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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

#261

Post by dundarious »

mlindner wrote: post #121
dundarious wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have info on the stalking? It is common practice when organizing a union to note the likely strongly anti-union people, to not solicit them, and inform them last of the effort. I say this because I presumed they were just screenshotting the guy's employment photo and name, and posting in the private group, "don't solicit this guy, he might scupper the effort."

Really? It would seem more likely they would try to harass the guy who's anti-union.

Doesn't seem that way to me. As I said, one of the first steps in organizing is usually identifying your strong-no to strong-yes people, and building support among the yes side first. I don't have experience in organizing a workplace, but the information above is second-hand from conversations with people who have.

I have participated in "get out the vote" operations. In that case it's quite similar: you mostly want to avoid knocking on the door of likely-strong-no households, as you have so many likely-strong-yes doors to knock, and debating people on the doorstep is a waste of precious time when close to an election/primary -- so you can see the value in having a good data operation to know which houses are likely one way or the other, and spreading that knowledge to your canvassers.

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

#262

Post by whimsicalism »

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.

Threatening retaliation is also very much illegal, ergo yes the tweet is illegal.

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

#263

Post by whimsicalism »

capableweb wrote: post #228
shmageggy wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> rarely (never?) discussed in the west I don't know, I see it talked about all the time, but nobody seems to be able to do anything about it.

> nobody seems to be able to do anything about it. Nobody seems to want to do something about it. It's easy, vote with your wallet. But since the choice is either A) help humanity by stop buying cheap consumer electronics or B) don't get any cheap consumer electronics to make your day 0.5% better, it seems we're stuck in exploiting humanity.

We are never going to "consumer choice" our way away from labor exploitation, it requires laws.

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

#264

Post by cycomanic »

whiddershins wrote: post #165
Xylakant wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are very much ignoring a lot of historical developments that lead to the situation that Berlin is in. Berlin used to be an industrial powerhouse, many well-known companies were founded there - Siemens for example. Borsig, Varta, Osram, ... had large factories in the city. However, after WW2, Berlin was divided and the western part hard to reach, so most companies relocated, most industries disappeared. Siemens mo…

Most of my favorite audio software comes from Germany. You make great points about Berlin and about GDP per capita. It remains true that Europe doesn’t have nearly the number of startups that the United States does, and this is notable.

Actually Germanys economy is very differently structured than the US. A significantly larger portion the GDP is coming from relatively small companies (called Mittelstand in German). Those companies also often invest very large percentages of their revenue into R&D (typically much more than the big cooperations). For example a significant portion of worldwide advanced manufacturing is powered by relatively small German companies that nobody ever heard about,

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

#265

Post by jellicle »

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.

I'm glad to hear you are calling for employees to be able to freely form a union and strike (which employees are mostly banned from doing today).

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

#266

Post by whimsicalism »

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.

In the free market, should businesses not be able to freely agree to a contract? Most anti-union laws limit the types of contracts private actors are able to voluntarily consent to, which seems less of a "free market."

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

#267

Post by aspaceman »

capableweb wrote: post #228
shmageggy wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> rarely (never?) discussed in the west I don't know, I see it talked about all the time, but nobody seems to be able to do anything about it.

> nobody seems to be able to do anything about it. Nobody seems to want to do something about it. It's easy, vote with your wallet. But since the choice is either A) help humanity by stop buying cheap consumer electronics or B) don't get any cheap consumer electronics to make your day 0.5% better, it seems we're stuck in exploiting humanity.

Lol. “Don’t buy the things with exploitative labor.” Good fucking luck. Bury your head in a hole and produce squash or some shit.

There is no ethical consumption under captialism. Blah blah blah.

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

#268

Post by whimsicalism »

dnautics wrote: post #65
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.

for behaviours, yes, but for rhetoric, you're toeing a very dangerous line up against the 1st amendment.

? Not at all. I'm not quite sure why people on HN think the 1st amendment is such a golden bullet, but it is not. There are lots of exceptions, including threatened retaliation, to what might be permissibly said in the workplace.

If, for instance, as you were hiring people, you told them "we don't hire black people", even if you did hire black people, you would still be opening yourself up to suit, even with freedom of speech.

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

#270

Post by whimsicalism »

makomk wrote: post #207
pjc50 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why are so many people in this thread complaining about "having" to join a union?

On paper, that means you don't have to join the union in order to get a job - just pay the union fees and work under the union contract (which is to say, almost all the downsides of joining but without any actual say in how the union is run). In practice, I think people who do this tend to get blacklisted by the union and have trouble getting jobs in future. I know the Hollywood unions in particular are very aggressi…

As a counterpoint, in my unionized school district, both options were quite popular and you didn't need to pay the full dues, only like 70%.
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