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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: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday October 01 2019, @01:04PM (2 children)
How come?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 01 2019, @06:44PM (1 child)
The UAW has been pretty successful in getting what they want in negotiating with the big auto companies, yet the employees receive less in total compensation (pay, retire, healthcare) than non-unionized employees working for Toyota in the US. I personally have nothing against unions where death is a possible result of work (auto, steel, electricians, etc) because it would be nice paying your montly tithe to have a lawyer on your side if something goes wrong.
I predict if they end up unionized the employees will end up with a worse deal than they have now, or Tesla will fail faster like hostess did when the union thought it preferable to have no job than have no raise that year. In that case both management and the other union took a pay cut to keep the plant open, the second union did not and the plant folded.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 04 2019, @02:38AM
The problem was they had already agreed to 1/4-1/3 salary decreases in previous years and management had no plans to return the company to profitability, including new products, marketing etc. I don't remember if management salaries had remained the same while baker etc all salaries were cut, but they chose to stand behind it because it was better to take unemployment when they all got fired/laid off than it would have been to take it in a few years when their salaries were worse than minimum wage.
As to the UAW, they aren't a union I have particular respect for, placing them in the same realm as the Teamsters union.
On the other hand there are many other skilled trade unions open to fresh blood with career paths that don't require a form college education (although many have as much hands on time, studying, and testing as formal college courses do.)