helping its systems recognize them on the road."

Best of luck to them but they’re in for a wake up call if they think they’re in a position of bargaining power for a job that takes maybe a day or two of training to learn.

Re: Tesla Workers Launch Union Campaign in New York

#164

Post by sturob »

An important detail that none of the reporting I've seen has mentioned: Tesla got upwards of $750 million in subsidies from the state of NY for putting the Gigafactory 2 in Buffalo.

The condition was that they had to support 1460 jobs. Last I heard they were around 1500, so it's reasonable to believe the analyst jobs are only located there to avoid paying fines for breach of contract with NYS.

Re: Tesla Workers Launch Union Campaign in New York

#165

Post by kibwen »

surement wrote: post #155
kibwen wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather, the point is to illustrate how the default state of the employer-employee relationship is to be as unfavorable to the employee as the employer can get away with, where slavery is merely the extreme end of the scale that employers aspire to.

if the "employer-employee relationship" was not a positive sum transaction then it wouldn't happen

This is damning with faint praise. When Clint Eastwood pulls out a gun, tosses Tuco a shovel, and tells him to start digging, that's also a positive sum transaction, but it may bode poorly for Tuco.

Re: Tesla Workers Launch Union Campaign in New York

#167

Post by JohnFen »

metadat wrote: post #166

Does Tesla / Musk view their employees as people with their own lives, dreams, and aspirations.. or are they merely faceless resources? The answer to this question will explain a lot. Sometimes a little bit of empathy goes a long ways. Even in capitalism.

[flagged]

Re: Tesla Workers Launch Union Campaign in New York

#168

Post by mr-debil »

sturob wrote: post #164

An important detail that none of the reporting I've seen has mentioned: Tesla got upwards of $750 million in subsidies from the state of NY for putting the Gigafactory 2 in Buffalo. The condition was that they had to support 1460 jobs. Last I heard they were around 1500, so it's reasonable to believe the analyst jobs are only located there to avoid paying fines for breach of contract with NYS.

This is exactly what happened.

The Solar factory didn't really take off like expected so to hit that job requirement they staffed it with extremely low skill jobs. The article nicely calls them analysts but they're simple data labelers. They look at a picture, make a box around a stop sign and tell the computer that is a stop sign, then do the same with a speed limit sign, then on to the next item in the picture (curb, deer, tree, lines, etc)... then repeat the same process for the next photo. These people do not need to be in buffalo to do this job, but Tesla does need humans to do it, and primarily Americans where they understand the culture and general rules of the road.

Re: Tesla Workers Launch Union Campaign in New York

#169

Post by Natsu »

kibwen wrote: post #165
surement wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if the "employer-employee relationship" was not a positive sum transaction then it wouldn't happen

This is damning with faint praise. When Clint Eastwood pulls out a gun, tosses Tuco a shovel, and tells him to start digging, that's also a positive sum transaction, but it may bode poorly for Tuco.

That's very disputable given the costs to Tuco and in any case, the modal positive sum is that both employee and employer profit.

Re: Tesla Workers Launch Union Campaign in New York

#170

Post by surement »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #159
surement wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why would it be illegal? employees are welcome to find jobs elsewhere

"Why would lack of air conditioning be illegal? Sweatshop workers are welcome to find jobs elsewhere."

yeah you clearly don't understand what the alternatives are
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