4 ms·

for behaviours, yes, but for rhetoric, you're toeing a very dangerous line up against the 1st amendment.

cma 6y ago
In the end I think courts will say the promised anti-union rollercoaster and yogurt complexes must be built. Fraudulent promises as part of commerce and labor negotiation are excluded from protection under pretty much every interpretation of the 1st amendment out there. https://elonmusk.today/#frozen-yogurt-rollercoasters https://elonmusk.today/#frozen-yogurt-rollercoasters
- dnautics 6y ago
  IANAL, but if it's not in writing, I believe you have to prove that musk never intended to deliver, and that's gonna be hard to prove. Otherwise you can nail people down to a few hundred prosecutable offenses a year and that is not a recipe for social success when there are sufficient numbers of vindictive jerks around.
  - pseudalopex 6y ago
    The article said it was in an email.
ear7h 6y ago
The 1st amendment does not and should not apply to business matters. You don't even need to look far from the subject matter, Musk has gotten in trouble before over misleading tweets. I don't see anyone bring up the first amendment when discussing corporate fraud. Why is it that executives can be accountable to shareholders but not workers?
- emteycz 6y ago
  Because the workers don't own the company. Accountability to shareholders is built upon ownership.
  - vagrantJin 6y ago
    And a phat paycheque.
- dnautics 6y ago
  "does not and should not apply to business matters" The problem is this: At what point does something become a "business matter"? And yes, I have opined that the SEC is playing with fire and possibly sowing the seeds of its own irrelevance with it's threats to musk.
eecc 6y ago
Hey let’s not make it a freedom of speech issue. If you speak the words “if you what I dislike I’ll beat you up” you’re not asserting a 1A right, you’re just a bully
whimsicalism 6y ago
? Not at all. I'm not quite sure why people on HN think the 1st amendment is such a golden bullet, but it is not. There are lots of exceptions, including threatened retaliation, to what might be permissibly said in the workplace. If, for instance, as you were hiring people, you told them "we don't hire black people", even if you did hire black people, you would still be opening yourself up to suit, even with freedom of speech.
pmiller2 6y ago
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.
- pmiller2 6y ago
  Would somebody like to explain how a job is a "free association" for people who may not be able to cover a $400 expense without borrowing money? Or are we just interested in hitting that down arrow hard enough to make it all go away?

cma 6y ago

In the end I think courts will say the promised anti-union rollercoaster and yogurt complexes must be built. Fraudulent promises as part of commerce and labor negotiation are excluded from protection under pretty much every interpretation of the 1st amendment out there. https://elonmusk.today/#frozen-yogurt-rollercoasters https://elonmusk.today/#frozen-yogurt-rollercoasters

dnautics 6y ago
IANAL, but if it's not in writing, I believe you have to prove that musk never intended to deliver, and that's gonna be hard to prove. Otherwise you can nail people down to a few hundred prosecutable offenses a year and that is not a recipe for social success when there are sufficient numbers of vindictive jerks around.
- pseudalopex 6y ago
  The article said it was in an email.

ear7h 6y ago

The 1st amendment does not and should not apply to business matters. You don't even need to look far from the subject matter, Musk has gotten in trouble before over misleading tweets. I don't see anyone bring up the first amendment when discussing corporate fraud. Why is it that executives can be accountable to shareholders but not workers?

emteycz 6y ago
Because the workers don't own the company. Accountability to shareholders is built upon ownership.
- vagrantJin 6y ago
  And a phat paycheque.
dnautics 6y ago
"does not and should not apply to business matters" The problem is this: At what point does something become a "business matter"? And yes, I have opined that the SEC is playing with fire and possibly sowing the seeds of its own irrelevance with it's threats to musk.

eecc 6y ago

Hey let’s not make it a freedom of speech issue. If you speak the words “if you what I dislike I’ll beat you up” you’re not asserting a 1A right, you’re just a bully

whimsicalism 6y ago

? Not at all. I'm not quite sure why people on HN think the 1st amendment is such a golden bullet, but it is not. There are lots of exceptions, including threatened retaliation, to what might be permissibly said in the workplace. If, for instance, as you were hiring people, you told them "we don't hire black people", even if you did hire black people, you would still be opening yourself up to suit, even with freedom of speech.

pmiller2 6y ago

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.

pmiller2 6y ago
Would somebody like to explain how a job is a "free association" for people who may not be able to cover a $400 expense without borrowing money? Or are we just interested in hitting that down arrow hard enough to make it all go away?