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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.
So is this going to be like other locations, where the companies said "yeah, go ahead and vote". The vote failed - so the union had another. And another. Then tried to publish all the individual votes that were suppose to be secret so they could force and intimidate folks? Then that failed. So they sued. And that failed. So they had another vote. Ad Nauseum. The UAW isn't a millstone. It's a cancer. They are a gateway to fraud, kickbacks, nepotism, favoritism, and popularism.
UAW pays people to work for companies like Tesla for a period of time to rock the boat and stir up shit. Including "accidents".
No, The company gives you those things, don't act like Unions pay for those things. All unions do is take your money to give to politicians. The warehouse I work at kicked the union out a few years ago, they did nothing for us, now we keep the money that the Union would have taken. A lot of the money the Union takes that is given to politicians are used for policy that hurts everyone, the rest is to enrich themselves.
Union is run by the people who use to run mafias.
Unions outlived their usefulness decades ago.
I hate it when leaders do this. "Here, I will go do this job to show whatever." It is shallow showmanship. A job is something that someone might do for many years; How safe is the job if you do it for 1000s of days? What repetitive injuries can be expected, how many times has the 1% chances of getting crushed by machinery been actualized. This type of showmanship is offensive to the people who do the actual work.
There are professionals out there that can audit these types of safety problems. I hope they are hiring and listening to them and the people on the ground.
I laugh at inappropriate times.
The UAW and most unions push for union shops, where every worker of certain categories must belong to the union and pay union dues, it is not a voluntary relation.
I have always found unionisation in the US very strange. In most (if not all) other countries, neither employers nor unions have any say in whether an employee becomes a member of a union. It's entirely up to the employee there are usually multiple unions to choose from. The monopoly of US unions is a bad thing. It makes them too powerful against both the employers and the employees, without sufficient accountability. It leads to an all-or-nothing situation that's unhealthy at both extremes.
I also have the impression that works councils are not a thing in the US, which probably makes labour relations much tougher (and unions even more powerful) than they have to be.
UAW pays people to work for companies like Tesla for a period of time to rock the boat and stir up shit. Including "accidents".
Possibly. I'm not saying you are wrong, however a citation would be nice since I can't see any evidence on Google and I rather suspect that you are misrepresenting.
That's very weird though. Why should joining an organisation you don't necessarily agree with or want to support ever be a condition to employment with a company? It's an unjustifiable discriminatory practice.
Don't ever do a trade show at a hall with a union contract - you won't be allowed to plug in your power strip. You have to hire two (buddy system, apparently) union electricians to do it for you, because safety.
Because apparently when you walk through the doors of the Javitz Center in New York City, you forget how to plug a household lamp in without killing yourself and setting fire to the place.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
You're missing the point. They have the freedom to create a union, yes. Musk also has the freedom to refuse to hire union workers. What is being sought is the institution of a union by a minority of the workers, mandatory imposition of union dues on all employees, and the removal of Musk's prerogative to hire those he deems best for his company.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I have that in Belgium. But first understand that there is a fundamental difference in Unions in the US and in Europe.
In the US it is more a guild than a Union. You have profession X, you join Union Y.
In Belgium these exist as well, but they are the smaller unions. Most you just join. There are a few major ones. You can join any of them and no company will ask if you are a Union member or not, because they do not care if you are. I do not even know if the people I work with are in a union or not.
When a company is larger than 50, there need to be a workers representative from the unions. That means that basically every company is unionized.
As long as you are 18 (I think) you can join a union. You do not even have to have a job. The reason I joined is because they do a lot for you.
First time I lost my job, it took 9 months to get my unemployment benefits. I got it in one big bunch. Next time I got fired, I joined a Union on that very day and they took all the paperwork out of my hands and I got paid immediatly.
One company I worked for even paid me back the fee I paid to the Union. So in effect the company paid the Union.
The thing is that Europe are a lot of countries, so you do not have one huge overlapping Union. To me that could be a danger in the US that they would become TOO powerfull. In Belgium I like it as they even the power difference between a single person and a company.
No, obviously it isn't perfect, but it is WAY better than having no union.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Be careful what you take in your mind. They are tying to convince you that Unions are the enemy and Unions must go. You took part of the bait. I'm glad you were lucky and had your grandfather to talk to you.
The theory of unions is just fine. The history of unions is important, their achievements great. However do not confuse these things with the state of unions *today*. Today many unions are corrupt and work for the interests of the union itself, not for the workers they represent. Today many do not uphold the standards of the industry, the craft, making sure members live up to the standards of quality of the industry. Do not confuse the unions of the "golden era" with those of today. They have little in common. Many of the rights and benefits workers receive today are due to law, not union membership or contract. Yes, laws brought about by the unions of that "golden era", but law never the less.
You have no idea of how hard Washington and Corporations want to kill unions. That way you will have absolutely no defence against what they pay you, treat you, or anything they want to do to you.
Other than the law of the land?
For instance: Take having "The right to work.in your State. The true statement is "The right to work for less pay". People find out about it later..much too late. What you said about Unions in the 70's is true. They got too greedy and made a lot of idiot mistakes. (So do politicians to this day). I think Unions realized their mistakes and have changed for the better. But today you can be part of a Union and not pay dues! This is their way of crippling Unions.
The first hand accounts I've heard from the late 1990s show little difference from the 1970s.
The United States Post Office is one of the biggest Unions to exist. Why do you think they wanted them to pay retirement benefits 75 years into the future?? They want to kill the post office and it's Union. They are also under the illusion that privatizing the post office will bring a profit to them. It will in the city, but be a huge loss in the rural areas.
Government employee unions are a separate topic, and a trouble idea to begin with.
"“It is impossible to bargain collectively with the government.”
That wasn’t Newt Gingrich, or Ron Paul, or Ronald Reagan talking. That was George Meany -- the former president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O -- in 1955. Government unions are unremarkable today, but the labor movement once thought the idea absurd."
"The founders of the labor movement viewed unions as a vehicle to get workers more of the profits they help create. Government workers, however, don’t generate profits. They merely negotiate for more tax money. When government unions strike, they strike against taxpayers. F.D.R. considered this “unthinkable and intolerable.”"
https://www.nytimes.com/roomfo...
""All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service," he wrote. "It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management." Roosevelt didn’t stop there. "The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations," he wrote. When Walker claimed FDR said "the government is the people," he had Roosevelt’s next line in mind. "The employer," Roosevelt’s letter added, "is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, pro