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Tesla Factory Workers Pushing For a Union Send Letter of Requests To Company's Board Members (phys.org)
One of the many challenges facing Tesla right now is the escalating worker complaints about pay and safety. At its California factory, a move to unionize is gaining steam. Workers recently sent a letter to Tesla's independent board members requesting access to the automaker's safety plan as well as clarity on compensation and a promise of no retaliation against employees as they try to form a union. From a report via Phys.Org: The United Auto Workers is in the process of trying to unionize the 10,000 Tesla workers at the Fremont plant, alleging the company has a poor safety record -- a charge it vehemently denies.
"We're tired of suffering preventable injury after preventable injury. It impacts morale, it slows down production and it's of course traumatizing," said Michael Catura, a Tesla production worker who signed the letter. Starting pay for production associates in the Fremont facility is $18 an hour, far below the national average for auto workers of $25.58 and even farther below the living wage in Alameda County, California, where the average wage is $28.10, according to the letter sent by workers. In addition, the letter said the paths to promotion are not clear. "Many of us have worked for years with the vague promise of a raise, with nothing to show for it," said Richard Ortiz, who works in the paint shop. "We have no idea what the criteria is to move forward, and no idea of what defines success. We've raised these issues repeatedly, and have gotten no response," he added.
Don't like the job....find another one...
Don't get paid what everyone else gets paid - because of 'just because I want more money'....find another one...
oh nah wait....free money
fucking unions
if you unionize, what promotion is there? Isn't the idea behind the union that everyone's equal? Also, why would you work for years without a raise? Is it possibly because you can't find another job that pays more than Tesla?
Companies want people off the union. Ergo, in union shops people get promoted faster into non-union management.
The idea behind a union is for a fair bargaining position between workers and companies instead of one person against a behemoth.
People work without raises because of promises and fear. People sometimes forego the greedy option of quitting as soon as better pay is found elsewhere because companies in nearly every industry heavily look down on people that switch jobs more often than every five to ten years. People often hang on to those promises. They actually believe their employers.
Hopefully the workers have better sense than to let the unions in the door.
Unions killed Detroit and have no interest in workers other than extracting as much money out of them as possible.
Unions are parasites on business and employees.
On the other hand, UAW doesn't bother to mention in their overwork claims that during crunch times Musk has been known to sleep in a sleeping bag at the factory,
It's his company, he can work if he wants to. What he doesn't have the right to do is demand that people waste away their lives for him. Hire enough people to do the work.
and has pledged (and at least so far, upheld) to work on any line where any employee gets injured.
What purpose does that serve? It certainly doesn't un-injure anyone.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
My goodness, you don't know the first thing about labor unions, do you? They do not seek "equality", they seek the best wage for their members. They seek seniority rules, benefits guarantees and worker safety. And they've got an amazing record of success in these areas.
A union seeks to aggregate labor for leverage in the workplace the same way corporations aggregate capital in the marketplace. .
Anyone who believes that unions are the cause of the problems in the US auto industry over the past 50 years just doesn't know much about unions or the auto industry.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Yes, because he's pointing a gun at their heads and making them work for Tesla.
Musk's companies generally have people lining up to work at them. If you don't like the culture or environment there, there's plenty more who would like your job, so move aside. And so far, almost all of the criticism of Tesla is coming from UAW and the random couple UAW supporters at Tesla that they trot out every time.
So, apart from that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?
Let me point something out about Unions.
They will fight tooth and nail for wage increases and adding new titles that fall under the Union umbrella.
It isn't because they are looking out for their members. It's because union dues are typically a percentage of a members base pay.
Thus, while the Union loves to claim it's fighting for YOU, the truth is they are really securing a pay raise for themselves. As union worker pay goes up, so too does the union dues.
You're just the proxy they're using so it isn't so obvious.
Is why they could give two shits about how expensive your health care has become. It's money out of YOUR pocket, not theirs. They get theirs regardless of how little remains for you.
Understand this concept and you'll be able to make a better decision about pushing for or joining a Union.
Lifting a finger is hard. What Tesla needs to do is pay a company-wide UBI so that the employees can stay at home to play Xbox.
Better yet, Tesla should move to another state. Arizona and Idaho are close.
The minimum wage activists tell us that anything below $15/hr is not a "living wage."
Now we learn that people who already make a good deal more than that still declare it to be far below a "living wage."
