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I have no problem with unions so long as membership is entirely voluntary for every employee. The problem I have is coercive collectivism. Also, is there any e
by sjwright 6y ago
I have no problem with unions so long as membership is entirely voluntary for every employee. The problem I have is coercive collectivism.
Also, is there any evidence that collective action returns a sustainably larger slice of corporate revenues?
- jakelazaroff 6y agoTesla’s CEO is the richest human on the planet and we’re worried about workers taking too much? If Elon’s stressing over sustainability, let him take the pay cut.
- wtfrmyinitials 6y agoI may be confused, but your comment appears to be a bit of a non sequitur.
- jakelazaroff 6y agoGGP asked whether collective action returns a sustainable slice of corporate revenues, i.e. do unions demand so much that it harms the company. I’m saying that they should look at executive compensation through the same lens.
- optimiz3 6y agoElon isn't hired management. He built the company, and risked all of his personal assets in doing so.
- iamacyborg 6y agoFrom what I understand, Musk as an already wealthy man would be able to easily protect his personal assets if Tesla were to declare bankruptcy. He would be fine, employees, living paycheck to paycheck, would not be.
- sjwright 6y agoAnd that appears to be another non sequitur. It was Elon's personal assets which caused those paychecks to exist in the first place. Elon has risked over 100% of his personal wealth on multiple occasions and there are moments in Tesla's history where if the company had failed, Elon would have fallen back into deep debt.
- eru 6y agoWell, Tesla's CEO is just one of the workers of Tesla, too.
- mlindner 6y agoHe gets no salary already. He's paid only in stock.
- jakelazaroff 6y agoWorkers can also be compensated with stock.
- sjwright 6y agoAnd they are.
- pmichaud 6y agoThis comment seems really confused. It seems like you think Musk is “the richest human” in terms of liquid cash, and that that abundance of liquidity came from Tesla profits that could have been divvied up among the employees. Is that right?
- jakelazaroff 6y agoNo, I assume a significant amount is Tesla stock. Which could be used as compensation for workers, if Elon weren’t threatening to withhold it to prevent them from unionizing.
- sjwright 6y agoThat makes no sense. Elon's Tesla stock isn't Tesla's to give away to its employees.
- jakelazaroff 6y agoTesla regularly compensates Elon with stock. In 2018, for example, Tesla gave him options valued at $2.282 billion — with a “b” [1]. That’s over four million percent more than the median employee’s total compensation. But he’d rather union bust than be a slightly less rich centibillionaire. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/business/highest-paid-ceos-2018.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/business/highest-pa...
- sjwright 6y agoThat's a non sequitur. What you have cited isn't Tesla giving its employees Elon's Tesla shares. Yes, Tesla did offer Elon share options. He still has to pay for them with his own money. The reason why these options are lucrative is precisely because the company (funded substantially by Elon placing his own wealth on the line) has risen under his stewardship. Great, so bring a union in. Maybe median wages will briefly jump 10% or so in response to threats. Within five years the median wage probably won't be any higher. Probably lower if union action rattles investor confidence and Tesla's access to capital shrinks, leading to less future investment, in turn leading to less profit and fewer jobs at the company. With all this talk of bringing in a bloated Detroit union bureaucracy into Fremont, you might as well plead with Tesla to focus less on US manufacturing over the next decade. Yay, everyone wins!
- neolog 6y agoIt's a commons problem; voluntary membership means free-riders will destroy the collective resource.
- fastball 6y agoExcept "my labor" is not a collective resource, so it's not really a tragedy of the commons situation.
- neolog 6y agoThe labor isn't the collective resource. It's the negotiating power.