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Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board

reuters.com

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Re: Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board

#241

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

sgift wrote: post #235
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>By your logic everybody should just try to become a tech mega corp and use VC until they set the latest trend or die. Except that's not what I said. I said, competing in a market making widgets is not as desirable for a modern country/economy/company/employee vs one that exports software and innovation, like the US, as manufacturing, more often than not turns into a race to the bottom of reducing costs and I don't w…

> This is what's funny to me about the HN crowd. Saying they won't take jobs in Embedded Software/Hardware or the Video-Games industry because WLB is poor and it "pays peanuts" but at the same time preaching that 'someone' should work making stuff in factories, where salaries and WLB is actually poor. Not them of course, but 'someone' should do it. Nice straw man you set up there. A company can make these things by b…

>A company can make these things by building machines to do it. Funny thing: European companies are really good at making machines to do such things.

Did you have any experience in this sector or it just an amrchair argument from an ivory tower of an white collar worker? Because I have first hand experience and factories, even in Europe still need quiet a few personnel.

And not all industries are automated, just ask people working in the meat packing industry or in Amazon warehouses, how their jobs are. Yes, in Europe.

Re: Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board

#242

Post by hrktb »

aborsy wrote: post #199
vincnetas wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate? Because for me, working in scandinavia, unions looked quite useful and reasonable.

I had this naive image in mind that unions are labor activists mobilizing against exploitative corporate practices. What I witnessed opened my eyes to the realities on ground, that seemed like almost opposite. As usual, life is more complicated! * The objective of trade unions is not to protect workers and improve their conditions (at least directly). It’s to protect themselves. * In every organization, there exists…

Going through all of your point, it felt like every “unions” mention could be replaced with “management”.

Protecting themselves ? check. Politicized the work environment ? check. Abusive practices ? check. Skewed view of the world and cronyism ? check.

I think what you are seeing is just a reflection of who succeeds in French companies. Some chose unions, some management, some find other niches, but none of these seem attached to specific values to me.

Re: Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board

#243

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

JBSmoove wrote: post #236
aborsy wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had this naive image in mind that unions are labor activists mobilizing against exploitative corporate practices. What I witnessed opened my eyes to the realities on ground, that seemed like almost opposite. As usual, life is more complicated! * The objective of trade unions is not to protect workers and improve their conditions (at least directly). It’s to protect themselves. * In every organization, there exists…

Germany's workforce in automotive and many other industries is HIGHLY unionized. I've never heard of these people being lazy, not wanting to work etc. In fact German engineering is the envy of the world! VW, Mercedes, BMW, Porsche all German engineered and manufactured by heavily unionized workforces! Sounds like your anecdotal bad experience with unions is not representative of reality. And FWIW I can list you just…

>VW, Mercedes, BMW, Porsche all German engineered and manufactured by heavily unionized workforces!

Sure, but for each of those there are 10-100 other smaller companies in automotive or other industries that don't have unions, and some German companies have stirred up quite a few scandals of not following the employment laws or abusing their workforce, which coincidentally was mostly immigrants.

Cherry picking the big, wealthy car brands to represent the manufacturing industry is like cherry picking FAANG for representing the software dev industry.

Re: Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board

#244

Post by vinay427 »

arnath wrote: post #197
CameronNemo wrote: post #33

dang, can we change the link/title to https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL4N2LN4L0 ? Snippet below: > Tesla CEO Musk's anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board > Tesla Inc Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk’s 2018 tweet threatening employees would lose their stock options if they formed a union was illegal and should be deleted, the U.S. National Labor Relations Board said on Thursday.

Aside from "watchdog" as opposed to NLRB, what's wrong with the title? The article describes a bunch of required actions besides just deleting the tweet.

Not the original commenter, but personally, omitting NLRB would be my main concern with the title. A "watchdog" seems needlessly vague as it could imply any range of organizations that report on this, but the NLRB is the specific agency tasked with overseeing and enforcing these union representation laws on a federal level.

Re: Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board

#245

Post by evgen »

pferde wrote: post #192
CameronNemo wrote: post #33

dang, can we change the link/title to https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL4N2LN4L0 ? Snippet below: > Tesla CEO Musk's anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board > Tesla Inc Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk’s 2018 tweet threatening employees would lose their stock options if they formed a union was illegal and should be deleted, the U.S. National Labor Relations Board said on Thursday.

The action desribed in that tweet would be illegal, but is the tweet itself illegal? Why should the tweet be deleted? I'd rather keep it for posterity.

If I happen to mention to you that it would be a shame if my associates and I were to decide to burn your nice little business down in the night, but maybe if you pay us that won't happen I would assume that you would know that a threat was being made. The arson is illegal, but so is the threat to commit it unless you do something that is to my material benefit.

