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Tesla Employee Calls For Unionization, Musk Says That's 'Morally Outrageous' (arstechnica.com)
"In a Medium post published today, Tesla employee Jose Moran detailed working conditions at the company's Freemont factory and called for the factory workers to unionize with United Auto Workers (UAW)," reports Ars Technica. In response, Elon Musk told Gizmodo via Twitter Direct Messages: "Our understanding is that this guy was paid by the UAW to join Tesla and agitate for a union. Frankly, I find this attack to be morally outrageous. Tesla is the last car company left in California, because costs are so high." Musk went on to blame the UAW for killing the New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc (NUMMI), which sold the Fremont factory to Musk in 2010. Ars Technica reports: Tesla currently employs more than 5,000 non-union workers at its Fremont, CA-based factory. Moran wrote that the workers are often faced with "excessive mandatory overtime" and earn between $17 and $21 hourly, compared with the national average of $25.58 hourly for most autoworkers in the U.S. The Tesla employee noted that the astronomical cost of living in the Bay Area makes $21 an hour difficult to live on. Moran also claimed that the factory's "machinery is often not ergonomically compatible with our bodies," and requires "too much twisting and turning and extra physical movement to do jobs that could be simplified if workers' input were welcomed." He added that at one point, six out of eight people on his team were out on medical leave "due to various work-related injuries."
Exactly he's complaint is not against Unions per se but against someone who purposely got hired by Tesla for the expressed purpose of instigating Unionization.
Yes. Additionally, the guy was being paid by the union for doing this.
Yes, it is morally outrageous for the UAW to try to come and unionize his employees, to the point that they send a paid agitator in.
I don't have a problem with Tesla employees unionizing. The UAW coming in and extracting money from them in exchange for "helping" them isn't the same thing - not by a long shot.
I worked at Indiana University years ago and something similar happened with the clerical workers there. AFSCME was able to get enough of a foothold to get a vote and win. The benefits provided by the university were already far and above what you would get elsewhere. During the first round of "negotiations", which lasted for nearly a year, the new union workers had their wages frozen. When it was finalized, they ended up getting the annual raises they would have received, anyway. But with union dues taken out.
You see, AFSCME didn't give a damn about the workers. They cared about AFSCME. So, AFSCME was able to capture an income stream from IU while effectively doing nothing.
Don't be fooled - this is about the UAW, not Tesla workers.
Do you have ESP?
The factory wasn't built by Tesla.
The building was formerly a joint venture between GM and Toyota (NUMMI). GM pulled out of the site as part of its bankruptcy. Toyota invested $50M in Tesla and then Tesla bought the site from Toyota for $50M.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
The unions in the USA are incredibly weak compared with those in Germany and do not have anything like the power you suggest to stop modernization.
Those other countries that produce more, better cars, faster have unions with more of a say in workplace than in the USA, so I really don't get why you push that line unless it's to say what The Party says you should say in Amerika. Nyet?