SpaceX Illegally Fired Workers Critical of Musk, Federal Agency Says • Hacker News Board

Re: SpaceX Illegally Fired Workers Critical of Musk, Federal Agency Says

#181

Post by thaumasiotes » Thu, Jan 04, 2024, 6:15 AM UTC

BHSPitMonkey wrote: post #137

emmelaich wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW 'gwynne' is typically a male's name. [edit - but in this case looks very much female]

I have never heard of that association. The Wikipedia article lists 11 notable people with it as their first name, and the gender distribution is just about half and half.

"Gwynne" to me looks like the first element of Guinevere (obviously female) plus a French-style feminine ending.

And the root means "white", which if it's going to be coded as one sex or the other is again always going to be female.

I would never have expected the name to be masculine. I'm surprised to see males reach 50%. (Actually, in the Wikipedia list, 55%.)

(Looking into it a little farther, the same name in Irish appears to be Finn, a legendary (male) hero. Probably relevant.)

Re: SpaceX Illegally Fired Workers Critical of Musk, Federal Agency Says

#182

Post by throwaway09223 » Thu, Jan 04, 2024, 6:15 AM UTC

richbell wrote: post #104

throwaway09223 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly not. In a similar vein, the employees don't own their position at the company. Employment arrangements are made through mutual agreements. If the company says something an employee doesn't like, the employee is free to leave. If the employee says something the company doesn't like, the company is free to dismiss the employee. It's astounding that the NRLB is defending an insubordination termination after ac…

> In a similar vein, the employees don't own their position at the company. Employment arrangements are made through mutual agreements. > If the company says something an employee doesn't like, the employee is free to leave. > If the employee says something the company doesn't like, the company is free to dismiss the employee. If an employee loses their job they may not be able to pay rent or buy groceries. If SpaceX…

> It's not an equal playing field, hence why workers protections are important.

That's why unemployment is important.

None of these factors prevent someone from being let go without notice. Those points aren't germane to whether someone can be laid off. Criticizing the CEO isn't a protected activity in any event.

Re: SpaceX Illegally Fired Workers Critical of Musk, Federal Agency Says

#183

Post by vaxman » Thu, Jan 04, 2024, 6:16 AM UTC

The takeaway is "Don't dis your boss at work." I know Elon lost this round, but those dirty bstrds that took his cash and trashed him like that must be in it for some dubious reasons --they are NEVER going to wakeup one day in their 50s and be able to gloat about how they improved humanity...all because they decided to spout off some political trash at work, about the guy signing their checks. Even if they do manage to score some cash when all is said and done, they're going to wind up buying restaurants or getting into auto leasing or something ..while Elon is sending friggin' spaceships to friggin' Mars.

     DO NOT TALK ABOUT RELIGION, POLITICS OR ADVERSITY AT WORK. EVER.
     (SAME GOES FOR CHOICE OF TEXT EDITORS AND COMPUTER LANGUAGES LOL)

Even if your 'heart is pure' and all that BS, there's always some MF who will leverage your words for their own agenda.

Re: SpaceX Illegally Fired Workers Critical of Musk, Federal Agency Says

#184

Post by John23832 » Thu, Jan 04, 2024, 6:16 AM UTC

roamerz wrote: post #48

If I was openly criticizing the boss my expectation would be I was putting my continued employment at risk. That ain’t rocket science.

Speaking up against your employer should not threaten your job. That's how you get an echo chamber of horrible decisions made by the people who just so happen to sit at the top. Especially in a company run by someone who claims to "seek truths" like Musk.

However, it certainly would not make you popular with the true believers in the room. You would definitely feel the discontent amongst your peers in a conviction led company.

Re: SpaceX Illegally Fired Workers Critical of Musk, Federal Agency Says

#185

Post by aw1621107 » Thu, Jan 04, 2024, 6:18 AM UTC

Grimburger wrote: post #162

wahnfrieden wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're allowed to discuss working conditions at work, it's protected by law. You're advocating for criminal behavior by suggesting they should be fired in retaliation for a protected category of organizing. You might find more sympathy for your point of view if it were not enforced as criminally illegal behavior. Workers don't need to respect an illegal order just because it comes from their master - it's a free coun…

> discuss working conditions Which part of the open letter discusses working conditions?[1] It's about how they don't want to work for a company owned by a person expressing their opinion in the public sphere because it causes embarrassment in their own social spheres being voluntarily associated with that. The court case is now about them demanding to have their jobs reinstated to a company owned by that exact same…

> Which part of the open letter discusses working conditions?

The sections regarding unacceptable behavior seem like potential candidates:

> SpaceX’s current systems and culture do not live up to its stated values, as many employees continue to experience unequal enforcement of our oft-repeated “No Asshole” and “Zero Tolerance” policies. This must change.

> [snip]

> Define and uniformly respond to all forms of unacceptable behavior. Clearly define what exactly is intended by SpaceX’s “no-asshole” and “zero tolerance” policies and enforce them consistently. SpaceX must establish safe avenues for reporting and uphold clear repercussions for all unacceptable behavior, whether from the CEO or an employee starting their first day.

Re: SpaceX Illegally Fired Workers Critical of Musk, Federal Agency Says

#186

Post by imgabe » Thu, Jan 04, 2024, 6:18 AM UTC

maxbond wrote: post #173

imgabe wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NAL, but I think they would also have to prove that the thing they were fired in retaliation for is something you're actually not allowed to fire people for. You can fire people in retaliation for stealing or screwing up or for wasting everyone's time complaining about Twitter drama instead of doing their job or lots of other reasons. Simply firing in retaliation is not illegal.

