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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

#281

Post by tim333 »

robertwt7 wrote: post #27

how are they able to prove this in court though? surely the HR wouldn't be that stupid to document the reason of firing is "criticising the CEO". also, not trying to be on Musk side, of course he has made some embarrassing and stupid tweets. But if you created a letter that your CEO's public comment is "frequent source of embarrassment", won't you get fired in any other company?? in meta, someone even got fired for b…

I'm not up on US employment law. As an employee are you entitled to put out a letter saying your CEO is a jerk and that the idiot isn't allowed to fire you so you'll keeping saying it?

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

#282

Post by leereeves »

aw1621107 wrote: post #185
Grimburger wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 unacce…

So that raises an interesting question. If part of the letter was about working conditions, and part was about Elon tweeting, can they legally be fired for the second part of the open letter despite the existence of the first?

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

#283

Post by sandos »

I don't believe this is illegal in Sweden, not in spirit anyway. Our unions notwithstanding, you are implied to be "loyal" your employer whatever that means. I assume this would not be very loyal.

Now firing people generally requires written warnings and so on, so in that way it would maybe not have been legal.

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

#284

Post by TheCoelacanth »

tim333 wrote: post #279
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…

>Publicly address and condemn Elon’s harmful Twitter behavior. >SpaceX must swiftly and explicitly separate itself from Elon’s personal brand. If you had a company in which you were the majority shareholder and CEO would you put up with the people you hire circulating letters to condemn your behaviour?

Yes, because that is a legal requirement if you want to employ people in the United States.

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

#285

Post by bjacobel »

dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #253
arrosenberg wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuremberg defense. She could have quit.

You've got to pick your battles, and let's face it, a well run and sensibly led SpaceX is a benefit to society (so far).

Is it? How've you benefited from the existence of SpaceX? I haven't.

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

#286

Post by chii »

kibwen wrote: post #277
chii wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This letter was circulated internally using internal employee communications channels. if an employee undermined leadership's authority, it is likely that they won't last long. Good leadership means being able to recognize criticism from your employees, but this can't come from grassroots effort within the company - it must come from the top. If the employee disagrees with the direction of the company, and the lead…

> Trying to undermine leadership through collective action via other employees is akin to a threat and an internal coup in a country ruled by a dictator This comment is so close to realizing why our current corporate structures are bullshit. Keep going, you're almost there.

corporate structures _are_ dictatorships. The difference between that and a dictator country is that you can't change your country, if the dictator doesn't want you to leave.

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

#287

Post by danaris »

dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #253
arrosenberg wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuremberg defense. She could have quit.

You've got to pick your battles, and let's face it, a well run and sensibly led SpaceX is a benefit to society (so far).

This seems like an instance of "Something must be done; this is something, therefore it must be done"—more high-quality rocketry and space expertise clearly is a benefit to humanity, at least in the long term, but that doesn't necessarily mean that SpaceX in particular needs to be the organization to do it.

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

#288

Post by John23832 »

davidguetta wrote: post #276
John23832 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Oh, please. More bandwagon blind hate. Oh, please. More blind ranting without reading the article. SpaceX fired these employees for asking SpaceX to hold Elon accountable to SpaceX's own rules. It is appropriate to say that that is wrong. There's no "crying to mommy". It's saying "we all agreed to these rules as we came together as a company. Everyone should follow them."

Are you 12 ? In what world do you think publicly ridiculing your boss is gonna do anything good for your career. Oh well you were 'right'. But now you won't ever be promoted because the boss don't want the risk to be ridiculed again at a higher lever. If anything Elon made a favor to these weebs so that they can actually go have a career in another compagny

Only a 12 year old, would start a response with "Are you 12?" while asking a theoretical question which doesn't actual address the situation in the post. And using the word "weeb".

Elon wasn't publicly ridiculed. Read the article and grow up.

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

#289

Post by pintxo »

junofan wrote: post #256
jwestbury wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just give the government reasonable power to enforce things. GDPR, as an example, has been very effective, because the fines which can be levied for violations are genuinely impactful to businesses. The maximum fine is 4% of global annual revenue. Alphabet, for instance, could theoretically be liable for up to $11b, or around 20% of their net income. Amazon could be liable for up to $20b -- almost double their ope…

GDPR is about giving control to people by disallowing data controllers from just passing the buck to 3rd party data processors. But you can already just not work for Elon if you think he’s an asshole. What’s the compelling state interest here?

You could also not use google or amazon /s

In cases where mostly everyone is doing it, the only thing to choose for you is who’s going to abuse you/your data. But not the fact that it’s happening in the first place.

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

#290

Post by justrealist »

gitaarik wrote: post #259
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.

Yeah well, we have laws and a legal system right? I don't think our legal system says that you can't criticize the company you're working for, or that a company can fire people for criticizing the company. Criticism is healthy and should be respected. Even if it is "unprofessional", that doesn't give the company the right to just fire someone for that. If you would allow companies to fire their employees for criticis…

Our legal system is, absent other laws, free employment, meaning you can be fired for anything not explicitly protected by law, and "pissing off the CEO" is not one of them.
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