Re: Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board

#246

Post by kevinmchugh »

pferde wrote: post #192
CameronNemo wrote: post #33

dang, can we change the link/title to https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL4N2LN4L0 ? Snippet below: > Tesla CEO Musk's anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board > Tesla Inc Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk’s 2018 tweet threatening employees would lose their stock options if they formed a union was illegal and should be deleted, the U.S. National Labor Relations Board said on Thursday.

The action desribed in that tweet would be illegal, but is the tweet itself illegal? Why should the tweet be deleted? I'd rather keep it for posterity.

It's very often illegal to threaten illegal retribution. Employees may not know their rights, and such a threat could discourage them from exercising those rights.

Deleting the tweet is maybe not ideal. Any future viewers of it should have the context added that it's an illegal threat.

Re: Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board

#247

Post by evgen »

eru wrote: post #116
npad wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, yeah those are good points. I can certainly see it reducing the severity of disputes in theory. In practice though I'm skeptical. I've read a little about the history of UAW. They really seemed to view workers vs mgmt as an adversarial zero sum game. Meanwhile Toyota were developing their production system using the kaizen principle of bottom up continuous improvement. Unions played a huge role in making…

So it depends a bit on whether you talk about real world US unions like the UAW, or about what unions could be in theory and might be in other parts of the world. Eg German unions have a reputation, at least compared to the US, of cooperating much more with their host companies. Similar also for Scandinavian unions.

It could also be the case that US unions operate in a country where power is held by a class of people who would really prefer their serfs to STFU and get back to whatever dangerous, ill-paid task they were assigned. When the most egregious wrongs are simply illegal and never happen then it is much easier for capital and labor to have a less adversarial relationship, but when you operate in a country like the US I would assume it is necessary for a union to be a bit more aggressive in its actions and objectives.

Re: Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board

#248

Post by foerbert »

sokoloff wrote: post #231
URSpider94 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The workers aren’t unionized yet. What the law is clear about, is that you’re not allowed to threaten workers for the act of trying to unionize the workplace.

“We give our workers stock options now. We do not expect to do so under a union contract.” I don’t see that as “threatening workers”, but as a reasonable communication between employer and employees and a proper counterbalance against union claims that the workers will be better off if they unionize. “We give our workers stock options now. No other automaker working under a union contract does so.” is something that…

That's real easy to say when there isn't a union yet. And the company has zero incentive to give any kind of realistic and useful information in this situation. They can say whatever they want, and it doesn't mean anything. They don't even know what the non-existent union will want or care about later, so how they can have any accurate expectations even if they are perfectly rational and honest. The only purpose these statements serve is to try to prevent unionization.

Part of why this is not a simple "both sides" issue is because we're talking about one side that exists and one side that might one day exist. The non-extant union can't weigh in on company statements or make any statements of their own.

So these rules exist to help ensure the workers are not unduly influenced by the company when they consider making that union finally exist. I don't see a problem with this.

Re: Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board

#249

Post by kevinmchugh »

cwhiz wrote: post #238
telaelit wrote: post #55

I wish the NRLB would be much harsher against business owners and executives who engage in anti-union rhetoric and behaviors. People have the right to form unions, lying about losing benefits and lowering pay should be handled much more harshly, there should be actual penalties instead of just having to read a statement and delete a tweet.

I disagree. It should be a free market. If the employees don’t like their treatment they should leave and take a different job. I am sure there is a UAW job out there to be had. The most likely outcome from this is that Tesla moves more and more production out of a California and into a more business friendly state, such as Texas.

The NLRB has jurisdiction in Texas

Re: Elon Musk’s anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board

#250

Post by nightpool »

pferde wrote: post #192
CameronNemo wrote: post #33

dang, can we change the link/title to https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL4N2LN4L0 ? Snippet below: > Tesla CEO Musk's anti-union tweet from 2018 must be deleted: U.S. labor board > Tesla Inc Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk’s 2018 tweet threatening employees would lose their stock options if they formed a union was illegal and should be deleted, the U.S. National Labor Relations Board said on Thursday.

The action desribed in that tweet would be illegal, but is the tweet itself illegal? Why should the tweet be deleted? I'd rather keep it for posterity.

I would say what happens to the tweet itself is almost an afterthought—it was one of only many violations addressed by the report, along with more mundane stuff, like contract provisions about employees speaking to the press (ruling: it's unlawful to prevent employees from speaking with the press as long as they make it clear they don't represent the company). The NLRB also required them to post notices addressing the tweet at all factories, and it was immortalized in a 55 page public document—not to mention all of the contemporaneous news reports. I think it's very safe to say that posterity is not going to have a hard time finding this tweet
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