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Tesla Terminated Dozens in Response to New Union Campaign, Complaint Alleges

178 points by MallocVoidstar 4y ago

MallocVoidstar 4y ago
https://archive.is/E5nQc https://archive.is/E5nQc
pc_edwin 4y ago
[flagged]
- gurleen_s 4y ago
  Yes. There is never a situation in which unionization is “unreasonable”. To say otherwise is to allow businesses to have near unchecked leverage over their workers.
  - pc_edwin 4y ago
    Allow me to pose a respectful question: Who holds the unions responsible for their actions? Is it justifiable to deprive those of us who contribute exceptional value of our right to negotiate?
    - burkaman 4y ago
      Your tone is respectful but your questions don't really make any sense to me. The company and the government hold unions responsible, they are not all-powerful and often much less powerful than the company. No, it is not justifiable to deprive you of your rights, and fortunately unions can't do that.
      - jvmfjvfjvf 4y ago
        If they are not powerful, why can they shut down schools and the corporations they are a part of?
        _hcuq 4y ago
        You're trolling. But I'll humour you for a minute. Because they are employees. if enough employees of any organisation stop working, the organisation shuts down. And whether you like them or not, they provide a feedback loop. Otherwise bad organisations whither away as good workers leave and bad workers stay.
        jvmfjvfjvf 4y ago
        There are plenty of non-union workers who would gladly replace them but the union wouldn't allow that. Why so?
        bena 4y ago
        Because of the power imbalance. If there are not enough jobs in the area and not enough capital to kickstart businesses, the people in that area are in a situation where something is better than nothing. So a corporation can come in, offer below subsistence wages and the people will feel as if they have no other option. It's not what the labor is technically worth because the value produced by the labor far exceeds the wage given to the laborer. Individual laborers have no power to fix this. The employer can fire them and exploit the next desperate person. They can even cycle through back to the original person as they get more desperate. Collectively, the laborers can do something. They can redress the balance between laborer and owner. But only as a collective. The minute the individuals are allowed to operate independently, the old system reasserts itself. Stop carrying water for people who won't even allow you a drink for your efforts.
        kasey_junk 4y ago
        They are powerful but not unaccountable. Every time a union strikes they use up some of their power, both with the general public and their members (who want to work!). In the case of many public unions they are legislatively prevented from striking. The idea that unions are the ones with significant leverage over their employers in this day and age is baffling. Just look at the railroad workers who got manhandled by a Democratic government!
        4y ago
    - 9dev 4y ago
      With all due respect, I'm at a loss of words, so please excuse the term: You appear to be thoroughly brainwashed. A worker's union protects you, as an employee, from overreaching corporations. It is held accountable by laws. They don't deprive you of your rights, but holds corporations accountable for doing so.
      - jvmfjvfjvf 4y ago
        How do unions protect non union members? Tesla could hire non union workers but would the union allow them?
        9dev 4y ago
        It's unreasonable, (and depending on the jurisdiction, illegal), for corporations to make a difference between unionised and un-unionised workers. So by promoting improvements for their members, they promote improvements for all employees.
        jvmfjvfjvf 4y ago
        Why is it unreasonable? There are plenty of auto manufacturers in right to work states who do just that. Why shouldn't anyone be allowed to work for Tesla in Buffalo regardless if they want to be a part of a union or not?
        thinkyfish 4y ago
        By creating an environment of respect in employment terms. In a word, inertia. There is a reason employment contracts with greater than 40 hours a week are almost unheard of. Union blood was spilled to bring it down to that.
      - gordian-mind 4y ago
        A union does not protect you by default. In fact, their actions might endanger you if it runs counter to the continuation of the company's mission. And companies are already held accountable by law, so you do not need a union to do that, either. What a union actually is? A competing power structure within a company, and op questions whether such a thing is reasonable in this case. You did not answer but instead tried to try to brainwash op by shaming them into accepting your essentialization of unions as something good in all cases.
    - Bloating 4y ago
      You hold organizations accountable by "voting with your feet". In this case, you find a different employer.
      - _hcuq 4y ago
        Thats what happens. And all the good workers leave the organization. Leaving the deadbeats.
    - greedo 4y ago
      You should look up either Stockholm Syndrome or Battered Wife Syndrome. Union members hold the union leadership responsible for the actions of the union through elections.
    - rideontime 4y ago
      > Is it justifiable to deprive those of us who contribute exceptional value of our right to negotiate? I can't think of an explanation for this question that isn't grounded in fantasy.
  - Bloating 4y ago
    Do your employers force you to work for them? Unless you're addicted to the bloated tech sector, its not real hard to find a well paying job elsewhere.
- jackmott42 4y ago
  Absolutely. Workers are free to boycott just like customers, employers are free to fire and hire. Its a battle, everything is ok.
  - zx8080 4y ago
    > Its a battle, everything is ok. Is it called "free matket"?
  - richbell 4y ago
    > Its a battle, everything is ok. Have you heard of the Geneva Convention?
    - lesuorac 4y ago
      Sure, in battle it's ok to come to a mutual agreement with your foe about how you'll conduct that battle. That said, "unionizing" is not battle. Nor does the Geneva convention apply to civil wars.
  - pc_edwin 4y ago
    Regrettably, this is not accurate. The law restricts employers from dismissing employees who seek to unionize and effect change in the company's direction. I hesitate to elaborate further, as the specifics are likely to attract scrutiny or censure.
    - wslack 4y ago
      What do you make of the history of corporate actions that led to unions in the first place?
    - 9dev 4y ago
      Yes. Luckily, the law prevents overreaching employers from firing employees that insist on their rights. The alternative is a return to 18th century factory conditions, and I'm sure even you don't want that. A company is never on your side.
  - deleted 4y ago
- SilverBirch 4y ago
  Yes, you're absolutely right, it's ridiculous that 25 employees had to try and form a union in order to get toilet breaks. but here we are... I, personally, don't see how a company full of galaxy-brained individuals and visionaries could stay operating if they had to make such massive changes to working conditions such as... allowing toilet breaks. I personally think you and I should form a union so that we can bargain for better access rights to Elon Musk's boots, they aren't going to lick themselves.
  - vidarh 4y ago
    Nobody should give Musk the idea of locking the doors to prevent unauthorised breaks [1] because he might just think it's a good idea. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fi...
- Xylakant 4y ago
  The thing that's alleged here is that Tesla is blatantly breaking the law to fire employees that are engaging in lawful activities. How many employees need to be affected before this becomes "unreasonable"? 26? 50? One hundred? If Teslas structures and procedures are not in line with the law, then they need to change - regardless of the number of affected individuals.
- mschuster91 4y ago
  > By "bring to its knees," I mean imposing significant changes to the company's organizational structure and procedures. Yes, indeed. Unionizing has to start somewhere, and people died barely a century ago [1] in their fight to have the right to unionize. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-union_violence_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-union_violence_in_the_Uni...
- pavlov 4y ago
  If a visionary organization is brought to its knees by giving bathroom breaks to workers, then it probably deserves to be replaced by another organization that is more competent at executing on that same vision.
  - BLO716 4y ago
    Ya, that keystroke monitoring software that the young lady talked about was rather cringe.
- pjc50 4y ago
  Generally if it's just a fraction of employees, you're not going to get significant change. Once a union appears, it's no longer just a fraction of employees you're talking about. More generally: how should employees effect change at their organisation? Especially when treated unreasonably?
  - Bloating 4y ago
    > how should employees effect change at their organisation Vote with your feet: quit
- maxehmookau 4y ago
  Yes. There are no scenarios in which unionisation is not acceptable. Especially when your ultimate boss is the richest human on the planet. Elon is free to fire these people "at will" thus bringing their ability to pay rent and bills to their knees.
  - Bloating 4y ago
    or, find another employer of which, outside the bloated tech sector, there are plenty looking for employees, especially small businesses which have been begging for more help. If you're used to working for megacorp, try a small business where you get to know the owners
- cma 4y ago
  Elon promised a frozen yogurt stand and a roller coaster with a loop through the factory interchange for no unionization. Where are they? https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/carolineodonovan/musk-slams-union-drive-in-email-to-employees https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/carolineodonovan/musk-s... Years later he promised them again earnestly in an interview with the Third Row podcast.
- arrrg 4y ago
  In general people need to work to live dignified lives. To me the natural consequence of this is that you cannot employ people and treat them any way you like. They are not like machines, their dignity has to be preserved. There are several ways to achieve this (plain old regulation being one of those tools), but allowing people to freely associate without that association being the reason to fire them seems like another pretty obvious and great tool. I don’t really understand why the vision of companies as empires with absolute monarchs seems so appealing to people. That seems like a disgusting vision to me that we should strive to avoid. Since people aren’t machines.
  - SmoothBrain12 4y ago
    Some people want to change the world. Others want to go slow and want a life. Why not leave those who want to go faster and change the world alone? There are other companies.
    - eecc 4y ago
      You cannot change the world alone, that’s an infantile Randian fantasy. You need help from other people to succeed. You don’t need to be an absolute despot to achieve even the most ambitious goal. Look at NASA and what they manage.
      - SmoothBrain12 4y ago
        [dead]
      - snapcaster 4y ago
        NASA sort of is against your point right? the Apollo program had lots of deaths and accidents and unsafe working conditions but it went to the moon. Maybe NASA now has good working conditions and employees have dignity but they haven't done anything nearly as impressive to the wider public
      - Xylakant 4y ago
        Fun thing is that Ayn Rand did allegedly heavily rely on other people: "Ayn Rand Was A Needy Parasite (And Why You Should Follow Her Lead)" https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelschein/2019/01/24/ayn-rand-was-a-needy-parasite-and-why-you-should-follow-her-lead/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelschein/2019/01/24/ayn-ra...
- SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
  So if your company has a bus factor of one it's perfectly fine if the company takes illegal actions to ensure that employee can't quit or take vacations if it would bring the company to its knees?
- greedo 4y ago
  A company with galaxy brained individuals and visionaries should be able to allow workers to have bathroom breaks, and not be threatened by a union. The idea that you really believe this is an issue really shows how tasty the koolaid is.
- zmxz 4y ago
  The siren song of cancel culture is impossible to resist. Imagine had you written that the employees were entitled or that they found out how capitalism and concept of ownership worked, the audacity! I wonder how hard the downvoters invest into mashing the downvote button.
MrBuddyCasino 4y ago
[flagged]
- danuker 4y ago
  One employee quitting means Tesla losing 0.001% of employees. An employee being fired means losing 100% of their income. Clearly there's an asymmetry when negotiating with large companies. Therefore unions are fair.
  - zx8080 4y ago
    With Sweden Unionen no one could have salary rise without Unionen approval. This makes Unionen a single point of failure: when bargaining with company, it's almost always the lowest possible rise (usually lower than inflation) for the yearly salary rise (which should by design compensate the inflation).
    - danuker 4y ago
      That means that specific union is up for some disruption.
      - MrBuddyCasino 4y ago
        The whole point of a union is that it is a monopoly. This means they are incredibly hard to disrupt, and it is near impossible to start new ones. Many of the early ones had to use threat of violence.
  - whywhywhywhy 4y ago
    They're free to work elsewhere and are adults and responsible for their own income. If they're upset with the conditions at Tesla enough to want a union they could just work elsewhere instead.
    - sumeno 4y ago
      Yeah! Who do these people think they are demanding bathroom breaks from our precious god king elon musk? How dare they! Don't want to shit yourself during a shift? Just go work somewhere else and we'll find someone else to exploit into pissing themselves.
ejb999 4y ago
Seems a stretch to just assume it was union busting without more evidence. 200+ people doing the exact same job in another facility in CA, that was not trying to unionize, were also let go 6 months ago. Seems clear that Tesla didn't need as many of these people doing this particular job function anymore. https://archive.is/i6BCD https://archive.is/i6BCD
- b34r 4y ago
  Yup. Project Vacation is in full swing these days.
  - rideontime 4y ago
    "Project Vacation"?
    - hgsgm 4y ago
      Operation Vacation automation https://seekingalpha.com/article/4305856-tesla-operation-vacation https://seekingalpha.com/article/4305856-tesla-operation-vac...
      - Nanana909 4y ago
        Solid approach to data; completely wasted on a product they’ll never achieve… I won’t weigh into the politics of the situation, but anyone who has their head on straight can see by now that “full self driving” isn’t becoming a reality any time soon. Even if the technology works out somehow, the politics of thing will take decades. More interesting to me is the lessons the engineers learn there and take with them to other efforts, where success is more possible.
