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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.
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?
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.'"
It's the same way a CEO works to raise the share price of his corporation. Not because he cares deeply about each and every shareholder, but because his success leads directly to an increase in his compensation. Same thing with the entire board of directors.
I'm telling you, corporations and unions are two sides of the same coin. If you want to talk about getting rid of both, then we have a discussion. If you want to talk about getting rid of only one, then you are being hypocritical. As I said, one is the aggregate of labor, the other is the aggregate of capital. It's a natural situation of balance of power.
You are welcome on my lawn.
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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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.
They have the choice to find a job at a non-union shop.
Let me share with you the words of that famous socialist, Abraham Lincoln:
You are welcome on my lawn.
Tesla is a public company. Any options vested can be exercised and sold immediately, so I completely don't get how on earth you think their lawyers would take them away from employees. You heard something somewhere, maybe about startups where employee stock options are not liquid and often end up being worth nothing, but that doesn't apply to large publicly traded companies. So either you are majorly confused or are just spreading FUD.
There is nothing contradictory about those statements.
The living wage varies from place to place, because it costs more to live in some places. It is the amount someone needs to earn to live comfortably while supporting a modest family in a modest home with healthcare, a pension and some savings for emergencies.
If $15/hr is not a living wage, that doesn't mean that $15.01 is. There is nothing contradictory about what Tesla pays also not being adequate to meet the conditions above.
Tesla claims that its pay is good because it includes valuable stock. Problem is, you can't by groceries or pay the rent with stock, you have to wait until it matures and then sell it. As we should all know, having been through the dot-com boom, stock is not a substitute for wages.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC