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Tesla's Mass Firings Spread To SolarCity as Employees Say They Were Blindsided (cnbc.com)
Tesla has laid off over 200 employees from its SolarCity business for performance reasons, just over a week after firing hundreds more from its motor vehicle division. From a report: Employee dismissals at Tesla are continuing, according to six former and current employees, and have spread from its motor division to SolarCity offices across the U.S. Echoing reports from earlier this month, these SolarCity employees say they were surprised to be told they were fired for performance reasons, claiming Tesla had not conducted performance reviews since acquiring the solar energy business. Earlier this month, Tesla began firing hundreds of employees after it announced a recall of 11,000 Model X SUVs. Tesla had already announced plans to lay off 205 SolarCity employees at its Roseville, California, office by the end of October this year. However, SolarCity employees across the country have been fired in the last two weeks -- not just in California, but also in Nevada, Arizona, Utah and beyond, according to these employees.
SolarCity was well on its way to bankruptcy. The only reason Musk bought SolarCity was to save his cousins and the SolarCity bonds he owned - at the expense of Tesla shareholders. And all it took was a lame presentation showing fake solar tiles to convince them.
Seriously, companies do this all the time and it doesn't cause any news at all. Just because it's Tesla (an interesting company from a nerd's point of view) does this make a splash. And really the firings weren't that big of a percentage of the work force
This is just business as usual.
"Right-to-work" is about union busting.
It is about having the choice to belong to a union or not.
Wasn't GE famous (or infamous) for doing this?
I always wondered if it achieved anything truly productive. 5% is a big enough number that it would seem to have a pretty negative effect on the company -- termination processing, new hires, training, and the general chaos on teams/departments when there's a bunch of change.
I can even see side effects, where people who do well in a job get management positions, become "low performers" and get canned. Sure, they've cut a low performer but they also lost someone good at their original job because, basically, they fired the original manager. Now they need two employees.
I would also think it created a pretty toxic atmosphere and a lot of just people trying to meet goals versus actual productivity.
No, the union represents only it's members. The non-union members are free to attempt to negotiate the same deal the union negotiated, or try and get a better deal. The company is free to attempt to negotiate a deal that is better for the company. The union doesn't die unless the majority of employees feel they can do a better job negotiating than the union can.