- vidarh 4y ago
  I'd argue it is a stretch to assume it's anything but union busting given the timing, as if the goal is not to disrupt the union formation they'd have every reason to delay to prevent the appearance of it.
excerionsforte 4y ago
If only Elon believed in what he says: "Vox Populi, Vox Dei" and dared them to a vote given his past comments [1]. 1. https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/3/22959592/elon-musk-tesla-union-challenges-uaw-california-factory-vote https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/3/22959592/elon-musk-tesla-u...
- PartiallyTyped 4y ago
  It’s pretty obvious that Elon does not respect votes as he hasn’t stepped down, and is preoccupied with his tweets’ popularity or better the lack thereof.
  - whateveracct 4y ago
    > i will abide by the results of this poll
  - CharlesW 4y ago
    > …is preoccupied with his tweets’ popularity or better the lack thereof. To a pathological degree, ICYMI. https://mashable.com/article/elon-musk-super-bowl-joe-biden-tweet https://mashable.com/article/elon-musk-super-bowl-joe-biden-... "…Musk's cousin, James, sent an internal message on Slack to Twitter's engineers at 2:26AM on Monday morning concerning a "high urgency" situation. The emergency was that Biden's post performed better than Musk's. Around 80 Twitter engineers were brought in to work on the issue. By Monday afternoon, a fix was implemented to the algorithm that allowed Musk's tweets – and only Musk's tweets – to "bypass Twitter’s filters," which in turn "artificially boosted Musk’s tweets by a factor of 1,000," promoting Musk's content in everyone's feed."
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- Tuna-Fish 4y ago
  It pays to pay attention to the specific wording of his post. He really doesn't want his workers to unionize, and the reason he dared UAW to hold the vote is because he knows that because of historical reasons UAW is really unpopular in Fremont. In short, Fremont used to be a GM plant and have their own union. When this union was absorbed into UAW, it was fairly contentious and many in Fremont believed that UAW didn't care about auto workers in California. Then very shortly after, UAW negotiated with GM about downsizing, and the end result was that the Fremont plant was shut down. This was seen in Fremont as a total betrayal. Soon after, Tesla bought the plant. So UAW really isn't liked, and any vote about organizing under them would be a landslide against. A different union might be a lot more successful.
BLO716 4y ago
Local news - https://www.wgrz.com/article/news/local/tesla-employees-announces-campaign-to-unionize-in-buffalo-cars/71-5a1219ed-79e9-4caf-8279-c2cacc74dc70 https://www.wgrz.com/article/news/local/tesla-employees-anno...
londons_explore 4y ago
These are data labellers... A union would probably not have helped them. Imagine they all join a union... And they are all very unhappy and vote to go on strike... And they strike for many months... Tesla will just send their data labelling workload to Mechanical Turk and it'll be done by people in India... A union only has power if the company is hurt by a strike. And in this case, there is nothing beyond minor inconvenience.
- sumeno 4y ago
  It's still illegal to fire them for unionizing
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- d23 4y ago
  > Tesla will just send their data labelling workload to Mechanical Turk and it'll be done by people in India... If this approach is just as good, why not do it in the first place?
  - londons_explore 4y ago
    At a guess, they were given tax incentives for hiring americans based out of an american office... This type of work isn't a good fit for being done by americans anyway.
    - d23 4y ago
      So the workers do have leverage? You're arguing in both directions.
- 7sidedmarble 4y ago
  >A union only has power if the company is hurt by a strike. And in this case, there is nothing beyond minor inconvenience. So they're working in a horrible situation from a job security standpoint, and that should make them less want to organize? What would you suggest they do?
deleted 4y ago
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newaccount2021 4y ago
[dead]
duringmath 4y ago
Unions already tried to kill the auto industry once make sense they would try again in the EV era https://www.thisamericanlife.org/561/nummi-2015 https://www.thisamericanlife.org/561/nummi-2015
- BLO716 4y ago
  I don't think they intentionally tried to kill the industry, as it was foreign production didn't have this problem of unions. Also the Japanese during the 70s had a lean six sigma type thing going on. Little more complicated than Unions I think, that lead to the point we were at.
  - duringmath 4y ago
    It just makes it that little harder to respond to market disruption.
- esotericimpl 4y ago
  [dead]
SiempreViernes 4y ago
> Tesla Workers United told News 4 on Thursday that over 30 workers were fired from Gigafactory 2 in Buffalo on Wednesday, after workers attempted to organize earlier this week. > “I returned to work (from COVID and a bereavement leave), was told I was exceeding expectations and then Wednesday came along,” said organizing committee member Arian Berek in a release. “I strongly feel this is in retaliation to the committee announcement and it’s shameful.” > Thursday, News 4 reached out again and received a bounce-back email, which said Tesla’s press email inbox is full and cannot currently accept messages.
- TremendousJudge 4y ago
  > which said Tesla’s press email inbox is full is this even possible in 2023?
  - notesinthefield 4y ago
    You sure could set a mailbox size limit in Exchange environments, though even at small companies Ive set limits of 50gb/mailbox - thousands and thousands of messages.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
    If it is on-prem, not really. You'd have to intentionally or unintentionally set a restrictive quota on it and I have no idea why you'd do that for a press inbox. There is a user in my org who has a 120GB mailbox because they never delete anything ever. It is annoying to us, but it works just fine. Source: Exchange on-prem admin. Cloud hosted email is probably less accommodating.
  - Arrath 4y ago
    My org only recently upgraded our mailboxes from 1gb. So, yes very much so. I was having to archive stuff roughly every 3 weeks, it was a complete pain.
  - ceravis 4y ago
    My understanding is that Tesla no longer has a Public Relations department[1]... so they may have simply set their inbox size to zero? [1] https://electrek.co/2020/10/06/tesla-dissolves-pr-department/ https://electrek.co/2020/10/06/tesla-dissolves-pr-department...
notch898a 4y ago
Meanwhile half of HN happily holds indexed funds with TSLA equity, which makes them literally the owners of these actions.
- tayo42 4y ago
  is there a SPY with some bar to meet for ethics to be included?
  - Plasmoid 4y ago
    That's what the whole ESG kerfuffle has been about. There are some funds that are "socially minded" that try to exclude cigarette manufacturers and other bad things. They're smaller and have a higher expense ratio than VTI.
whimsicalism 4y ago
Wire tap laws in a workplace setting are absolutely bullshit and intended to shield managers and companies from liability. Should be exempt if you are recording racial/sexual harassment or illegal labor practice
- notch898a 4y ago
  NY is a one party state.
  - whimsicalism 4y ago
    Right, although apparently you can make more restrictive workplace policies. Recording your employer (without sharing) should be a legal right.
- colechristensen 4y ago
