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SpaceX is suing to bust up federal union protections
- el-dude-arino 3y agoJust when you think there's no end to Musk's dip-shittery, he goes and dives head first into a pile of nonsense and butt-hurtedness.
- PM_me_your_math 3y agoUnions are cancer. This isn't the late 19th century anymore. Unions do very little but enrich themselves and exert political power.
- kibwen 3y agoI'll happily get rid of unions once we also get rid of corporations ruled by wannabe-dictators. Until then, unions are a necessary counterbalancing force to keep executive behavior in check.
- unshavedyak 3y agoExactly. And, just like governments, they themselves need checks and balances more than anything. However groups of people organizing for collective power is difficult to argue with, imo.
- BudaDude 3y agoSounds like those Walmart propaganda training videos got to you. I suggest doing your research on what unions are doing in the 21st century to protect employees.
- bamboozled 3y agoTheir attempt at being an edgelord.
- standardUser 3y ago> This isn't the late 19th century anymore. Nope, it's the early 21st century, and inequality in this country is higher than it's been since the Gilded Age. Not exactly a comparison we should want to be making. And the trajectory is still moving primarily in the wrong direction.
- belltaco 3y agoHow does this help reduce inequality? https://www.justice.gov/usao-edmi/pr/former-international-uaw-president-gary-jones-sentenced-prison-embezzling-union-funds https://www.justice.gov/usao-edmi/pr/former-international-ua...
- LargeTomato 3y agoIf you want to change someone's mind about unions then one-off links to court cases is not going to work. You'll need to really target the idea of unions themselves instead of finding bad PR. For example, I could go find PR of "corporation bad" but it would not turn someone into a communist.
- standardUser 3y agoThe wealthy nations with the lowest levels of inequality also have the strongest trade unions. If it is not working in the US, we need better unions, not fewer.
- wolverine876 3y ago> Unions do very little but enrich themselves and exert political power. How does that differ from business owners? Such as private equity?
- IshKebab 3y agoCome on. Don't fall for American brainwashing. Some unions abuse their power. But most don't. But there aren't any unions here anyway - this is a federal agency that facilitates unions. Frankly this case seems pretty silly on all sides. Some employees sent an open letter to everyone in SpaceX... what did they expect to happen? I think SpaceX was fully within its rights to fire them, and I also support unions. But also SpaceX's legal argument here is kind of insane. It's predicated on their assertion that the president would definitely have intervened in this dispute if he could have! The law says he can't and that's apparently unconstitutional. Maybe so but it'll probably get dismissed as irrelevant because how are they going to show that the president would have intervened?
- Hammershaft 3y agoThe United Auto Workers union just a month ago won a 33% raise for GM workers and a 30% raise for Ford workers. Unifor just won a 25% raise for Stellantis workers 2 months ago. Just 2 months ago the Writers Union just won raises to compensation, health benefits, pensions, and protections against AI. Just a few weeks ago SAG-AFTRA reached a tentative deal to secure compensation increases, benefits, improvements to royalties & residuals, and protections against AI. So literally in the last 3 months we've seen unions win major compensation improvements for nearly 2 million workers.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- LargeTomato 3y ago> Unions are cancer. This is not an appropriate hacker news tone.
- legitster 3y agoIt's not actually clear that Musk was involved in this at all. By all accounts, he has not really been present at the day-to-day operations of SpaceX in years. And the open letter was targeting the executive team, not Musk.
- LargeTomato 3y agoWhile we don't know if Musk was involved in this legal approach, it absolutely reeks of Musk. What corporation, other than an Elon corporation, would make a labor rights case about the constitutionality of a century-old labor rights department?
- fuzzylightbulb 3y ago“Elon’s behavior in the public sphere is a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment for us, particularly in recent weeks,” the employees wrote. The letter, which welcomed other employees’ signatures, called for SpaceX to distance itself from Musk’s controversial online comments.
- JaceLightning 3y agoTitle is misleading. Has nothing to do with union protections. Sounds like a strong case. Why should companies be forced to employ people who actively work to harm the reputation of said company?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- standardUser 3y agoSome people think it's ok for employers to be mini-dictators. Most people, for example those who need to work for a living, do not. But however you slice it, is is absolutely one-hundred percent a labor rights issue.
- kibwen 3y ago> Why should companies be forced to employ people who actively work to harm the reputation of said company? The irony being that the content of the letter is in regards to Elon Musk's work to actively harm the reputation of said company. By this token, why should employees be forced to work under petulant, capricious, myopic executives who undermine the efforts of the people with boots on the ground who do all the actual work?
- bradyd 3y agoNobody forced them to work there.
- JaceLightning 3y agoOh that's easy. *They aren't* An employee has one job: to help their employer make money. That's it. If they aren't doing their job (by harming the reputation of their employer), then they shouldn't be employed.
- polygamous_bat 3y agoBecause unlike what “Fountainhead” by Ayn Rand says, checks and balances on positions of power is usually a socially good thing.
- flerchin 3y agoIt's not clear to me why the open letter authors are protected under the NRLB at all. They seemed to be criticizing the boss, which is not illegal, but not really a labor action either?
