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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."
RTFA! Musk said that it as "morally outrageous" for someone to sign on as a Tesla employee, not because they wanted the job but because they wanted to be in a position to influence a unionization vote. Musk did not say or imply that unionization was morally outrageous. But that was obvious so the false title was intentional.
"He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
He should quit. Or move to where the Cost of Living/Wage for His Expertise ratio is friendlier.
If you don't want your plant unionized, pack up and move to a non-union or "right to work" state. I bet Texas would love to have you. Other benefits, lower taxes, less regulation, good selection of high tech workers.
Chaos maximizes locally around me.
People would get hired on usually by having a sterling resume, or qualifications that put them above the average worker to get hired on. Then after several years start agitating for unionization and so on.
So they work for years and then they want to be treated better and therefore they are a UAW plant who is evil and must be destroyed? I'm going to need more than that.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I think people should freely be allowed to unionize, but people should also be allowed to NOT be part of the unions if they don't want to be: it's their economic choice, really.
However, I do believe that if a union interposes itself as the collective-bargaining agent for a number of workers, then the union logically should be legally held liable for the conduct of the workers it's representing: ie if productivity falls below normal, etc, the union should be liable to compensate the firm for lost income.
-Styopa
The problem here, and one most non-US readers wont get so I will spell it out and repeat some of what you say, is that in the US most unionisation through majority vote means *total* workforce unionisation, whether individuals want it or not.
Even if you, as a worker, disagree with the union, in most states you are *required* to at least pay dues to the union if you want to continue to work at that employer, even if you never engage with the union in any way. Thats not something that has been foisted on the unions, thats something the unions have wanted - mandated whole workforce dues payments increase their funding.
So yes, unionisation is a right, but its a right which is forced on a lot of people who don't want it and whose only recourse is to quit and find a different job.
So I agree with you that unions should only have to represent members in good standing who pay their union dues, its the laws requiring or allowing 100% union shops against individual employees wishes that need to be gotten rid of.
Elon Musk didn't say that a call for unionisation was morally outrageous. He said that for someone to be "paid by the UAW to join Tesla and agitate for a union" was morally outrageous. There's quite a difference
Sure, being a member of a union is a right. That's not what this story is about. The UAW wants to capture some of the wages from Tesla along with all the other money that they capture. Then they can hand it to Democrats while keeping a few million for the bosses who run the union. That's all they do.
If Tesla employees want to have a union, they should do so. They don't need the UAW to "help".
Do you have ESP?
>> He should quit.
No, I don't think Elon Musk should quit. He has to learn a thing or two on series production.
I'll suggest him to take a tour of the Volvo plant in Torslanda.
They can give him a lot of useful advice on how to design things to be easy to assemble, and how to rotate workers around on different tasks.
Tesla has a lot of lessons to learn that the auto industry had 30 Years ago.
aaaaaaa
I think people should freely be allowed to unionize, but people should also be allowed to NOT be part of the unions if they don't want to be: it's their economic choice, really.
Collectivism only works when it's mandatory--and even then, it doesn't work.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
The government already meddles to allow this - its called the National Labor Relations Act, and the Taft-Hartly act to basically overturn previous court rulings that closed union shops were illegal. They no longer call them "closed shops", but rather "union security agreements" but they are basically the same thing - the union gets dues from *all* workers, even those who do not want to join.
If a union vote doesnt pass with 100% of the workforces approval, why should it be the exclusive supplier? Because, the union will argue, its influence is diminished if it isn't - and so the rights of individual workers are trampled on because they are forced to pay dues to an entity they want nothing to do with.
It is not right, and its a setup you will find illegal in most of the rest of the world, where individual employee rights are respected. The UK made closed shops illegal in 1990.
An employee should be legally free to engage in his or her job without outside interference from a third party, even if that third party has contracts with other people in the workplace.
Oddly enoiugh, I did that this past December. And oddly enough, there were multiple choices, from cheap junk to quite expensive (and high quality) appliances.
Which means a range of choices for everyone who wants a dishwasher, for instance. Pick what's in your budget and fits your needs.
Now, alternately, we can go with the "one model fits all" theory. It has, after all, worked so well in the past. Oh, wait, it hasn't.l...
I'm curious, where do you live that there are no choices in appliances?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
> It seems like some US unions (the UAW in particular) are a lot more powerful than any of our unions or even all of them combined
Perhaps so. The joke is that the UAW isn't doing as well as it once was, they had a layoff and laid off four the senators who work for them.
The most powerful unions are probably some public-sector unions, like teachers' unions, because they literally pay the people they are nominally negotiating against. It goes a bit like this:
The teachers' union donates $250,000 to a certain candidate for governor.
Two months later, they sit down with the new governor and demand that he give them $2 million of taxpayers' money.
A couple years later, the governor is up for re-election.
The teachers' union meets with the governor again and says:
We'd like to discuss two things with you. First, you remember we gave you $250,00 for your last election - we're considering giving you $250,000 again for this election. Secondly, we'd like you to give us $3 million of taxpayer money.
The negotiation is between a union who wants taxpayer money and a politician who is being paid by the union. Nobody in that negotiation represents the people who are paying for it, the taxpayers.
Also, the teachers and firefighters hold a very powerful endorsement. "Think of the children", they can easily say, "Your childrens' education and future depend on you voting for candidate Greenbacks", and many, many voterd are influenced by that endorsement. The fact is, whoever is elected will help decide how money the members of the teachers' union get, and how much the union itself gets. Their self-interest is very much affexted. One should fully expect that that effect on their pay will influence their endorsement.