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Tesla can't "use union labor" unless their employees vote to unionize... which they are perfectly free to do. Unless you are suggesting Tesla... threaten to fi

Tesla can't "use union labor" unless their employees vote to unionize... which they are perfectly free to do. Unless you are suggesting Tesla... threaten to fire their employees unless they unionize? That doesn't sound very worker-friendly.

GavinMcG 5y ago
Not illegally firing them for trying to unionize would have put them on the right track. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/25/business/musk-labor-board.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/25/business/musk-labor-board...
ghshephard 5y ago
Honest question - don't you believe that Tesla Factories don't unionize because Tesla puts a significant amount of effort, manager training, and probably millions of dollars of investment into preventing them from unionizing? And, if Tesla stopped that effort - wouldn't they naturally unionize fairly quickly?
- bpodgursky 5y ago
  Something like 13% of private-sector US workers are unionized... choosing to unionize is not some kind of default position. It's pretty rare. And not every employer is pushing hard to prevent it from happening. Most employees just aren't that unhappy and would prefer to work under their own contract w/o answer into another intermediary that gets a cut of their money.
  - GavinMcG 5y ago
    Most employees aren't even aware of what a union is or does. When something isn't part of your experience, you don't even have a preference one way or another. Your comment is evidence: it sets up a false dichotomy. The whole point at a workplace that chooses to unionize is that they want to work under a different, better contract, and they're willing to invest in the organizing that it takes to get there.
    - bpodgursky 5y ago
      Right... and the Tesla employees didn't. You seem really convinced that if Tesla forced and up/down vote on a union their employees would vote yes, and I just don't think that matches the reality of labor in the US. At the root of this thread is that someone implicitly suggested forcing workers to unionize (or be fired) as a solution to Tesla not being unionized, and I stand that that's a gross distortion of what it means to grant rights to labor.
      - GavinMcG 5y ago
        Not at all convinced. It takes a lot of work to organize a workplace, and a lot of people are skeptical of unions—for some good reasons, and some bad ones. I don't see anyone interpreting things as "forcing workers to unionize" except you. The argument you're making seems to be a strawman.
        bpodgursky 5y ago
        > If this makes it cheap enough, Tesla will likely use union labor How else could this be accomplished?
        GavinMcG 5y ago
        They can invite workers to unionize and facilitate that with education, obviously. They could even share some of that $15,000 tax credit directly with workers! Or maybe I'm wrong, and Tesla is just going to have to reap what it sowed in violating long-established worker rights. That's another way a tax incentive could work: by translating into market rewards. That doesn't make it exclusive.
        bpodgursky 5y ago
        You can cut this however you want with pretty semantics, but your argument is predicated on not giving the workers the right to choose whether to unionize. If they choose no, Tesla has no option but to replace them. You want to "educate" workers in order to help them make the right choice... you are not coming at this from a position where you actually respect the rights of workers to make a choice.

GavinMcG 5y ago

Not illegally firing them for trying to unionize would have put them on the right track. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/25/business/musk-labor-board.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/25/business/musk-labor-board...

ghshephard 5y ago

Honest question - don't you believe that Tesla Factories don't unionize because Tesla puts a significant amount of effort, manager training, and probably millions of dollars of investment into preventing them from unionizing? And, if Tesla stopped that effort - wouldn't they naturally unionize fairly quickly?

bpodgursky 5y ago
Something like 13% of private-sector US workers are unionized... choosing to unionize is not some kind of default position. It's pretty rare. And not every employer is pushing hard to prevent it from happening. Most employees just aren't that unhappy and would prefer to work under their own contract w/o answer into another intermediary that gets a cut of their money.
- GavinMcG 5y ago
  Most employees aren't even aware of what a union is or does. When something isn't part of your experience, you don't even have a preference one way or another. Your comment is evidence: it sets up a false dichotomy. The whole point at a workplace that chooses to unionize is that they want to work under a different, better contract, and they're willing to invest in the organizing that it takes to get there.
  - bpodgursky 5y ago
    Right... and the Tesla employees didn't. You seem really convinced that if Tesla forced and up/down vote on a union their employees would vote yes, and I just don't think that matches the reality of labor in the US. At the root of this thread is that someone implicitly suggested forcing workers to unionize (or be fired) as a solution to Tesla not being unionized, and I stand that that's a gross distortion of what it means to grant rights to labor.
    - GavinMcG 5y ago
      Not at all convinced. It takes a lot of work to organize a workplace, and a lot of people are skeptical of unions—for some good reasons, and some bad ones. I don't see anyone interpreting things as "forcing workers to unionize" except you. The argument you're making seems to be a strawman.
      - bpodgursky 5y ago
        > If this makes it cheap enough, Tesla will likely use union labor How else could this be accomplished?
        GavinMcG 5y ago
        They can invite workers to unionize and facilitate that with education, obviously. They could even share some of that $15,000 tax credit directly with workers! Or maybe I'm wrong, and Tesla is just going to have to reap what it sowed in violating long-established worker rights. That's another way a tax incentive could work: by translating into market rewards. That doesn't make it exclusive.
        bpodgursky 5y ago
        You can cut this however you want with pretty semantics, but your argument is predicated on not giving the workers the right to choose whether to unionize. If they choose no, Tesla has no option but to replace them. You want to "educate" workers in order to help them make the right choice... you are not coming at this from a position where you actually respect the rights of workers to make a choice.