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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

#431

Post by sascha_sl »

whatinthewhy wrote: post #424
marricks wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, if one wants to avoid the conflict of a union a work place should be at least 51% employee owned. Short of having mandatory employee ownership unions are the next best thing, and one is far easier in the US. Otherwise we have what we have now, rampant unfairness and tension but no conflict because the board can get away with whatever conditions PR allows them to get away with.

Why 51%? Why not split labor ownership equally with capital?

Because it is an unequal relationship to begin with. Finding consensus in a 100% worker controlled organization is already a lot of work. We know capital is pretty okay with propagandizing if you look at current unionbusting practices, and they likely have more capital (haa) to do it.

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

#432

Post by nickik »

marricks wrote: post #338
clcaev wrote: post #314

The entire concept of unionization seems unnecessarily confrontational. It does not need to be this way. Corporations are creations of the state. There is nothing preventing the state to require significant representation of employees in every board of directors. This board representation could support management that better reflects employee participation, e.g. Sociocracy. In this way, labour and capital could work…

I agree, if one wants to avoid the conflict of a union a work place should be at least 51% employee owned. Short of having mandatory employee ownership unions are the next best thing, and one is far easier in the US. Otherwise we have what we have now, rampant unfairness and tension but no conflict because the board can get away with whatever conditions PR allows them to get away with.

There are so many issues with simply saying 'workers should own 51% of the company'. That statement and causes so many issues in every aspect of how companies are now run an financed, its hard to even imagine what such a regulation would mean or how it would work in practice.

> Short of having mandatory employee ownership unions are the next best thing, and one is far easier in the US.

Again, just saying this is easy but what is the meaning of union in this context? What a union is and what it does has been wildly different thought history, form country to country and form industry to industry.

What are the exact powers of that union mandatory union?

These discussions are always so abstract, union are almost an article of faith for some people.

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

#433

Post by 1nverseMtx »

Nimitz14 wrote: post #390
JBSmoove wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You know what they also all of in common? Zero innovation since decades. And German car engineering is mostly known for being overly complicated, I say that as a German.

Agree.

Close to zero progress in electrifying European produced cars. I would say unions are the cause for the delay resisting any change away from skills their members have, but obsoleted by electric cars with 1/10 the number of parts required.

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

#434

Post by detaro »

1nverseMtx wrote: post #433
Nimitz14 wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what they also all of in common? Zero innovation since decades. And German car engineering is mostly known for being overly complicated, I say that as a German.

Agree. Close to zero progress in electrifying European produced cars. I would say unions are the cause for the delay resisting any change away from skills their members have, but obsoleted by electric cars with 1/10 the number of parts required.

On what evidence do you say that? The German auto unions have been saying for years that the switch to electric needs to be planned and managed exactly so the sector remains competitive and can employ people

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

#435

Post by 2-tpg »

2-tpg wrote: post #397
riversflow wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The warehouse/delivery worker abuse at amazon runs deep, and it goes far beyond employees peeing in bottles. Checkout the Frontline documentary, Amazon Empire: The Rise and Reign of Jeff Bezos [1] [1] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/amazon-empire/

> it goes far beyond employees peeing in bottles. No, but solid rhetorics. This is the part you give proof of the fact that Amazon have their workers pee in bottles to meet deadlines. Not point to something else entirely that goes far beyond the things you pose as facts, which are not. Don't look at that! Look at this documentary that goes far far beyond it. Well played! And solid one for PBS for exposing the worker…

Deadlines are calculated from the average worker speeds. Perhaps some Amazon employees really are below average, or do not give it their best at all, so they are forced to piss in bottles and poop into the delivery car before returning it to station to meet these devilish average-worker deadlines.

I would agree that is a terrible problem. Perhaps Amazon should focus more attention on catching such employees early and letting them go (or offering them potty training with quarterly evaluations)? But then where does the average go? Deadlines get even tighter! Or you could make your wage relative to your worker speed: the fastest people earn the most. Only if you think you still earn enough for shitty work will you then be forced to keep doing that job. Or should Amazon be more kind to these employees who can't seem to manage their personal hygiene or fall way below average worker speeds? Treat and pay them the same as the 99% employees who don't shit and deliver? That would lead to an equal outcome for sure.

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

#436

Post by dunnevens »

URSpider94 wrote: post #415
dunnevens wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many states right now, there are zero cost premiums for those who make within 200-250% of the Federal Poverty Line. Percentage varies between states, or sometimes even by counties. This was part of Biden's stimulus package and should help a lot of people.

In many states. Not in all.

I mentioned it wasn't in all states. But it's still going to affect the premiums of millions. It's a good thing.

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

#437

Post by URSpider94 »

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…

First of all, that’s not what Elon said. He said something to the effect of “why do you want to join a union and lose stock options?” Just like someone who approaches you on a dark street and says “nice car, wouldn’t want anything to happen to it.” Of course, when you call the police, he’s going to explain that he genuinely appreciates a fine automobile and was expressing his concern given the troubles in the neighborhood.

Musk has a significant say in whether employees continue to receive options, and I can’t see why the union would ask to take that away, given that options are presumably very popular with their members.

Saying that life will get worse with a union is one thing. Saying that it will get worse because I will make it worse is another.

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

#438

Post by URSpider94 »

loceng wrote: post #306
cinntaile wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they not get stock options? Sounds like a punishment for voting union?

Punishment? It's negotiation. It's Elon stating that Tesla won't be putting stock options on the table, but a union still could then negotiate - they could potentially negotiate to refuse to work unless they're getting stock but it sounds like Tesla is drawing the line there because they believe that their stock is valuable and will become much more valuable; employees will have to decide for themselves if they want…

That’s exactly the kind of thing that’s forbidden under the law. You can’t threaten to take a current benefit off the table if employees unionize.

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

#439

Post by heavyset_go »

villgax wrote: post #85

people need to look at the AmazonNews twitter handle, spews corpo BS at every turn almost like some intern got hold of that account

From the @AmazonNews Twitter[1]:

> You don’t really believe the peeing in bottles thing, do you? If that were true, nobody would work for us. The truth is that we have over a million incredible employees around the world who are proud of what they do, and have great wages and health care from day one.

Meanwhile, The Intercept has mountains of evidence that Amazon itself knows that its workers pee in bottles[2].

It's so blatant that I thought the account was a parody, but it's real.

[1] https://twitter.com/amazonnews/status/1374911222361956359

[2] https://theintercept.com/2021/03/25/amazon-drivers-pee-bottl...

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

#440

Post by heavyset_go »

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.

I'd rather actually vote for policy with teeth, and not pretend that my individual purchasing choices are going to change the world.
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