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SpaceX is suing to bust up federal union protections

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Re: SpaceX is suing to bust up federal union protections

#51

Post by belltaco »

flerchin wrote: post #39
kevingadd wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I must be misunderstanding your post because the only way I can interpret this is "their tone wasn't nice enough so they deserved to get fired". Do you have a link to a full copy of the open letter or a screenshot where it called him an asshole? The version of it here doesn't look like it deserves to be tone-policed in this way: https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/16/23170228/spacex-elon-musk... To cite a small portion o…

Not deserving to be fired is not the same as being federally protected from being fired. NRLB says that being fired for what they did is illegal, and that's hard for me to square with how I understand labor law.

I said a similar thing yesterday and got buried in downvotes for having an opinion.

Re: SpaceX is suing to bust up federal union protections

#52

Post by rickydroll »

legitster wrote: post #37
biomcgary wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the current make up of the Supreme Court (particularly Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, IIRC), this hail-Mary isn't necessarily that low probability. Several justices don't like administrative courts being the law-maker, judge, jury, executioner, and tax collector. I think one's attitude toward this case (independent of Musk / SpaceX) comes down to how much you value separation of powers as a check on government vs conso…

Right, but it would take a lot of steps for it to even make it to the Supreme Court in the first case. As it is this has a huge chance of being instantly dismissed. > consolidation of government power as a check on the power of corporations This might be a good way of putting it. But I personally grew up in an ex-soviet country so my experience is that I am way more afraid of governments than corporations. If you thi…

privatized water is not any better and arguably worse. I think the difference is level of graft and citizen involvement in management/oversight

https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/2015/08/02/water-privatiza...

Re: SpaceX is suing to bust up federal union protections

#54

Post by skissane »

legitster wrote: post #37
biomcgary wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the current make up of the Supreme Court (particularly Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, IIRC), this hail-Mary isn't necessarily that low probability. Several justices don't like administrative courts being the law-maker, judge, jury, executioner, and tax collector. I think one's attitude toward this case (independent of Musk / SpaceX) comes down to how much you value separation of powers as a check on government vs conso…

Right, but it would take a lot of steps for it to even make it to the Supreme Court in the first case. As it is this has a huge chance of being instantly dismissed. > consolidation of government power as a check on the power of corporations This might be a good way of putting it. But I personally grew up in an ex-soviet country so my experience is that I am way more afraid of governments than corporations. If you thi…

> Right, but it would take a lot of steps for it to even make it to the Supreme Court in the first case. As it is this has a huge chance of being instantly dismissed.

This is in the 5th Circuit. The 5th Circuit has already ruled that ALJs (administrative law judges) are unconstitutional, [0] a precedent which SpaceX is directly citing in this case–14 times. [1] Indeed, this is basically just copy-pasting the holdings from that judgement against the SEC, and applying them to the NLRB. The only way the NLRB wins given that precedent, is to convince the court that there is some constitutionally significant difference between the SEC's ALJs and its own–and even if the District Court judge were convinced of that, I doubt the 5th Circuit (the most conservative of the federal Courts of Appeal, and with a reputation of being unfriendly to the NLRB) would agree. So no way does this have a "huge chance of being instantly dismissed".

However, that 5th circuit ruling is currently being appealed at SCOTUS (SEC v Jaresky). [2] It was argued in late November, so we should have a ruling by late June / early July, possibly even earlier. If SCOTUS upholds the 5th Circuit's ruling, SpaceX very likely wins. If SCOTUS overturns the 5th Circuit's ruling, SpaceX very likely loses. Both sides will readily agree to drag this out until they get that ruling.

SpaceX's lawyers aren't really doing anything legally original here, just setting themselves up to potentially benefit from an upcoming SCOTUS ruling, if it happens to go their way. This case is unlikely to ever make it to that level, because that level will have already decided it one way or the other.

This is somewhat misleading journalism, trying to make it sound like SpaceX is launching an novel attack on the NLRB, as opposed to just piggy-backing themselves on somebody else's attack on the entire ALJ system.

