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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

#351

Post by mlyle »

tsimionescu wrote: post #336
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest confusion I have is everybody seems to approach Amazon and Tesla unionization as "hopefully it happens so workers will get better wages!" I could be wrong but... I'm pretty sure Amazon and Tesla pay great relative to their space. Relatively demanding, sure. I get it. We've all seen the article where some Amazon worker urinated in a bottle because "the job is just so ruthless!". They employ hundreds of tho…

> I'm pretty sure Amazon and Tesla pay great relative to their space. > I'm sure most Amazon warehouse jobs start in the $15-20/hr range. How much better can you really get for what is essentially reading a screen, grabbing something off of a shelf, and putting it in a box? Amazon is also one of the richest companies in the world, largely dependant on the work of each and every one of those warehouse workers. Why is…

> If that's unrealistic, still: Amazon's profit went up by 84% in 2020. Why shouldn't workers seek for their wages to go up 84% instead?

So, say Amazon's net income in 2019 was $11.5B, and that they paid employees about $25B. Even if Amazon's scale in 2020 required no additional workers, increasing wages for those existing workers by 84% would have wiped out Amazon's entire profit and more despite a banner year.

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

#352

Post by klyrs »

npad wrote: post #32
sharkjacobs wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why pay union dues & give up stock options for nothing? If you don't think that Elon means employees will lose their stock options if they unionize, then what does he mean?

I'm taking it to mean union employees wouldn't get new grants. Which makes sense to me - I have a hard time squaring how you can be in a union with an adversarial relationship to management, whilst at the same time being an owner of the company. It's one or the other.

Only, employee-owned co-ops demonstratee that you actually can have it both ways.

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

#353

Post by ljp_206 »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #320
aphextron wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The most that individuals will have to pay out-of-pocket in 2020 is $8,200 and $16,400 for families. If you have good insurance, sure. If you're unemployed, one bad illness or injury means instant bankruptcy.

We have ACA now, anyone can get affordable insurance.

The conundrum is that anyone who can afford to shell out $500+ a month for the most basic plan doesn't need it / probably has a better plan through work. The complexity and cost of the band aid system we have now is a joke the world over.

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

#354

Post by missedthecue »

mikeryan wrote: post #283
missedthecue wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They pretty beautifully baited Sen. Elizabeth Warren into running her mouth today. She wrote - " I'll fight to break up Big Tech so you’re not powerful enough to heckle senators with snotty tweets. " If she brings an anti-trust suit against them, it will be so easy for Amazon's lawyers to argue that she is only doing so to violate their first amendment rights, which she full out admitted to today.

Breaking up Big Tech isn’t an idle threat from Warren. It was an explicit part of her platform when running for president. She has always believed that some companies run afoul of anti-trust laws. This far predates a spat with an Amazon twitter handle https://2020.elizabethwarren.com/toolkit/break-up-big-tech

Yes, she's long pushed for it, but today she said she would so it so that they wouldn't heckle public officials.

That's a huge difference.

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

#355

Post by natch »

hnarn wrote: post #319
pmorici wrote: post #295

Calling this tweet "anti-union" seems like spin. It is pointing out facts that one might want to consider before deciding to unionize. The fact that employees lose stock options when they unionize isn't so much a threat as it is a fact about how unions work because historically unions are against any kind of incentive or merit pay so they refuse options as compensation. It is a fact that UAW hasn't negotiated options…

I'm a very pro-union guy, so I'll give my five cents just for the sake of discussion: Firstly, I don't know the context in which this was tweeted, but looking at it, it's not in my opinion egregiously or "obviously" anti-union, but the definition of this is of course a legal one and not a subjective one, so it doesn't really matter what any of us "think" is anti-union, what matters is the legal text in the region whe…

You're talking about whether the most visible champion of Dogecoin, whose formal title at his company is Techking, and who added a fart-on-demand feature to his products, and saying that one of his tweets regarding a currently non-existent party, a Tesla union organization, is unprofessional.

Labels like "unprofessional" are repugnant to some people, because they have been, and continue to be, used to justify arbitrary application of personal taste and frankly BS in the workplace, for example to bully people into wearing neckties.

I doubt this is a good standard to go for when trying to engage Elon. I do understand however that it's your opinion — no argument that you are free to it, and I even think it's productive to air it… in part because it gives people like me a chance to offer a counter perspective.

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

#356

Post by cwhiz »

ausbah wrote: post #251
cwhiz wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

calling it a free market is laughable naive. the market is lopsided in favor of businesses because many laws at the state and federal are explicitly pro-business and anti-union; see "right to work laws", the 1947 Taft-Harley act, etc. - especially over the past 20 years and saying workers should just go and join a union backed job is even sillier when [1] https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm

Right to work is only anti union because it allows employees to choose whether or not to join a union. Forcing an employee to join a union is absolutely not pro-employee.

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

#357

Post by macinjosh »

mellosouls wrote: post #308
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…

I actually read your comment in good faith expecting to see some actual union-specific critiques, but it is just an absurdly biased caricature of the very worst of people and motives who exist in every type of organisation. Having read it, I now don't believe for one minute you "had a naive image in mind" before or "opened your eyes" after your experience.

Power in all forms corrupts whether its corporate, governmental, or union. No organization of humans is free of these sorts of things which is why individual freedoms are important. OP's naivety was the ignorance of the aforementioned condition of human organizations.

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

#358

Post by rapnie »

tomnipotent wrote: post #339
api wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I listened to a podcast recently about Amazon union drives and apparently the big gripe isn't wages but working conditions. The almost universal sentiment is that people are treated like robots. Breaks are so rare and short that pissing in bottles or defecating in bags is common. Sometimes people have to choose between relieving themselves and eating since the break is too short for both. Most of the people interview…

> pissing in bottles or defecating in bags is common I'd be willing to wager this "fact" has been brought up more in this thread alone than has actually happened on the job. Makes for great sensationalism, though. The union cause would be much better served without this silly BS being shared like it's the actual cause of woos.

I don't know, but read this yesterday:

"Leaked memo shows Amazon knows delivery drivers resort to urinating in bottles"

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/mar/25/amazon-de...

> The email [May 2020] went on to say: “We’ve noticed an uptick recently of all kinds of unsanitary garbage being left inside bags: used masks, gloves, bottles of urine.”

> Workers have previously told the Guardian they needed to urinate inside water bottles on a daily basis for fear of missing delivery rates. A forum on Reddit dedicated to Amazon drivers, which, while impossible to vet completely for authenticity, nonetheless shows hundreds of comments from drivers claiming they frequently have to urinate in water bottles for lack of bathroom breaks while on the job

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

#359

Post by cwhiz »

joppy wrote: post #272
cwhiz wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So in a "free" market, one side has all the bargaining power and the other side has none of it? What does a free market mean to you?

It means the employees can choose to leave and choose whether they want to join a union.

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

#360

Post by zdragnar »

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #305
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say unions are not successful, I said that workplaces like VW or Porsche are not the norm in Germany. They're like Germany's FAANG; very successful, but not the norm for every industry employee there since they don't all enjoy such good conditions.

I have yet to hear people in Europe being upset that they are unionized.

I had a friend from France getting his undergraduate degree in the US Marvel at how much learning we were getting done, since we didnt spend half of every semester on strike.

There are good and bad unions everywhere, but I think the closed-shop restrictions in the US that force you to join a particular union as a condition of employment exacerbates the worst qualities of them here.

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