1 yr. ago • 93%

Tesla is the next biggest union target in the United States. Sorry, Elon Musk

www.theguardian.com Tesla is the next biggest union target in the United States. Sorry, Elon Musk | Hamilton Nolan

The carmaker is now US labor’s most important target. If Musk doesn’t like that, he’s welcome to settle it with an auto worker by cage match

61 comments

I predict Elon pulling an illegal stunt & getting busted in reaction to this.

117
- I predict him pulling an illegal stunt and getting off scot-free because he's wealthy and has aligned himself with the christofascist party that doesn't support the rule being used against its own.
  
  126
  
  Reality shows that Tesla gets hit with fines & judgments all the time.
  
  11
- Oh yeah. He drinks his own Kool-aid and sees himself as some unstoppable titan, when the reality is he's just an egotistical fancy lad.
  
  20
  
  He is an unstoppable titan, but that's mostly due to his propensity to constantly cheat the system.
  
  4
- I predict he fires everyone and hires people on H1B visas using a contractor.
  
  Edit: Even if the NLRB forces him to recognize the union he can just pull a Starbucks and refuse to negotiate. Meanwhile he can drag out every wrongful termination suite and still hire people on H1B visas and save who knows how much doing so.
  
  5
I'd say Amazon and then FedEx, but I'm cool with unionizing Tesla

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- Tesla is the best target because of optics and (more so) the presence of an already-existing very strong union in the space. UPS has its union and they could reasonably easily move into FedEx shops, but it’s not the scale or power of the UAW. And, nothing similar exists at all in Amazon’s industry. The best case for both of those comes from a policy and statutory push to implement sectorial bargaining. This also solves the even bigger issue of nonunionized retail and hospitality workers.
  
  16
  
  UPS's union is the Teamsters, and they represent twice as many employees at UPS as UAW does at the big three. The Teamsters union is an incredibly powerful union because they represent transportation and don't cross picket lines so they can really gum up the works if they so decide.
  
  7
  
  FedEx is being deliberately destroyed by Amazon. I would love to see it unionize, but it’s arguably not going to exist in another few years as a major player.
  
  Unionization of Amazon delivery systems would have much more ongoing impact. Over-the-road and last-mile have to happen in the US; they can’t be off-shored.
  
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- You'd be surprised at how anti-union many Amazon corp workers are, which is hilarious given how fucking shit it can be.
  
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He’s gonna try to fire his entire workforce.

I’m sure the NLRB will have something to say.

41
- Let him fire the whole workforce, that will set back Tesla years, they may never recover. I wish the workers the best.
  
  26
- Didn't he already try that at twitter and had to backpedal? They weren't even trying to unionize in that case.
  
  8
He'll close Tesla completely before he allows this. So win win

40
- Doubtful the rest of the Board of Directors would vote yes on that motion. He only owns like 27% of Tesla. If people wanted to unionize, bet you he wouldn't even close down 1 factory. He'll just double down on his anti-democratic anti-worker rhetoric.
  
  24
  
  He's still by and large the majority shareholder compared to anyone on the board, and they're all basically his puppets. They're all propped up by him and sit on the boards of his other companies, so they really can't vote against him, lest they incur the wrath of the Musk.
  
  6
- Are you a Ford/GM investor by any chance?
  
  2
- How has the biggest name in EVs become so hated here? I get that Lemmy wants to see everyone in an apartment, but not everyone is going to migrate to the city. Is Lemmy suggesting those that stay in rural areas just keep driving gas powered cars?
  
  -34
  
  In case you haven't noticed, real auto manufacturers with decades and decades of experience have caught up. Tesla is going to get it's lunch eaten.
  
  19
  
  Because all he is is a name. Over the last several years, he's demonstrated that he's an entitled, racist moron who confused money with actual intelligence.
  
  16
  
  Tesla use to be the only widely recognized source for EVs. Nowadays people who buy new ones find out how poorly put together they are. There are more options available and ev charging stations are popping up even in my smaller town.
  
  12
  
  Because he is a terrible person. Its nothing to do with evs
  
  12
  
  Lose Elon, Gain Respect.
  
  2
  
  Lemmy wants to see everyone in a free single family house that doesn’t disrupt the natural environment in any way, also it comes with free food and free utilities, and theres no roads and no cars.
  
  -11
This is the way. I wish software engineers would do the same.

25
Sounds good! 👍

13
Wow, what an interesting technology this is!

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- The Guardian opinion page is, in fact, the most authoritative source for technology news in the world
  
  3
- Old tech
  
  1
This is the best summary I could come up with:

The current strike, the first in UAW history to target all of the big three simultaneously, is to a large degree an attempt to ensure that “shared prosperity” persists as a genuine thing in the profitable auto industry.

The fact that unionized workers have higher job satisfaction, lower turnover and a better quality of life doesn’t mean much to the balance sheet-obsessed corporate executives who sit at the bargaining table.

Tesla already pays its workers significantly less than the big three, and as long as Musk has no union to answer to, he will sit back and savor a UAW win against his competitors that widens that gap.

This is exactly what auto companies are trying to do every time they move a factory into a poor, anti-union southern state, where they can run it without any pesky interference from anyone trying to empower the people working the line.

What we cannot have, in the long term, is a situation in which the world’s richest conspiracy-addled Twitter addict uses the UAW’s gains at the Big Three as a chance to increase his market share by sticking it to his own underpaid non-union workforce.

The public, the politicians and every Tesla owner who would prefer not to be complicit in Gilded Age-style plutocratic inequality all need to lean on the big billionaire baby who can’t imagine having to share.

The original article contains 943 words, the summary contains 228 words. Saved 76%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

8
I believe this may be one of the few times other car manufacturers would lobby the government in favor of unions, since they see Tesla as having an unfair advantage that hurts their bottom line.

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- My experience says that they'd point at non union competition as an excuse to say no to union demands in negotiations.
  
  3
Not sorry, Elon is poes.

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Sorry, not sorry.

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Are they forming a technology union? Otherwise I think this should be in news.

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Maybe he'll take his ball and go home.

0
- I don't think he will go home before he finds those marbles thst he lost
  
  1

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