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SpaceX Illegally Fired Workers Critical of Musk, Federal Agency Says

nytimes.com

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

#221

Post by fsckboy »

wharvle wrote: post #212
comex wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They weren’t criticizing the product direction. The letter was about Elon’s tweets and sexual harassment.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/16/23170228/spacex-elon-musk... The whole (internal! Until leaked) open letter is near the bottom of that article. Wasn’t paywalled for me. Reading it cleared up the noise in this thread pretty neatly. Sure looks like this has a great shot of counting as protected discussion of work conditions. I now know posts in this thread dismissing the letter as just “politics” or just “criticizin…

[flagged]

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

#222

Post by jrflowers »

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #139
etchalon wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If something is the norm, then doing it is not abuse The sheer number of historical atrocities this would excuse is almost hilarious.

The world swings and the things which looks like abuse changes. And it's not like people are not dying due to their norms. We need to change their norm from within.

This is very wise. The first step to changing the norm from within is to acknowledge that the norm cannot be bad because it is the norm, as the most powerful position of change is to say that nothing worth changing should be changed if it is somewhat common

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

#223

Post by comex »

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…

Catchphrases aside, freedom of speech has always been about freedom from (specific categories of) consequences. That is the entire point. For example, the First Amendment protects you from most consequences imposed by the government, such as being sent to jail, or even lesser consequences like being fired from a government job (depending). Analogously, in the employment context, “freedom of speech” would have to include freedom from being fired for that speech or it would be quite meaningless.

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

#224

Post by junofan »

wharvle wrote: post #212
comex wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They weren’t criticizing the product direction. The letter was about Elon’s tweets and sexual harassment.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/16/23170228/spacex-elon-musk... The whole (internal! Until leaked) open letter is near the bottom of that article. Wasn’t paywalled for me. Reading it cleared up the noise in this thread pretty neatly. Sure looks like this has a great shot of counting as protected discussion of work conditions. I now know posts in this thread dismissing the letter as just “politics” or just “criticizin…

I dunno, it more or less calls Elon an asshole. I dunno if blasting that to the whole company is protected. Seems like disruptive behavior which the employer may lawfully regulate.

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

#225

Post by beachy »

jrflowers wrote: post #216
justrealist wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Circulating an open letter point-blank criticizing the CEO is absolutely unprofessional and I'm honestly shocked anyone here thinks they could pull this crap without getting fired.

This is a good point. Since employees are not shareholders they have no standing to criticize a CEO. Only someone with a financial stake in the future of a company should be able to voice their concerns without fear of retribution

Employees are financially dependant on the company for salary and perhaps stock options - surely that counts as "a financial stake".

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

#226

Post by wharvle »

fsckboy wrote: post #221
wharvle wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/16/23170228/spacex-elon-musk... The whole (internal! Until leaked) open letter is near the bottom of that article. Wasn’t paywalled for me. Reading it cleared up the noise in this thread pretty neatly. Sure looks like this has a great shot of counting as protected discussion of work conditions. I now know posts in this thread dismissing the letter as just “politics” or just “criticizin…

[flagged]

I guess primary sources are less cool if you aren’t going to read them and go in with a made-up mind. I was prepared to see a hysterical and inappropriate letter that at the very least didn’t fit the spirit of discussion of improving work conditions, even if it did fit the strict definition. Looks like it’s well within the spirit, though.

Oh well, it’s there for all to read. No need to rely on me or “criminal crew running the government” here. And thank god for that. We might be nuts with wildly bad information.

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

#227

Post by John23832 »

fsckboy wrote: post #221
wharvle wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/16/23170228/spacex-elon-musk... The whole (internal! Until leaked) open letter is near the bottom of that article. Wasn’t paywalled for me. Reading it cleared up the noise in this thread pretty neatly. Sure looks like this has a great shot of counting as protected discussion of work conditions. I now know posts in this thread dismissing the letter as just “politics” or just “criticizin…

[flagged]

>It is critical that the shareholders, the board, and the CEO make this determination about messages and mission, and values

They did by creating the rules of conduct that all employees must abide by. "Rules for the but not for me" is bad corporate leadership.

>not a mutiny by a subset of employees with an agenda (the same agenda as all the people here who think Musk is the devil) and who make unsupportable claims that they magically know better than managment what the PR should look like.

Asking your company to hold another employee accountable to the rule of conduct we all agreed to abide by is not mutiny.

>I'm not going to read the rest of this stupid letter, it's a smarmy politcal sneer motivated by the ideological imperatives of a tiny minority of shareholders, who support a Whitehouse that has politicized the Justice Department more than has been seen in a long long time. Not even LBJ behaved like the criminal crew running the govt, this is 19th century bare knuckled politics.

It's is clear you just have a political bent here rather than a calm and considered idea.

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

#228

Post by anomaly_ »

crooked-v wrote: post #199
hipadev23 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a goddamn joke. NLRB needs to be dissolved or given actual teeth to levy meaningful and impactful fines.

Just open it up to private lawsuits with punitive damages attached. Lawyers will be on these kind of slam-dunk cases instantly.

100%. If you want behaviour changed with proper penalties, allow private enforcement of rights.

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

#229

Post by shawndrost »

John23832 wrote: post #203
fsckboy wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Speaking up against your employer should not threaten your job. if you mean this as advice, ok, but if you mean it as "this needs to be a law", what are you even talking about, authoritarian much? > That's how you get an echo chamber of horrible decisions made by the people who just so happen to sit at the top. firing employees for speaking out might get you, the employer , an echo chamber, but perhaps for your pro…

>if you mean this as advice, ok, but if you mean it as "this needs to be a law", what are you even talking about, authoritarian much? Yes I think that should be law. You should be able to attempt to help self correct your company by speaking up and not have the your life blown up because of the misaligned interest of a select few at the top. Just quitting is the the most extreme form of protest, but not the most feas…

I agree with your gist, but I self-identify as an authoritarian, and I don't think you can support your point without that admission.

Your erroneous rationale is the paragraph about "the ask". The boss said "no assholes" (among other things) and then violated those rules (in the employees' eyes, and yours, and mine). The employees delicately asked the sub-boss to choose insubordination, and the request was denied, with additional consequences. Nobody was confused about who the boss was, or what actual rules were in place.

Your authoritarian rationale -- which I agree with -- is in your final paragraph: he ought to hold himself to a higher standard if he wants to be so rich and influential. I'd push a button that would make that the rules of the world. But that's an authoritarian POV.

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

#230

Post by cycomanic »

imgabe wrote: post #171
maxbond wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's the burden of proof though, I think they have to prove they were fired in retaliation.

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.

Sorry this is getting ridiculous, go and read the letter, it's reasonably worded and specifically calls out the problems that you cause by making a policy for the employees ("don't be an a-hole") but then don't call out employees above some level for violating these rules.

Moreover, a little research would have revealed to you that Shot well publicly stated that the employees were fired for their letter. There is no burden of proof here.

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