SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1337
Court says Tesla and Musk's tweet violated labor laws
Tesla broke labor laws by interfering with legitimate union organizing, among other things, California administrative law judge Amita Baman Tracy has ruled. The automaker apparently committed a number of violations against the National Labor Relations Act in 2017 and 2018, the court decided regarding the complaints filed by the United Auto Workers union. According to Bloomberg and Reuters, one of the violations cited in the filing is a tweet by company chief Elon Musk. In the tweet, he said that there's nothing stopping its car plant employees from organizing, but he also asked: "[W]hy pay union dues [and] give up stock options for nothing[?]"
Nothing stopping Tesla team at our car plant from voting union. Could do so tmrw if they wanted. But why pay union dues & give up stock options for nothing? Our safety record is 2X better than when plant was UAW & everybody already gets healthcare.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 21, 2018
Musk's statement was a response to someone asking about the reports that came out last year accusing Tesla of having poor workplace safety and of having an anti-union management. The court said the tweet amounts to threatening employees that they'd be giving up company-paid stock options if they join a union.
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Tuesday October 01 2019, @12:59PM (8 children)
Conflict of interest, trade secrets, confidentiality clauses in contracts, stock trading regulations, antitrust laws, you'll find none of those in the constitution. Yet, each and everyone will impact on what a CEO can or can't speak.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 01 2019, @01:49PM (7 children)
None of which has anything to do with the law in question and much of it isn't even relevant to the First Amendment such as conflicts of interest, trade secrets, confidentiality clauses in contracts. Further, several of those items such as stock trading regulations and antitrust laws - at least the parts that butt heads with the First Amendment are unconstitutional, even if they aren't presently recognized as such.
Even where this is true and relevant, it doesn't mean that a CEO doesn't have freedom of speech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 01 2019, @02:11PM (1 child)
I'll be waiting to see you mounting the steps of the Supreme Court building soon.
I can just see the headline:
Khallow laughed out of Federal Court. No news at Eleven.
You go, girl!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 02 2019, @12:28AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 01 2019, @02:33PM (1 child)
You are correct. When a CEO is speaking for himself and not in his capacity as an officer of a corporation. When that CEO speaks *in his capacity as CEO*, his speech is limited in a variety of ways.
Just as the speech of employees is limited when they are functioning in their capacity as an employee.
But don't let logic, precedent and settled law get in your way, some lawyer needs a fat retainer.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 02 2019, @02:12AM
So what? The initial premise was that there wasn't a right to free speech, not that a CEO would have a bunch of constraints - most which don't come from state or federal law (and hence aren't relevant to a discussion of the US First Amendment). I think the present story mentions the absurdity of labor law which is an unconstitutional infringement of the speech of the CEO. For example, so what if the CEO speaks in a threatening manner about attempts to unionize? It's one thing to air the vague concern that stock options might go away and another to threaten criminal acts against union supporters. The first simply is a standard negotiation tactic, the second is already a crime. That this got in front of a judge and was ruled against Musk indicates there is something deeply wrong with the law and/or the judge's interpretation of it.
In fact, we have rulings like Citizen United that confirm the First Amendment applies to CEOs as it should.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 01 2019, @02:38PM
The Constitution doesn't guarantee CEO-s can tweet whatever shit they want without consequences.
Yeah, among many others, the same goes for the espionage act 1917, anti-riot act (title X), criminal conspiracy laws.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 01 2019, @02:51PM
Sutor, ne ultra crepidam.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 01 2019, @03:43PM
It is fun seeing the predictable users saying the predictable things. I honestly didn't expect this here because I thought most of you predictables didn't like Tesla. But this is a slapdown on corporate fascism so I get why khallow is here.