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Tesla Workers Launch Union Campaign in New York
61–70 of 194 posts
Re: Tesla Workers Launch Union Campaign in New York
#62As someone who has only worked in "right to work" states, it always strikes me as absurd that people seek "job security" through a 3rd party agency rather than by individual performance and developing personal relationships. Honestly a big part of why I quit my last job was too many unproductive/unreliable coworkers. Am I just Stockholm Syndromed?
hi, im an IAM union diesel engine mechanic and have been for over a decade. Maybe I can help explain a bit.
in a 'blue collar' job like manufacturing or shipping or any of the trades like plumbing or mechanical maintenance, the only part of the business that doesnt see meaningful pushback is the labor. My job performance as a TIG welder in Texas as part of an oil and gas company was stellar, but not stellar enough to keep me from things like "mandatory overtime" and having to show up at a frigid gas field at 4 am to fix a line in chronic disrepair. part of the reason for this is a rosy picture of the rugged life of a tradesman, a misunderstanding of just how hard this work is, and a disconnected culture of leadership that see us as expendables/undesireables/expenses. Personal relationships only go so far when your op supervisor only shows up to berate you about tardiness or demand you work a weekend.
The union isnt a third party agency, its you. you decide what needs fixing, what doesnt work, and what you want changed to make your job more effective and a lot of times that includes your pay. when our shop unionized we did things like reduce shop floor noise, change how overtime gets assigned and made it voluntary, and even added paternity leave (we also get a say in our healthcare and opt in or out.) We even amended the companies equal opportunity employment statement to include LGBTQ+, something leadership resisted for a long time.
unions dont guarantee everyone works hard (thats culture), but they help to make sure everyone whos hired to work is treated fairly and with respect, and they fight to prevent common excesses in trade like wage theft, mandatory overtime, unfair scheduling, retaliation, and dangerous work conditions. They can push back on myopic or bad management decisions that harm customers or degrade quality.
The relationship isnt perfect. strikes can and do happen but when they do its mostly for good reasons like demanding sick leave (go get em CSX railworkers!!) and health insurance we were told the free market would provide us (looking at you Starbucks.) Federal law requires good faith collective bargaining, regardless of how many hit pieces on the evening news try to spin it any other way.
Re: Tesla Workers Launch Union Campaign in New York
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
The structure of unions is such that it facilitates and encourages seniority as well as corruption including ties to the mob. It's no accident that unions are targets of corruption by the feds for various forms of malfeasance.
The exact same things could be said about companies themselves. "The structure of companies is such that it facilitates and encourages seniority as well as corruption including ties to the mob. It's no accident that companies are targets of corruption by the feds [1] for various forms of malfeasance." You're basically saying that crime exists among groups of people where there is a power differential. I mean, sure? I…
Union crime _is_ white collar crime (they may represent blue collar workers but the reps are starched white collar workers --and aside from intimidation and other forms of violence). But why are Unions such magnets for corruption? For corporations you have various forms of oversight like SEC, SOX, and many others. In unions there is more of an unspoken code not to whistleblow because they are "you" and you don't wanna be a rat and target of violence so corruption goes less checked.
Re: Tesla Workers Launch Union Campaign in New York
#64As someone who has only worked in "right to work" states, it always strikes me as absurd that people seek "job security" through a 3rd party agency rather than by individual performance and developing personal relationships. Honestly a big part of why I quit my last job was too many unproductive/unreliable coworkers. Am I just Stockholm Syndromed?
Maybe a little bit, but just in kinda applying that kind of high level business logic of a manager onto yourself as a person. It is really best to not worry so much on being "more productive" for your boss. You have a specific contract, which delineates how you trade your labor for money, that's it. They will make you think that your personal productivity is more than that, and yes, that your fellow workers who are less productive are somehow an obstacle to you. But you gotta realize at least deep down the bad faith in this way of thinking, even of you understandably need to act the part day to day.
Even if worker solidarity isn't you're thing, just for your mental health down the line you should adjust your thinking a little bit.
Re: Tesla Workers Launch Union Campaign in New York
#65As someone who has only worked in "right to work" states, it always strikes me as absurd that people seek "job security" through a 3rd party agency rather than by individual performance and developing personal relationships. Honestly a big part of why I quit my last job was too many unproductive/unreliable coworkers. Am I just Stockholm Syndromed?
As someone who has never needed "the police" to provide physical security, it always strikes me as absurd that people seek to form governments to "provide security" rather than through individual enforcement of the law through firearm ownership.
Please please think of the Poe's law when writing such comments... we might be HN but we're humans too.
Re: Tesla Workers Launch Union Campaign in New York
#66As someone who has only worked in "right to work" states, it always strikes me as absurd that people seek "job security" through a 3rd party agency rather than by individual performance and developing personal relationships. Honestly a big part of why I quit my last job was too many unproductive/unreliable coworkers. Am I just Stockholm Syndromed?
As someone who has never needed "the police" to provide physical security, it always strikes me as absurd that people seek to form governments to "provide security" rather than through individual enforcement of the law through firearm ownership.
I suspect this comment would benefit from adding a clarifying "/s" at the end.
Re: Tesla Workers Launch Union Campaign in New York
#67As someone who has only worked in "right to work" states, it always strikes me as absurd that people seek "job security" through a 3rd party agency rather than by individual performance and developing personal relationships. Honestly a big part of why I quit my last job was too many unproductive/unreliable coworkers. Am I just Stockholm Syndromed?
I've been working along side(not in) an IT union for 15 years, what an interesting ride.. If you ever want to see how unproductive and lazy people can be this is the place!
I've only ever had one union job, and ever non-union job I've been in has had about the same number of unproductive lazy people.
The unproductive lazy people at the union job didn't have to kiss ass and bullshit quite as much. That's it.
P.S. Oh, and we had significantly better health care benefits at the union job.
Re: Tesla Workers Launch Union Campaign in New York
#68They trying to encourage Tesla abandoning that plant? The lure of more factories China (or even Texas) is hard enough to resist as it is.
Re: Tesla Workers Launch Union Campaign in New York
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not trying to say everyone that got let go is a low performer or has poor personal skills. I've seen plenty of good employees fired for bad or no reason. I guess what I'm trying to say, is that even working with a guillotine above my head feels preferable to having to pick up the slack of people coasting and not meeting their commitments.
I mean, the current situation is that you get to work with a guillotine above your head and pick up the slack of people coasting because they can suck up to upper management and puff up their work better than you. Or worse, they lay off the people that did the work, promote the slackers and then you're doing 3x the work for 1x the pay.
Which means that the slackers are better at networking and whatnot, exactly what the OP was recommending as alternative to unionizing. Isn't it ironic, slackers winning either way. Or maybe the slackers-based argument isn't that sound?
Re: Tesla Workers Launch Union Campaign in New York
#70LOL they’re office workers who “label data”. Meanwhile the factory workers all have seven figure options grants and aren’t interested.