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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

#501

Post by joshuamorton »

missedthecue wrote: post #499
joshuamorton wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or Alabama? Which would never get a union... Unions are an aspect of a free market. They're an organization of individuals with a common goal in exactly the same way corporations are.

Unions are anti-free market. They are monopoly cartels protected by the federal government. If people who sell peanut butter joined together to sell their products at a higher price, the DOJ would bust them up. If people who sell labor join together to do the same type of rent seeking, congress sets up the NLRB to protect them.

A company is, last I checked, free to reject the union entirely and fire everyone (if they strike).

Not to mention your argument should be that cartels should be legal, not that unions should not be.

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

#502

Post by helgie »

karaterobot wrote: post #368
hrktb wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 see…

You're right about that, but I want to support the original commenter a bit and point out that management isn't going away, and adding unions on top of that is not an improvement if they share the same flaws.

If your boss sucks you can't fire them, but if the union sucks you CAN vote out the officers.

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

#503

Post by tshaddox »

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.

This is ludicrously far from the truth.

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

#504

Post by kbelder »

__turbobrew__ wrote: post #418
tsimionescu wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Amazon's profit went up by 84% in 2020. Why shouldn't workers seek for their wages to go up 84% instead? Amazon’s moneymaker is AWS, not the warehouse. At least in my city, AWS salaries have went up a fair amount in the last year or two, which makes sense given that AWS generates lots of profit. The warehouse on the other hand has much thinner margins and if they largely increased warehouse worker salaries they mig…

That's neither how profit nor math works.

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

#506

Post by pmiller2 »

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.

It's not "free" speech when the audience is being coerced into hearing it.

Before you say it, yes, the workers are being coerced. The implicit threat is that they will lose their jobs if they don't listen to the employer's anti-union rhetoric.

"Oh, but they can just quit and not be forced to listen to it," you say? Well, no, the average American worker can't afford to just walk away from a job. Thus, it's coercion.

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

#507

Post by mav3rick »

supercanuck wrote: post #496
hemantv wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is reason US is very competitive globally vs France just the shell of its former glory

Yes. Geography

Really ? Working more has nothing to do with it ? Or brilliant universities ? Or immigration ?

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

#508

Post by 0xy »

door100 wrote: post #309
aborsy wrote: post #134

Working in France completely changed my view of unions. I sure hope the horrors I saw won’t happen to Tesla.

The horrors of... a 35 hour workweek, 5 weeks paid vacation, 16 weeks paid maternity leave, universal healthcare, and no at-will employment?

The horrors of unions to me are represented perfectly in teachers unions, which repeatedly protect sexual predators and incompetent teachers [1] [2]. They serve their members to the detriment of everyone else, including the children they claim to care about (while enabling predators).

In fact, teachers are significantly more likely to be predators than even priests. [3] Thanks to unions who go to bat for them.

[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10000872396390443437504577547...

[2] https://www.nj.com/education/2017/12/teachers_accused_of_sex...

[3] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/has-media-ignored-sex-abuse-in-...

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

#509

Post by postpawl »

iliketosleep wrote: post #492
door100 wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if all of these were true (I would describe most of them as a mischaracterization at best), do you honestly think that outweighs everything that I described? The worst thing that people can say about unions is they are bureaucratic and inconvenient. The worst things people can say about, say, working conditions in many non-unionized American workplaces are far, far worse. People dying, unfairly losing their job…

> The worst thing that people can say about unions is they are bureaucratic and inconvenient. I disagree. Unions can lead to the death of entire industries - I have seen it with my own eyes. Inefficiencies created by unions lead to jobs going to places where such unions do not exist. Personally, I do believe the workers need to be protected, but if you protect workers then you also need to protect industries, and thi…

“death of entire industries”

What industry?

Maybe we need to open a gigantic can of worms that “runs counter to globalization” if we’re talking about sending those jobs to countries with unethical working conditions.

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

#510

Post by koonsolo »

mullingitover wrote: post #113
koonsolo wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Representatives of the union see the world differently. They don't see collaboration on the same goal, they see rich management exploiting employees to get even richer. So it's really an us vs them mentality. Either I get richer, or you get richer. Don't expect these people to start reasoning about making the company they work for competitive. At least this is the case in europe.

Interesting that this would be the case in Europe. Germany has had 'codetermination' laws for decades, where they have (typically union) representation on the boards of large corporations[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codetermination_in_Germany

This doesn't invalidate my remark though. Nothing says these union board members are there to make the company more competitive. They are there to provide better working conditions.
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