This cycle quickly gets old to those of us who choose to live within our means rather than to constantly whine and try to bully our way into a higher income.
to rank and file. As someone who worked in the late 90s I can tell you that companies can and will swindle you out of them. AOL did it most famously during the Time Warner buyout. Onlive did it recently where they built the company with cheap engineers paid in stock options then folded the company to walk away with the proceeds from selling it. There are plenty of other ways to do it.
Join a Union. If you don't you'll just get picked apart by the companies expert lawyers. You can't compete with them without help, they pay those guys too much. Their monthly salary's more than your house's worth. While you're trying to make next month's payment they're screwing you out of the money you needed to make it.
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Musk's companies generally have people lining up to work at them.
In this environment, so do all companies. If you get near a point, I'll be interested.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Do you want production moved to Mexico? Because this is how you get production moved to Mexico.
Not paid enough? Quit, because you can obviously get a better job.
Safety? Same thing, except OSHA is rooting for you, too.
Short form, paraphrased from Ann Landers and John Prine: "STFU, You have no complaints, you is what you is, you ain't what you ain't."
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
On the other hand, UAW doesn't bother to mention in their overwork claims that during crunch times Musk has been known to sleep in a sleeping bag at the factory, and has pledged (and at least so far, upheld) to work on any line where any employee gets injured.
Who cares?
Who cares if Musk chooses to sleep in the factory? That doesn't mean the workers aren't being overworked. Musk owns Tesla and is free to set any standard for himself he likes, the workers don't and can't.
Who cares if Musk takes over on the factory line for an injured worker? 1. It's not his job, he shouldn't be there. Solidarity is nice, but he's got to run the company. 2. There. Should. Not. Be. Injuries. On. The. Line. Full stop. No ifs, ands, or buts. The only acceptable target is zero, and the boss stepping in to fill a spot doesn't achieve that.
Your arguments aren't refutations of UAW's points. They highlight them.
1. Absolute safety is impossible.
2. There are dollar tradeoffs for safety, and those tradeoffs imply reasonable limits. Ask any engineer whose primary career is safety; ask any highway engineer. You don't spend $100 million to save one life because $100 million represents the efforts of (somewhere in the area of) 50 lifetimes. You shouldn't expend 50 lives to save one life.
The leaders of the UAW want unearned money and power, and have no concerns for anything that doesn't preserve that money and power. They are fully morally equivalent to Al Sharpton.
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If true, the reason that senior employees are the ones pushing for a union is that they're the ones too incompetent to be promoted.
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So don't get grumpy when H1B workers take over your job. If you are going to reduce Tesla workers to just another expense the employer is allowed to minimise, then IT workers are the same and if they can source them from other countries or shift the jobs to other countries why shouldn't they able to do that.....oh wait I see what you did, that only applies to OTHER people.
Tech workers still think they have some magic powers that make outsourcing to the lowest bidder a terrible mistake in their case but not for anyone else because reasons.
.. well of course Musk should be willing to sleep in a sleeping bag at his own freaking company. He's the billionaire. People being paid much less than beeelyuns should not be expected to sleep over at work. That implies they're getting extreme compensation.
The old tired lines about stock options making up for bad pay is just as BS as it always was. Show me the money is what these workers should all be saying. Are they founding options? No, they have to wait some number of months/years before they can cash them? Then it's potentially toilet paper and should be treated as such. Having been through 2 tech bubbles with worthless options to show for it, I can attest to this personally.
Extraordinary dedication requires extraordinary compensation.
The real scenario here is the union is utterly terrified of Tesla becoming the first major, successful automaker without a union. Such an example could plausibly lead to reduction in union influence at Ford, GM, etc. The UAW is concerned about preserving itself far more than it's concerned about what's going on inside Tesla. Any fool can see this is what's going on since Tesla is successful, the majority of the workers are happy, the injury rate is significantly below industry norms, and the only group that has anything big to lose by not unionizing is the UAW.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
So you won the lottery and now you think it was more than a strike of luck? Well, think again.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
I'm a UAW member. In my experience, they are responsive, helpful, and quite valuable. [...] I don't get the hate here.
If you genuinely believed in what you say, you wouldn't be using an anonymous coward account.
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
So signing in with a free account literally anyone can get merely by providing an e-mail address somehow makes a post more authentic or otherwise lends credence? You are a fool.