  California law bans recording without consent and explicitly says such recordings can’t be used as evidence in court. This applies in all settings except a few very narrow carveouts. Organizers, say, on a zoom call with anyone in one of the 12 states requiring all parties to consent are committing a crime if they record. This is one of those cases where some people like protections when they protect people they like and don’t like protections when they apply to people they don’t like.
  - whimsicalism 4y ago
    Yes, I don't like sexual/racial harassment or illegal workplace conduct, so I don't think the laws should apply in these cases. I don't think I get the point you are trying to make unless you are just describing wiretap laws to me.
    - colechristensen 4y ago
      Ok let’s turn that around, every other crime should get those protections from wiretapping outside of labor laws and sexual harassment? Why are those topics special?
rdevsrex 4y ago
I'm not an ardent socialist, but seeing this stuff happen time after time, makes me want to take everything the capitalist class has.
- Forgeties79 4y ago
  It's pretty hard to keep seeing major companies with insane pockets work together against their employees easily rid themselves of employees who want to meet them on a more level playing field by working together.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
  I am an ardent socialist, and seeing this kind of bullshit happen over and over and over again is how you become one.
Arkanum 4y ago
As I'm not an expert on American Employment and Labour Union laws, does anyone with more experience know: is this not very likely to cause significant problems for Tesla with the NLRB?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- colechristensen 4y ago
  It depends. If they were violating an existing corporate policy and got fired, there won’t be any problems for the company. Likewise if they were recording meetings with participants in California or one of the other states which require all parties to consent to recordings as those are explicitly crimes and Tesla could have the employees charged. If the policy didn’t already exist there might be problems. You have to be squeaky clean in order to defend your job while trying to unionize in a company unfriendly to the idea.
Lolaccount 4y ago
I was going to post yesterday, jokingly, that this was the likely outcome. And here we are. Elon Musk is a small, thin skinned pathetic child. I won't touch a Tesla or anything else associated with that fool.
- scottyah 4y ago
  Did you see something that said Elon directed these firings?
  - hoytschermerhrn 4y ago
    He owns the company, no?
tayo42 4y ago
This guy and his companies keep showing us what a terrible person he is yet people keep buying their cars and the government keeps subsidizing musks companies...
- saturn_vk 4y ago
  The guy is an asshat. The car ticks the right boxes for people, though. And why would you subject yourself to ant other phone app that barely works?
willio58 4y ago
Living around one of Tesla's Gigafactories, I have lots of friends who have worked/do work there. In the case of our gigafactory, there's horror stories not just inside (machines injuring people), but everyone I talk to specifically talks about the dangers of the commute. It's not super far from town, but the road there is almost entirely used for commuting to and from Tesla, and it's one of those highways where the average speed of traffic is minimum 30mph above the speed limit. Crashes can be seen weekly (daily in the winter) and it affects people. It's a factory, so people are driving there at like 5am and racing there to not be late (they're super strict). Tesla has tried to solve it by providing buses to the factory, but then you'd need to wake up at like 3:30-4am and get home later too.
- baryphonic 4y ago
  Why is having to show up to work on time a horror story? I don't get it, especially if Tesla commissioned busses to pick people up. Serious injuries from machines is much more concerning, however.
  - nwah1 4y ago
    Auto accidents are extremely serious. Wasn't that originally one of the arguments for why you should invest in Tesla? Because they will supposedly, one day, have cars that drive themselves safely? But now that you completely punctured that thought bubble in my head with your incisive comment, I guess they are no big deal. They can all pack it up and liquidate.
    - throwaway45679 4y ago
      What's different about this Tesla factory that people speeding on the highway leading to it are attributable to the factory? I don't see anything different from any other place where people are speeding to get there on time. Put police there. This is not Tesla's fault in any way.
- surement 4y ago
  > they're super strict that's literally every factory ever, I really don't see how commuting is Tesla's problem, and I've never heard of a factory offering a bus service to employees, an amazing employee benefit that's usually reserved to highly paid tech workers who live around their company's HQ city
idk1 4y ago
Over past year I've watched my partner switch from wanting a Tesla to wanting a Polestar 2. The decision is based entirely on Tesla's brand image and it's things like this and Elon posting on twitter that just keep doing it damage. It's difficult to boycott Amazon but it is not difficult to boycott Tesla, do they not understand their customer base cares about this sort of thing? Or is it not doing actual damage to the brand?
- outside1234 4y ago
  Oh they understand it - you saw the massive price drop right?
- recursive 4y ago
  For me, Tesla's brand impression is more favorable than Amazon. I don't give either one of them any money though. I would consider buying from Tesla though. This particular news story doesn't strike me as being particularly significant. At least in a way I understand. I have a pretty loose understanding of what union stuff is all about.
- 93po 4y ago
  Do you also boycott other brands for worse crimes than shitposting on twitter? Is it more important to boycott Tesla because of Elon than it is to boycott Geely, which owns the Polestar brand, which has been linked to forced Uyghur labor in Xinjiang? https://www.aspi.org.au/report/uyghurs-sale https://www.aspi.org.au/report/uyghurs-sale
  - idk1 4y ago
    I think s***posting on Twitter is a huge undersatement, what Elon has done on Twitter is un-ban right-wing and hate speech people. He has made the world significatly more full of hate. That is not s***posting. The citation on your post about Geely is a "data is based on supplier lists" so I think we can take it from a different perspective: So what is worse imo? What are we weighing up here? Tesla vs Polestar. Elon making the world more full of hate vs Geely having suppliers on this list. If I had to pick one of those two, it would still easily be Polestar. No, I do not think I will boycott Geely based on this, I will contact them and see if they can clear their act up. I hope Nintendo and Nike do too on that list. I cannot forgive or get over the damage Elon has done.
web3-is-a-scam 4y ago
Isn't this just blatantly illegal? Not an American, but I was under the impression that it was federally illegal to fire employees for organizing.
- notch898a 4y ago
  That's why you fire them for being 15 seconds late when coming back from break. Or give no reason at all.
charcircuit 4y ago
It turns out that they weren't as important of employees after all. Tesla was underpaying them anyway so this is ultimately a good thing for people who were working below market rate because they liked the company.
thefz 4y ago
Not being able to unionize is an aberration of capitalism. In my country unions do exist and albeit being soemwhat outdated now on some fronts, they are the main reason behind huge advancements in worker wellbeing.