Also not a lawyer. I think if, for instance, a group of roof tile workers were discussing how they thought their safety straps needed to be replaced, and were fired for doing so - whether or not the straps needed replacing would be immaterial. The discussion is protected. In the same way, I don't think it's material whether Twitter is disruptive to their work. NLRB's argument, if I'm understanding correctly, is that…

I think the question is whether the boss's personal social media account is part of their workplace conditions. A safety strap is definitely a part of the work place. If your job is not social media manager and you don't work at Twitter (these are SpaceX employees), then it's hard to see how Twitter is a part of their workplace conditions. They should probably be designing rockets or whatever they were being paid to do instead of reading Twitter.

Re: SpaceX Illegally Fired Workers Critical of Musk, Federal Agency Says

#187

Post by maxbond » Thu, Jan 04, 2024, 6:23 AM UTC

imgabe wrote: post #186

maxbond wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also not a lawyer. I think if, for instance, a group of roof tile workers were discussing how they thought their safety straps needed to be replaced, and were fired for doing so - whether or not the straps needed replacing would be immaterial. The discussion is protected. In the same way, I don't think it's material whether Twitter is disruptive to their work. NLRB's argument, if I'm understanding correctly, is that…

I think the question is whether the boss's personal social media account is part of their workplace conditions. A safety strap is definitely a part of the work place. If your job is not social media manager and you don't work at Twitter (these are SpaceX employees), then it's hard to see how Twitter is a part of their workplace conditions. They should probably be designing rockets or whatever they were being paid to…

ETA: See also this better response to a similar question; we're myopically focusing on Twitter, but that isn't the real story here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38863726

Musk regularly tweets about his companies. His tweets regularly move the share price, so it makes sense to me that they might regularly impact employees (not to say the share price is the mechanism by which that would happen, just that it stands to reason his tweets are relevant to the operations of the business if they're relevant to its valuation).

Also, if you listen to Musk, he has no regular personal and working hours, they're constantly intermingled.

I think many people in the thread have a misconception that because Twitter is something kinda silly that it couldn't possibly matter. I think it can be helpful to mentally substitute "Twitter" with "public statements."

As a thought experiment, if the CEO of your company went on a drunken bender (not saying this is what Musk did, just a hypothetical) and they started tweeting a bunch of really offensive stuff, do you think that could impact your job? Say, if you were a startup about to do another round of fundraising - they might alienate investors, and you might end up losing your job.

Re: SpaceX Illegally Fired Workers Critical of Musk, Federal Agency Says

#188

Post by saghm » Thu, Jan 04, 2024, 6:23 AM UTC

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #127

geysersam wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the opposite of meritocracy. And abuse of power on your bosses part. Don't know why so many in this thread seems to support obviously corrupt behavior.

Abuse of power is a relative term. If something is the norm, then doing it is not abuse. It's fine in most companies to complain about the boss to HR or to the boss themselves, but not fine to complain it to someone else. If I had bad boss who isn't doing anything illegal or breaks company's policy, I would likely switch my job rather than taking the impossible task of fixing them if they don't want to fix themselves…

> If I had bad boss who isn't doing anything illegal or breaks company's policy, I would likely switch my job rather than taking the impossible task of fixing them if they don't want to fix themselves.

What they initially wrote the letter about the boss doing might not have been illegal, but it sounds like the government agency whose job it is to monitor this sort of thing thinks firing them for it is in fact illegal.

> It's fine in most companies to complain about the boss to HR or to the boss themselves, but not fine to complain it to someone else.

There's "fine" and "not fine" as personal opinions, and then there's "legal" and "illegal"; both of those things you listed are in fact legal regardless of whether you personally consider them "fine", but firing someone for them is not.

Re: SpaceX Illegally Fired Workers Critical of Musk, Federal Agency Says

#189

Post by ImPostingOnHN » Thu, Jan 04, 2024, 6:25 AM UTC

systemstops wrote: post #121

maxbond wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's clearly newsworthy. Lots of news organizations are reporting on it, not just NYT. I don't think we need to assume that a newspaper is corrupt for reporting that the government published a document, that's a huge part of their job.

Maybe - but the deluge of anti-Musk articles in the media the last few months is a probably more newsworthy. We can't ignore the fact that after buying Twitter and getting rid of some of the speech restrictions, he has been sued by several federal agencies, lost major federal contracts and all sorts of (questionable) scandals about him are now suddenly being discovered.

Yeah, I can't imagine why anyone is interested in the world's richest man figuratively pulling down his pants down in public, shitting in his hands, and flinging it at everyone who upsets him, almost non-stop for years. All reporting on his antics must be a conspiracy. He clearly doesn't want attention, that's why he maintains such a low profile. Leave elmu alone!!!

Re: SpaceX Illegally Fired Workers Critical of Musk, Federal Agency Says

#190

Post by wharvle » Thu, Jan 04, 2024, 6:29 AM UTC

wkat4242 wrote: post #116

haliskerbas wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the fiduciary duty the company owner has to it’s shareholders, where the employees are part of that group too. I could also say “shut up your job is to make the stock go up, this isn’t twitter tea party time” to the owner

Or "Maybe don't tell our customers that buy ads to go fuck themselves". In fact if I said that to our customers I would probably be fired.

… and then, right after telling ex-customers to go fuck themselves and not to come back, when asked what the plan was to replace that revenue, to offer nothing and say it “will kill” (Will! Kill!) the company, but you’re ok with that because “the world will judge [the companies that stopped buying Twitter ads]”.

At a public event. On camera.