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SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

nytimes.com

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Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

#831

Post by meatsauce »

uncomputation wrote: post #810
axg11 wrote: post #110

This is a very predictable consequence of criticizing your employer via a public letter. Criticize internally all you want, and influence the changes that you want to see happen. Employment is a two-way relationship. If you don't like your employer, you are free to leave. If they don't like you, they are free to fire you (within legal bounds). Publishing an openly critical letter and signing it is a quick way to get…

It is pretty hypocritical though for Mr. Free Speech to fire people who have concerns rather than address those concerns in a civil dialogue. Musk likes to whinge about “censorship” amounting to banning a Twitter account but seems perfectly okay firing someone and removing their livelihood for speaking critically of him. Also retaliation is very much still illegal, not that it matters.

This is pure nonsense. Neither Musk or his company owes you a job, and you certainly shouldn't work at his company if you disagree with his vison or politics. Shedding the woke weight has to feel good, for both Musk and for other employees, who no doubt had to endure constant whining.

Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

#833

Post by j-bos »

enriquto wrote: post #619
bko wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The whole point of the letter seems to have been “Musk’s behavior is detrimental to the company.” This implies that they care about the company and want it to succeed, and that their loyalty lies with it, not with Musk. As well it should. Tesla, SpaceX, etc are (or should be) companies, not cults. Here's an experiment. At your place of work, circulate a document criticizing leadership and how they're all wrong. Mak…

> At your place of work, circulate a document criticizing leadership and how they're all wrong. Make sure to publicize this loudly to people outside the organization. See what happens. Ha! We do that all time at the university and nobody cares. At all. Nothing happens. Ever. It is somewhat infuriating, to be honest! Are you saying that academia is "not the real world" ?

Perhaps. Would you say working in academia is mo different from working in industry?

Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

#834

Post by eric4smith »

Good. Why do people keep being activists in the workplace for this kind of issue.

I could understand if it’s bad working conditions or discrimination.

But bruh.

People need to grow up and do work at work then be activists outside of work.

Good step by SpaceX

Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

#835

Post by [deleted] »

uncomputation wrote: post #810
axg11 wrote: post #110

This is a very predictable consequence of criticizing your employer via a public letter. Criticize internally all you want, and influence the changes that you want to see happen. Employment is a two-way relationship. If you don't like your employer, you are free to leave. If they don't like you, they are free to fire you (within legal bounds). Publishing an openly critical letter and signing it is a quick way to get…

It is pretty hypocritical though for Mr. Free Speech to fire people who have concerns rather than address those concerns in a civil dialogue. Musk likes to whinge about “censorship” amounting to banning a Twitter account but seems perfectly okay firing someone and removing their livelihood for speaking critically of him. Also retaliation is very much still illegal, not that it matters.

[deleted]

Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

#836

Post by _ea1k »

huhwat wrote: post #237
axg11 wrote: post #110

This is a very predictable consequence of criticizing your employer via a public letter. Criticize internally all you want, and influence the changes that you want to see happen. Employment is a two-way relationship. If you don't like your employer, you are free to leave. If they don't like you, they are free to fire you (within legal bounds). Publishing an openly critical letter and signing it is a quick way to get…

Turns out speech about working conditions is protected. You can't be fired for sharing your wages, for instance. I would not be shocked to hear that this results in a lawsuit over protected concerted activity.

Honestly, I think you have a point. It would go back to what the reason was for termination. SpaceX has indicated that the terminated employee's actions went beyond simply writing the letter.

I do not take company statements like that at face value, as they have their own interests to protect. However, it does leave the possibility that termination was not related to statements about working conditions.

The former employees may have a case here.

Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

#837

Post by cptaj »

uncomputation wrote: post #810
axg11 wrote: post #110

This is a very predictable consequence of criticizing your employer via a public letter. Criticize internally all you want, and influence the changes that you want to see happen. Employment is a two-way relationship. If you don't like your employer, you are free to leave. If they don't like you, they are free to fire you (within legal bounds). Publishing an openly critical letter and signing it is a quick way to get…

It is pretty hypocritical though for Mr. Free Speech to fire people who have concerns rather than address those concerns in a civil dialogue. Musk likes to whinge about “censorship” amounting to banning a Twitter account but seems perfectly okay firing someone and removing their livelihood for speaking critically of him. Also retaliation is very much still illegal, not that it matters.

This is the crux of the matter right here.

I hate that people are doing all these weird gymnastics to reconcile being a champion of free speech and firing people that criticize you.

Yeah, guys, it might be legal (maybe not) but it IS hypocritical. If you want to champion free speech you can't do this shit. Stop with the debate team bullshit and exercise some common sense.

Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

#838

Post by meatsauce »

phailhaus wrote: post #336
axg11 wrote: post #110

This is a very predictable consequence of criticizing your employer via a public letter. Criticize internally all you want, and influence the changes that you want to see happen. Employment is a two-way relationship. If you don't like your employer, you are free to leave. If they don't like you, they are free to fire you (within legal bounds). Publishing an openly critical letter and signing it is a quick way to get…

Everybody knows that he's within his rights to fire them. It just throws cold water on all his grandstanding about being a "free speech absolutist". EDIT: Everyone telling me that company employees are different from Twitter are missing the point. We know that. But he clearly doesn't care about free speech "absolutely" when he throws a fit that his employees are criticizing him.

Why are you comparing apples to hydrazine?

You simply cannot compare the employment relationship and open debate within the letter of the law.

Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

#839

Post by DoneWithAllThat »

lkrubner wrote: post #44
uejfiweun wrote: post #18

Here's my unpopular opinion - good riddance. It's not a free speech issue because SpaceX isn't a public square. It's a company, and companies are top down. If these employees are at Musk's company, then they had better be prepared to play by Musk's rules, and they did the exact opposite, essentially leading a mutiny against the boss and sowing discord within the company in the process. SpaceX isn't an activist organi…

The workers have a right to organize a labor union. They have a right to go on strike and shut the company down. They have a right to critique any process or rule in the company that they might wish to stop. They have a right to weigh in on the consequences of any of the company's processes, goals, or aims. The workers have had these rights recognized in law for most of the last century.

Your first two “rights” (form a union, and if they do, to organize a strike) are in fact legally protected behavior in the US. Latter two are just made-up nonsense. No, they in fact do not have those “rights”, you just wish they did.

Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

#840

Post by Melting_Harps »

giantrobot wrote: post #773
commandlinefan wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Criticize internally all you want Tell that to James Damore.

Unless you're a woman, then he'll deem you intellectually inferior a priori .

> Unless you're a woman, then he'll deem you intellectually inferior a priori.

Do people still really believe that is what he said? I'm all for calling out hypocrisy, but what he said was empirically true; their are professions that are male dominated, just are there are some that are female denominated--and the latter tends to have less scrutiny.

Male nurses are the exception and it is one of the most highly paid professions in the professional World, and yet NO ONE and I mean NO ONE has been calling for discriminatory hiring practices in the Medical Industry over that. And especially right now when they are having to under go horrible shift requirements due to a lack of staff and applicants.

This is one of the many ugly truths of about these narratives: they actually DO want preferential prejudices, but only in a way that favors those who tend to make the loudest (and often misguided and misinformed) noise with their narratives.

I did most of my undergrad with nurses and dated several, I don't envy their profession and the money while on the surface seems appealing is hardly going to make up for the seemingly hell they go through every week, especially during COVID. I respect them for what they do, and just accept that that level of triage and care-taking tends to be a female dominated domain.

Tech is a cushy, albeit tedious and often brain numbing monotonous career choice by contrast and I have no doubt that anyone who could work doubles during COVID in an ER could master writing basic scripts and using SO like everyone else does if they wanted. But they don't and they'd rather strike in order to reform their profession instead.

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