MallocVoidstar 4y ago

https://archive.is/E5nQc https://archive.is/E5nQc

pc_edwin 4y ago

[flagged]

gurleen_s 4y ago
Yes. There is never a situation in which unionization is “unreasonable”. To say otherwise is to allow businesses to have near unchecked leverage over their workers.
- pc_edwin 4y ago
  Allow me to pose a respectful question: Who holds the unions responsible for their actions? Is it justifiable to deprive those of us who contribute exceptional value of our right to negotiate?
  - burkaman 4y ago
    Your tone is respectful but your questions don't really make any sense to me. The company and the government hold unions responsible, they are not all-powerful and often much less powerful than the company. No, it is not justifiable to deprive you of your rights, and fortunately unions can't do that.
    - jvmfjvfjvf 4y ago
      If they are not powerful, why can they shut down schools and the corporations they are a part of?
      - _hcuq 4y ago
        You're trolling. But I'll humour you for a minute. Because they are employees. if enough employees of any organisation stop working, the organisation shuts down. And whether you like them or not, they provide a feedback loop. Otherwise bad organisations whither away as good workers leave and bad workers stay.
        jvmfjvfjvf 4y ago
        There are plenty of non-union workers who would gladly replace them but the union wouldn't allow that. Why so?
        bena 4y ago
        Because of the power imbalance. If there are not enough jobs in the area and not enough capital to kickstart businesses, the people in that area are in a situation where something is better than nothing. So a corporation can come in, offer below subsistence wages and the people will feel as if they have no other option. It's not what the labor is technically worth because the value produced by the labor far exceeds the wage given to the laborer. Individual laborers have no power to fix this. The employer can fire them and exploit the next desperate person. They can even cycle through back to the original person as they get more desperate. Collectively, the laborers can do something. They can redress the balance between laborer and owner. But only as a collective. The minute the individuals are allowed to operate independently, the old system reasserts itself. Stop carrying water for people who won't even allow you a drink for your efforts.
      - kasey_junk 4y ago
        They are powerful but not unaccountable. Every time a union strikes they use up some of their power, both with the general public and their members (who want to work!). In the case of many public unions they are legislatively prevented from striking. The idea that unions are the ones with significant leverage over their employers in this day and age is baffling. Just look at the railroad workers who got manhandled by a Democratic government!
      - 4y ago
  - 9dev 4y ago
    With all due respect, I'm at a loss of words, so please excuse the term: You appear to be thoroughly brainwashed. A worker's union protects you, as an employee, from overreaching corporations. It is held accountable by laws. They don't deprive you of your rights, but holds corporations accountable for doing so.
    - jvmfjvfjvf 4y ago
      How do unions protect non union members? Tesla could hire non union workers but would the union allow them?
      - 9dev 4y ago
        It's unreasonable, (and depending on the jurisdiction, illegal), for corporations to make a difference between unionised and un-unionised workers. So by promoting improvements for their members, they promote improvements for all employees.
        jvmfjvfjvf 4y ago
        Why is it unreasonable? There are plenty of auto manufacturers in right to work states who do just that. Why shouldn't anyone be allowed to work for Tesla in Buffalo regardless if they want to be a part of a union or not?
      - thinkyfish 4y ago
        By creating an environment of respect in employment terms. In a word, inertia. There is a reason employment contracts with greater than 40 hours a week are almost unheard of. Union blood was spilled to bring it down to that.
    - gordian-mind 4y ago
      A union does not protect you by default. In fact, their actions might endanger you if it runs counter to the continuation of the company's mission. And companies are already held accountable by law, so you do not need a union to do that, either. What a union actually is? A competing power structure within a company, and op questions whether such a thing is reasonable in this case. You did not answer but instead tried to try to brainwash op by shaming them into accepting your essentialization of unions as something good in all cases.
  - Bloating 4y ago
    You hold organizations accountable by "voting with your feet". In this case, you find a different employer.
    - _hcuq 4y ago
      Thats what happens. And all the good workers leave the organization. Leaving the deadbeats.
  - greedo 4y ago
    You should look up either Stockholm Syndrome or Battered Wife Syndrome. Union members hold the union leadership responsible for the actions of the union through elections.
  - rideontime 4y ago
    > Is it justifiable to deprive those of us who contribute exceptional value of our right to negotiate? I can't think of an explanation for this question that isn't grounded in fantasy.
- Bloating 4y ago
  Do your employers force you to work for them? Unless you're addicted to the bloated tech sector, its not real hard to find a well paying job elsewhere.
jackmott42 4y ago
Absolutely. Workers are free to boycott just like customers, employers are free to fire and hire. Its a battle, everything is ok.
- zx8080 4y ago
  > Its a battle, everything is ok. Is it called "free matket"?
- richbell 4y ago
  > Its a battle, everything is ok. Have you heard of the Geneva Convention?
  - lesuorac 4y ago
    Sure, in battle it's ok to come to a mutual agreement with your foe about how you'll conduct that battle. That said, "unionizing" is not battle. Nor does the Geneva convention apply to civil wars.
- pc_edwin 4y ago
  Regrettably, this is not accurate. The law restricts employers from dismissing employees who seek to unionize and effect change in the company's direction. I hesitate to elaborate further, as the specifics are likely to attract scrutiny or censure.
  - wslack 4y ago
    What do you make of the history of corporate actions that led to unions in the first place?
  - 9dev 4y ago
    Yes. Luckily, the law prevents overreaching employers from firing employees that insist on their rights. The alternative is a return to 18th century factory conditions, and I'm sure even you don't want that. A company is never on your side.
- deleted 4y ago
SilverBirch 4y ago
Yes, you're absolutely right, it's ridiculous that 25 employees had to try and form a union in order to get toilet breaks. but here we are... I, personally, don't see how a company full of galaxy-brained individuals and visionaries could stay operating if they had to make such massive changes to working conditions such as... allowing toilet breaks. I personally think you and I should form a union so that we can bargain for better access rights to Elon Musk's boots, they aren't going to lick themselves.
- vidarh 4y ago
  Nobody should give Musk the idea of locking the doors to prevent unauthorised breaks [1] because he might just think it's a good idea. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fi...
Xylakant 4y ago
The thing that's alleged here is that Tesla is blatantly breaking the law to fire employees that are engaging in lawful activities. How many employees need to be affected before this becomes "unreasonable"? 26? 50? One hundred? If Teslas structures and procedures are not in line with the law, then they need to change - regardless of the number of affected individuals.
mschuster91 4y ago
> By "bring to its knees," I mean imposing significant changes to the company's organizational structure and procedures. Yes, indeed. Unionizing has to start somewhere, and people died barely a century ago [1] in their fight to have the right to unionize. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-union_violence_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-union_violence_in_the_Uni...
pavlov 4y ago
If a visionary organization is brought to its knees by giving bathroom breaks to workers, then it probably deserves to be replaced by another organization that is more competent at executing on that same vision.
- BLO716 4y ago
  Ya, that keystroke monitoring software that the young lady talked about was rather cringe.
pjc50 4y ago
Generally if it's just a fraction of employees, you're not going to get significant change. Once a union appears, it's no longer just a fraction of employees you're talking about. More generally: how should employees effect change at their organisation? Especially when treated unreasonably?
- Bloating 4y ago
  > how should employees effect change at their organisation Vote with your feet: quit
maxehmookau 4y ago
Yes. There are no scenarios in which unionisation is not acceptable. Especially when your ultimate boss is the richest human on the planet. Elon is free to fire these people "at will" thus bringing their ability to pay rent and bills to their knees.
- Bloating 4y ago
  or, find another employer of which, outside the bloated tech sector, there are plenty looking for employees, especially small businesses which have been begging for more help. If you're used to working for megacorp, try a small business where you get to know the owners
cma 4y ago
Elon promised a frozen yogurt stand and a roller coaster with a loop through the factory interchange for no unionization. Where are they? https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/carolineodonovan/musk-slams-union-drive-in-email-to-employees https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/carolineodonovan/musk-s... Years later he promised them again earnestly in an interview with the Third Row podcast.
arrrg 4y ago
In general people need to work to live dignified lives. To me the natural consequence of this is that you cannot employ people and treat them any way you like. They are not like machines, their dignity has to be preserved. There are several ways to achieve this (plain old regulation being one of those tools), but allowing people to freely associate without that association being the reason to fire them seems like another pretty obvious and great tool. I don’t really understand why the vision of companies as empires with absolute monarchs seems so appealing to people. That seems like a disgusting vision to me that we should strive to avoid. Since people aren’t machines.
- SmoothBrain12 4y ago
  Some people want to change the world. Others want to go slow and want a life. Why not leave those who want to go faster and change the world alone? There are other companies.
  - eecc 4y ago
    You cannot change the world alone, that’s an infantile Randian fantasy. You need help from other people to succeed. You don’t need to be an absolute despot to achieve even the most ambitious goal. Look at NASA and what they manage.
    - SmoothBrain12 4y ago
      [dead]
    - snapcaster 4y ago
      NASA sort of is against your point right? the Apollo program had lots of deaths and accidents and unsafe working conditions but it went to the moon. Maybe NASA now has good working conditions and employees have dignity but they haven't done anything nearly as impressive to the wider public
    - Xylakant 4y ago
      Fun thing is that Ayn Rand did allegedly heavily rely on other people: "Ayn Rand Was A Needy Parasite (And Why You Should Follow Her Lead)" https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelschein/2019/01/24/ayn-rand-was-a-needy-parasite-and-why-you-should-follow-her-lead/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelschein/2019/01/24/ayn-ra...
SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
So if your company has a bus factor of one it's perfectly fine if the company takes illegal actions to ensure that employee can't quit or take vacations if it would bring the company to its knees?
greedo 4y ago
A company with galaxy brained individuals and visionaries should be able to allow workers to have bathroom breaks, and not be threatened by a union. The idea that you really believe this is an issue really shows how tasty the koolaid is.
zmxz 4y ago
The siren song of cancel culture is impossible to resist. Imagine had you written that the employees were entitled or that they found out how capitalism and concept of ownership worked, the audacity! I wonder how hard the downvoters invest into mashing the downvote button.