[0] https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/20/20-61007-CV0.pd...

[1] https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/sp...

[2] https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/securities-and-e...

Re: SpaceX is suing to bust up federal union protections

#55

Post by LargeTomato »

legitster wrote: post #9
el-dude-arino wrote: post #2

Just when you think there's no end to Musk's dip-shittery, he goes and dives head first into a pile of nonsense and butt-hurtedness.

It's not actually clear that Musk was involved in this at all. By all accounts, he has not really been present at the day-to-day operations of SpaceX in years. And the open letter was targeting the executive team, not Musk.

While we don't know if Musk was involved in this legal approach, it absolutely reeks of Musk. What corporation, other than an Elon corporation, would make a labor rights case about the constitutionality of a century-old labor rights department?

Re: SpaceX is suing to bust up federal union protections

#56

Post by LargeTomato »

PM_me_your_math wrote: post #4
el-dude-arino wrote: post #2

Just when you think there's no end to Musk's dip-shittery, he goes and dives head first into a pile of nonsense and butt-hurtedness.

Unions are cancer. This isn't the late 19th century anymore. Unions do very little but enrich themselves and exert political power.

> Unions are cancer.

This is not an appropriate hacker news tone.

Re: SpaceX is suing to bust up federal union protections

#57

Post by LargeTomato »

belltaco wrote: post #50
standardUser wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This isn't the late 19th century anymore. Nope, it's the early 21st century, and inequality in this country is higher than it's been since the Gilded Age. Not exactly a comparison we should want to be making. And the trajectory is still moving primarily in the wrong direction.

How does this help reduce inequality? https://www.justice.gov/usao-edmi/pr/former-international-ua...

If you want to change someone's mind about unions then one-off links to court cases is not going to work. You'll need to really target the idea of unions themselves instead of finding bad PR. For example, I could go find PR of "corporation bad" but it would not turn someone into a communist.

Re: SpaceX is suing to bust up federal union protections

#58

Post by fuzzylightbulb »

legitster wrote: post #9
el-dude-arino wrote: post #2

Just when you think there's no end to Musk's dip-shittery, he goes and dives head first into a pile of nonsense and butt-hurtedness.

It's not actually clear that Musk was involved in this at all. By all accounts, he has not really been present at the day-to-day operations of SpaceX in years. And the open letter was targeting the executive team, not Musk.

“Elon’s behavior in the public sphere is a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment for us, particularly in recent weeks,” the employees wrote. The letter, which welcomed other employees’ signatures, called for SpaceX to distance itself from Musk’s controversial online comments.

Re: SpaceX is suing to bust up federal union protections

#59

Post by bradyd »

kibwen wrote: post #15
JaceLightning wrote: post #3

Title is misleading. Has nothing to do with union protections. Sounds like a strong case. Why should companies be forced to employ people who actively work to harm the reputation of said company?

> Why should companies be forced to employ people who actively work to harm the reputation of said company? The irony being that the content of the letter is in regards to Elon Musk's work to actively harm the reputation of said company. By this token, why should employees be forced to work under petulant, capricious, myopic executives who undermine the efforts of the people with boots on the ground who do all the ac…

Nobody forced them to work there.

Re: SpaceX is suing to bust up federal union protections

#60

Post by JaceLightning »

kibwen wrote: post #15
JaceLightning wrote: post #3

Title is misleading. Has nothing to do with union protections. Sounds like a strong case. Why should companies be forced to employ people who actively work to harm the reputation of said company?

> Why should companies be forced to employ people who actively work to harm the reputation of said company? The irony being that the content of the letter is in regards to Elon Musk's work to actively harm the reputation of said company. By this token, why should employees be forced to work under petulant, capricious, myopic executives who undermine the efforts of the people with boots on the ground who do all the ac…

Oh that's easy. *They aren't*

An employee has one job: to help their employer make money. That's it.

If they aren't doing their job (by harming the reputation of their employer), then they shouldn't be employed.

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