- kevingadd 3y agoHow is collectively criticizing your boss and requesting a better work environment not a labor action?
- flerchin 3y agoCalling your boss an asshole is not a labor action. Asking for a better work environment might be, but that wasn't the title of the letter.
- kevingadd 3y agoI must be misunderstanding your post because the only way I can interpret this is "their tone wasn't nice enough so they deserved to get fired". Do you have a link to a full copy of the open letter or a screenshot where it called him an asshole? The version of it here doesn't look like it deserves to be tone-policed in this way: https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/16/23170228/spacex-elon-musk-internal-open-letter-behavior https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/16/23170228/spacex-elon-musk... To cite a small portion of it: > SpaceX’s current systems and culture do not live up to its stated values, as many employees continue to experience unequal enforcement of our oft-repeated “No Asshole” and “Zero Tolerance” policies. This must change. As a starting point, we are putting forth the following categories of action items, the specifics of which we would like to discuss in person with the executive team within a month: Since they apparently had a "no asshole" policy it would seem that if anything, calling your boss an asshole is officially endorsed.
- flerchin 3y agoNot deserving to be fired is not the same as being federally protected from being fired. NRLB says that being fired for what they did is illegal, and that's hard for me to square with how I understand labor law.
- legitster 3y ago> It claims the NLRB’s proceedings, which involve a hearing in front of an NLRB administrative law judge (ALJ), violate SpaceX’s “constitutional right to trial by jury.” The company also accuses NLRB of violating the Constitution’s rules on the separation of powers, stating the agency’s structure “is miles away from the traditional understanding” of the concept. This is the same argument going against the FTC, SEC, and several other regulatory agencies. If you get charged of a crime by a public prosecutor, you get the ability to argue the facts in front of a court of law. If you get charged of a crime by a regulatory agency - you don't even get to argue the facts. I... might kinda side with SpaceX on this one? I am not trying to die on a corporate rights hill, and not that I think SpaceX is innocent of the charges, but it does seem like they should at least be able to argue the factualness of the crime they are being charged with? This does seem like something that should be done by the justice department. Still, it's almost surely going to get thrown out. They are trying to turn a NLRB infraction into a Constitutional law case in a hail-Mary attempt that it would get escalated to the Supreme Court.
- kevingadd 3y agoFeels like it's really just an attempt to drag out the proceedings further so that any labor law dispute turns into 8 years worth of trials and appeals and is ineffective at remedying problems
- legitster 3y agoIn a way, this is definitely them lashing out. "We don't get a court case? We'll make one!" ... "on an unrelated topic"
- ok_dad 3y agoSpaceX is not a person, so it should not have constitutional protections. When forming a limited liability arrangement like this, you agree that the entity itself is governed by laws and regulations which may not be applicable to an individual. It’s a mistake for us to allow corporations to be treated as constitutionally protected entities.
- standardUser 3y agoMeanwhile, Musk is getting shellacked by Nordic Europe due to his tome-deaf and, frankly, incompetent attempts to bust the strongest and most successful trade unions in the world... https://www.politico.eu/article/elon-musk-x-pace-x-faces-new-enemy-nordic-unions/ https://www.politico.eu/article/elon-musk-x-pace-x-faces-new...
- belltaco 3y agoI wouldn't say shellacked, only a few dozen mechanics out of the 130 or so are striking, while the article implies all Tesla workers are striking. So few are striking that the union refuses to reveal the number, and recently expelled members for not striking. Tesla has found workarounds to most of the sympathy strikes and sold even more cars in Sweden in Nov to Dec 2023 compared to 2022. Not sure how that's incompetent.
- standardUser 3y agoHere is a recent rundown of the labor actions against Tesla in Nordic nations: https://hrme.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/tesla-labour-dispute-sparks-nordic-sympathy-strikes/106641960 https://hrme.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/tesla-labour-... And yes, attacking trade unions in nations whose very foundation was built upon trade unions is something only an incompetent businessperson would do. Almost as incompetent as obliterating one of the most established brands in history and replacing it with an x.
- wolverine876 3y agoIt fits the strategy of Republicans to undermine democratic power to regulate business. One prong of that strategy is to undermine administrative law courts, courts that operate in the executive branch rather than in the judicial branch. Their function is to efficiently and fairly adjudicate, including providing due process, decisions that are within the executive branch's purview (permitted by the Constitution, legislated by Congress, and approved by a President). One way to think of the courts is that the Executive already has this power; the make it's admistration more fair by using a judicial process. At least some, but possibly all administrative law courts allow appeal to the judicial branch (i.e., federal courts, article III of the Constitution). Without administrative law courts, it's hard to imagine how to govern fairly or effectively. Either the executive branch can't carry out its duties, or I guess (not being an expert) they carry them out more arbitrarily, without due process, which permits more politicization and corruption - both outcomes are actually sought to at least some people in the conservative movement, to radically reduce the power of government and/or to empower the President. I very much doubt there is capacity in the judiciary to take on the very many decisions in administrative law.
- DueDilligence 3y ago[dead]
- popilewiz 3y ago[dead]