MrBuddyCasino 4y ago

[flagged]

danuker 4y ago
One employee quitting means Tesla losing 0.001% of employees. An employee being fired means losing 100% of their income. Clearly there's an asymmetry when negotiating with large companies. Therefore unions are fair.
- zx8080 4y ago
  With Sweden Unionen no one could have salary rise without Unionen approval. This makes Unionen a single point of failure: when bargaining with company, it's almost always the lowest possible rise (usually lower than inflation) for the yearly salary rise (which should by design compensate the inflation).
  - danuker 4y ago
    That means that specific union is up for some disruption.
    - MrBuddyCasino 4y ago
      The whole point of a union is that it is a monopoly. This means they are incredibly hard to disrupt, and it is near impossible to start new ones. Many of the early ones had to use threat of violence.
- whywhywhywhy 4y ago
  They're free to work elsewhere and are adults and responsible for their own income. If they're upset with the conditions at Tesla enough to want a union they could just work elsewhere instead.
  - sumeno 4y ago
    Yeah! Who do these people think they are demanding bathroom breaks from our precious god king elon musk? How dare they! Don't want to shit yourself during a shift? Just go work somewhere else and we'll find someone else to exploit into pissing themselves.

ejb999 4y ago

Seems a stretch to just assume it was union busting without more evidence. 200+ people doing the exact same job in another facility in CA, that was not trying to unionize, were also let go 6 months ago. Seems clear that Tesla didn't need as many of these people doing this particular job function anymore. https://archive.is/i6BCD https://archive.is/i6BCD

b34r 4y ago
Yup. Project Vacation is in full swing these days.
- rideontime 4y ago
  "Project Vacation"?
  - hgsgm 4y ago
    Operation Vacation automation https://seekingalpha.com/article/4305856-tesla-operation-vacation https://seekingalpha.com/article/4305856-tesla-operation-vac...
    - Nanana909 4y ago
      Solid approach to data; completely wasted on a product they’ll never achieve… I won’t weigh into the politics of the situation, but anyone who has their head on straight can see by now that “full self driving” isn’t becoming a reality any time soon. Even if the technology works out somehow, the politics of thing will take decades. More interesting to me is the lessons the engineers learn there and take with them to other efforts, where success is more possible.
vidarh 4y ago
I'd argue it is a stretch to assume it's anything but union busting given the timing, as if the goal is not to disrupt the union formation they'd have every reason to delay to prevent the appearance of it.

excerionsforte 4y ago

If only Elon believed in what he says: "Vox Populi, Vox Dei" and dared them to a vote given his past comments [1]. 1. https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/3/22959592/elon-musk-tesla-union-challenges-uaw-california-factory-vote https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/3/22959592/elon-musk-tesla-u...

PartiallyTyped 4y ago
It’s pretty obvious that Elon does not respect votes as he hasn’t stepped down, and is preoccupied with his tweets’ popularity or better the lack thereof.
- whateveracct 4y ago
  > i will abide by the results of this poll
- CharlesW 4y ago
  > …is preoccupied with his tweets’ popularity or better the lack thereof. To a pathological degree, ICYMI. https://mashable.com/article/elon-musk-super-bowl-joe-biden-tweet https://mashable.com/article/elon-musk-super-bowl-joe-biden-... "…Musk's cousin, James, sent an internal message on Slack to Twitter's engineers at 2:26AM on Monday morning concerning a "high urgency" situation. The emergency was that Biden's post performed better than Musk's. Around 80 Twitter engineers were brought in to work on the issue. By Monday afternoon, a fix was implemented to the algorithm that allowed Musk's tweets – and only Musk's tweets – to "bypass Twitter’s filters," which in turn "artificially boosted Musk’s tweets by a factor of 1,000," promoting Musk's content in everyone's feed."
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
Tuna-Fish 4y ago
It pays to pay attention to the specific wording of his post. He really doesn't want his workers to unionize, and the reason he dared UAW to hold the vote is because he knows that because of historical reasons UAW is really unpopular in Fremont. In short, Fremont used to be a GM plant and have their own union. When this union was absorbed into UAW, it was fairly contentious and many in Fremont believed that UAW didn't care about auto workers in California. Then very shortly after, UAW negotiated with GM about downsizing, and the end result was that the Fremont plant was shut down. This was seen in Fremont as a total betrayal. Soon after, Tesla bought the plant. So UAW really isn't liked, and any vote about organizing under them would be a landslide against. A different union might be a lot more successful.

BLO716 4y ago

Local news - https://www.wgrz.com/article/news/local/tesla-employees-announces-campaign-to-unionize-in-buffalo-cars/71-5a1219ed-79e9-4caf-8279-c2cacc74dc70 https://www.wgrz.com/article/news/local/tesla-employees-anno...

londons_explore 4y ago

These are data labellers... A union would probably not have helped them. Imagine they all join a union... And they are all very unhappy and vote to go on strike... And they strike for many months... Tesla will just send their data labelling workload to Mechanical Turk and it'll be done by people in India... A union only has power if the company is hurt by a strike. And in this case, there is nothing beyond minor inconvenience.

sumeno 4y ago
It's still illegal to fire them for unionizing
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
d23 4y ago
> Tesla will just send their data labelling workload to Mechanical Turk and it'll be done by people in India... If this approach is just as good, why not do it in the first place?
- londons_explore 4y ago
  At a guess, they were given tax incentives for hiring americans based out of an american office... This type of work isn't a good fit for being done by americans anyway.
  - d23 4y ago
    So the workers do have leverage? You're arguing in both directions.
7sidedmarble 4y ago
>A union only has power if the company is hurt by a strike. And in this case, there is nothing beyond minor inconvenience. So they're working in a horrible situation from a job security standpoint, and that should make them less want to organize? What would you suggest they do?

deleted 4y ago

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newaccount2021 4y ago

[dead]

duringmath 4y ago

Unions already tried to kill the auto industry once make sense they would try again in the EV era https://www.thisamericanlife.org/561/nummi-2015 https://www.thisamericanlife.org/561/nummi-2015

BLO716 4y ago
I don't think they intentionally tried to kill the industry, as it was foreign production didn't have this problem of unions. Also the Japanese during the 70s had a lean six sigma type thing going on. Little more complicated than Unions I think, that lead to the point we were at.
- duringmath 4y ago
  It just makes it that little harder to respond to market disruption.
esotericimpl 4y ago
[dead]

SiempreViernes 4y ago

> Tesla Workers United told News 4 on Thursday that over 30 workers were fired from Gigafactory 2 in Buffalo on Wednesday, after workers attempted to organize earlier this week. > “I returned to work (from COVID and a bereavement leave), was told I was exceeding expectations and then Wednesday came along,” said organizing committee member Arian Berek in a release. “I strongly feel this is in retaliation to the committee announcement and it’s shameful.” > Thursday, News 4 reached out again and received a bounce-back email, which said Tesla’s press email inbox is full and cannot currently accept messages.

TremendousJudge 4y ago
> which said Tesla’s press email inbox is full is this even possible in 2023?
- notesinthefield 4y ago
  You sure could set a mailbox size limit in Exchange environments, though even at small companies Ive set limits of 50gb/mailbox - thousands and thousands of messages.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
  If it is on-prem, not really. You'd have to intentionally or unintentionally set a restrictive quota on it and I have no idea why you'd do that for a press inbox. There is a user in my org who has a 120GB mailbox because they never delete anything ever. It is annoying to us, but it works just fine. Source: Exchange on-prem admin. Cloud hosted email is probably less accommodating.
- Arrath 4y ago
  My org only recently upgraded our mailboxes from 1gb. So, yes very much so. I was having to archive stuff roughly every 3 weeks, it was a complete pain.
- ceravis 4y ago
  My understanding is that Tesla no longer has a Public Relations department[1]... so they may have simply set their inbox size to zero? [1] https://electrek.co/2020/10/06/tesla-dissolves-pr-department/ https://electrek.co/2020/10/06/tesla-dissolves-pr-department...

notch898a 4y ago

Meanwhile half of HN happily holds indexed funds with TSLA equity, which makes them literally the owners of these actions.

tayo42 4y ago
is there a SPY with some bar to meet for ethics to be included?
- Plasmoid 4y ago
  That's what the whole ESG kerfuffle has been about. There are some funds that are "socially minded" that try to exclude cigarette manufacturers and other bad things. They're smaller and have a higher expense ratio than VTI.

whimsicalism 4y ago

Wire tap laws in a workplace setting are absolutely bullshit and intended to shield managers and companies from liability. Should be exempt if you are recording racial/sexual harassment or illegal labor practice

notch898a 4y ago
NY is a one party state.
- whimsicalism 4y ago
  Right, although apparently you can make more restrictive workplace policies. Recording your employer (without sharing) should be a legal right.
colechristensen 4y ago
California law bans recording without consent and explicitly says such recordings can’t be used as evidence in court. This applies in all settings except a few very narrow carveouts. Organizers, say, on a zoom call with anyone in one of the 12 states requiring all parties to consent are committing a crime if they record. This is one of those cases where some people like protections when they protect people they like and don’t like protections when they apply to people they don’t like.
- whimsicalism 4y ago
  Yes, I don't like sexual/racial harassment or illegal workplace conduct, so I don't think the laws should apply in these cases. I don't think I get the point you are trying to make unless you are just describing wiretap laws to me.
  - colechristensen 4y ago
    Ok let’s turn that around, every other crime should get those protections from wiretapping outside of labor laws and sexual harassment? Why are those topics special?

rdevsrex 4y ago

I'm not an ardent socialist, but seeing this stuff happen time after time, makes me want to take everything the capitalist class has.

Forgeties79 4y ago
It's pretty hard to keep seeing major companies with insane pockets work together against their employees easily rid themselves of employees who want to meet them on a more level playing field by working together.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
I am an ardent socialist, and seeing this kind of bullshit happen over and over and over again is how you become one.

Arkanum 4y ago

As I'm not an expert on American Employment and Labour Union laws, does anyone with more experience know: is this not very likely to cause significant problems for Tesla with the NLRB?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
colechristensen 4y ago
It depends. If they were violating an existing corporate policy and got fired, there won’t be any problems for the company. Likewise if they were recording meetings with participants in California or one of the other states which require all parties to consent to recordings as those are explicitly crimes and Tesla could have the employees charged. If the policy didn’t already exist there might be problems. You have to be squeaky clean in order to defend your job while trying to unionize in a company unfriendly to the idea.

Lolaccount 4y ago

I was going to post yesterday, jokingly, that this was the likely outcome. And here we are. Elon Musk is a small, thin skinned pathetic child. I won't touch a Tesla or anything else associated with that fool.

scottyah 4y ago
Did you see something that said Elon directed these firings?
- hoytschermerhrn 4y ago
  He owns the company, no?

tayo42 4y ago

This guy and his companies keep showing us what a terrible person he is yet people keep buying their cars and the government keeps subsidizing musks companies...

saturn_vk 4y ago
The guy is an asshat. The car ticks the right boxes for people, though. And why would you subject yourself to ant other phone app that barely works?

willio58 4y ago

Living around one of Tesla's Gigafactories, I have lots of friends who have worked/do work there. In the case of our gigafactory, there's horror stories not just inside (machines injuring people), but everyone I talk to specifically talks about the dangers of the commute. It's not super far from town, but the road there is almost entirely used for commuting to and from Tesla, and it's one of those highways where the average speed of traffic is minimum 30mph above the speed limit. Crashes can be seen weekly (daily in the winter) and it affects people. It's a factory, so people are driving there at like 5am and racing there to not be late (they're super strict). Tesla has tried to solve it by providing buses to the factory, but then you'd need to wake up at like 3:30-4am and get home later too.

baryphonic 4y ago
Why is having to show up to work on time a horror story? I don't get it, especially if Tesla commissioned busses to pick people up. Serious injuries from machines is much more concerning, however.
- nwah1 4y ago
  Auto accidents are extremely serious. Wasn't that originally one of the arguments for why you should invest in Tesla? Because they will supposedly, one day, have cars that drive themselves safely? But now that you completely punctured that thought bubble in my head with your incisive comment, I guess they are no big deal. They can all pack it up and liquidate.
  - throwaway45679 4y ago
    What's different about this Tesla factory that people speeding on the highway leading to it are attributable to the factory? I don't see anything different from any other place where people are speeding to get there on time. Put police there. This is not Tesla's fault in any way.
surement 4y ago
> they're super strict that's literally every factory ever, I really don't see how commuting is Tesla's problem, and I've never heard of a factory offering a bus service to employees, an amazing employee benefit that's usually reserved to highly paid tech workers who live around their company's HQ city

idk1 4y ago

Over past year I've watched my partner switch from wanting a Tesla to wanting a Polestar 2. The decision is based entirely on Tesla's brand image and it's things like this and Elon posting on twitter that just keep doing it damage. It's difficult to boycott Amazon but it is not difficult to boycott Tesla, do they not understand their customer base cares about this sort of thing? Or is it not doing actual damage to the brand?

outside1234 4y ago
Oh they understand it - you saw the massive price drop right?
recursive 4y ago
For me, Tesla's brand impression is more favorable than Amazon. I don't give either one of them any money though. I would consider buying from Tesla though. This particular news story doesn't strike me as being particularly significant. At least in a way I understand. I have a pretty loose understanding of what union stuff is all about.
93po 4y ago
Do you also boycott other brands for worse crimes than shitposting on twitter? Is it more important to boycott Tesla because of Elon than it is to boycott Geely, which owns the Polestar brand, which has been linked to forced Uyghur labor in Xinjiang? https://www.aspi.org.au/report/uyghurs-sale https://www.aspi.org.au/report/uyghurs-sale
- idk1 4y ago
  I think s***posting on Twitter is a huge undersatement, what Elon has done on Twitter is un-ban right-wing and hate speech people. He has made the world significatly more full of hate. That is not s***posting. The citation on your post about Geely is a "data is based on supplier lists" so I think we can take it from a different perspective: So what is worse imo? What are we weighing up here? Tesla vs Polestar. Elon making the world more full of hate vs Geely having suppliers on this list. If I had to pick one of those two, it would still easily be Polestar. No, I do not think I will boycott Geely based on this, I will contact them and see if they can clear their act up. I hope Nintendo and Nike do too on that list. I cannot forgive or get over the damage Elon has done.

web3-is-a-scam 4y ago

Isn't this just blatantly illegal? Not an American, but I was under the impression that it was federally illegal to fire employees for organizing.

notch898a 4y ago
That's why you fire them for being 15 seconds late when coming back from break. Or give no reason at all.

charcircuit 4y ago

It turns out that they weren't as important of employees after all. Tesla was underpaying them anyway so this is ultimately a good thing for people who were working below market rate because they liked the company.

thefz 4y ago

Not being able to unionize is an aberration of capitalism. In my country unions do exist and albeit being soemwhat outdated now on some fronts, they are the main reason behind huge advancements in worker wellbeing.