Tesla broke labor laws by telling workers not to discuss pay, NLRB claims:
Tesla's accused of violating national labor laws by allegedly telling employees at its Orlando, Florida location not to talk about pay and working conditions, as first reported by Bloomberg. In a complaint filed in September, the National Labor Relations Board's (NLRB) regional director in Tampa claims Telsa "told employees not to complain to higher level managers about their pay or other conditions of employment" and said "not to discuss their pay with other persons."
The complaint goes on to accuse Tesla of instructing employees not to discuss the hiring, suspension, or termination of employees with others. These incidents occurred from December 2021 to January 2022, the complaint alleges, and violates laws that prevent companies from "interfering with, restraining and coercing employees in the exercise of rights guaranteed" by the NLRB Act. In a statement to Bloomberg, NLRB spokesperson Kayla Blado says a judge will hear the arguments laid out by the complaint during a February hearing.
The NLRB has waged numerous complaints against Tesla in the past. In August, the NLRB ruled that Tesla's dress code policy is unlawful for banning clothing with union logos. The agency also forced CEO Elon Musk to delete an anti-union tweet in 2021 (which still remains online while Tesla appeals the decision) and ruled that its firing of union activist Richard Ortiz was illegal at the same time. Additionally, two California-based Tesla employees filed complaints with the NLRB earlier this month over claims the company illegally fired them for criticizing Musk.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02, @12:30PM (1 child)
Laws aren't for billionaires. We plebs must compete to better serve our inherited wealth overlords.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by mcgrew on Monday January 02, @02:57PM
Of course they are, silly. Many of the laws are so that the rich can steal from you more easily. Musk and especially Bezos and the Waltons made the parts of their fortunes that they didn't inherit from underpaid labor. Hungry people's work buys their luxury.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02, @01:37PM (18 children)
Musk's tweet referenced in the story is entirely reasonable. He simply points out the bad parts of unionization. The idea that he should be censored over it is disgusting and unconstitutional.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by aafcac on Monday January 02, @04:27PM (17 children)
It's one thing when a random member of the public or an employee does it, they don't have the power to fire people that disagree. Pointing out the bad parts of unionization are a common component of union busting.
(Score: 2, Troll) by khallow on Monday January 02, @04:43PM (16 children)
And yet, it's still Musk's first amendment right even if he does it as a rich person from a position of authority in a corporation. Nor do I consider union busting inherently an illegal activity. After all, unions are usually very adverse to a business's long term future. Just look at what happened to US's industry in steel, textiles, or autos for examples of what can happen: first, a consolidation to a few big firms (through the beginning of the 1970s), and then massive loss of business to foreign competitors.
My take is that we already have laws against the real abuses. Using an army, public or private to put down union protesters? Illegal. Making an anti-union tweet? Legal.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02, @06:36PM (5 children)
True even if Musk has shown many times over that if you publicly disagree with him, he will fire you?
If you want to bring up union examples from the 60s and 70s, you should also mention the relative difference in CEO compensation to regular worker during the 60s and 70s and today [marketwatch.com] (and Musk was specifically not included in that analysis because his numbers were considered a very large high outlier). The fact that they are compensated about an order of magnitude greater now than then, and they actively fight all attempts to make them at least pay a living wage, I'm not so sure I'm too sympathetic towards CEOs these days.
In that earlier story about Google cutting workforce:
It's not enough to make large profits, you now have to "defend" your "huge" profits. And clearly those huge profits are not being reinvested into the company or its workforce. I've never been a big organized labor fan due to the same examples you mention, but it sounds to me like there needs to be a lot more unionization these days to empower workers to bring back some balance to the Force.
(Score: 2, Touché) by khallow on Monday January 02, @06:58PM (2 children)
His company, his rules, right? Funny how it wasn't a problem when Twitter cracked down on the speech of out-groups.
Big investor expectations require such. They are always demanding stuff like that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02, @08:52PM (1 child)
And if the law says his people can talk about their salaries or the pros and cons of organizing, "his company his rules" don't mean squat.
"Free speech absolutist" sure means something very funny to him. I think he actually means "abolitionist."
(Score: 2) by Tokolosh on Tuesday January 03, @02:21AM
But we have the right to censor him?
(Score: 2) by ChrisMaple on Monday January 02, @08:08PM
Some of those huge profits go to starting different ventures, which presumably benefit humanity more than reinvesting in the company the money is coming from.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Tokolosh on Tuesday January 03, @02:24AM
I can give you a list as long as my arm of people who have been fired for saying something a company finds offensive. I bet you were cheering those companies on.
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Tuesday January 03, @12:25AM (3 children)
There are limits to what he can say without it being a violation. It definitely makes him a douche, but whether or not it crossed a legal line is beyond me. He's a spoiled rich kid that's grown up to be a man child. He's been riding on the coattails of other people for his entire career.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 03, @02:47PM (2 children)
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Wednesday January 04, @01:30AM (1 child)
And that's where you'd be wrong. There are plenty of exceptions to the 1st amendment including inciting violence and spreading panic, not to mention false comments to the police.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 04, @04:19AM
So because there are exceptions to the First Amendment, then it's fine for me to use government power to suppress that post you just wrote, right? That's where I'd be wrong?
I find it interesting how people can argue that because there's a unrelated example somewhere out there, that it can be extended in to an arbitrary case.
(Score: 2) by Rich on Tuesday January 03, @03:03PM (5 children)
A loss of business to companies like Toyota, or Volkswagen, both of which are more deeply unionized than any US company ever was?
There have to be other mechanisms at work, if you compare how Wolfsburg looks today, compared to Detroit, or Longbridge/Birmingham as middle ground, where the original (unionized) auto industry failed, but was picked up by others. Could it be some middle-management disease in the consolidating companies where some care more about covering-their-asses to keep a bullshit job than total dedication to product quality?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 03, @04:38PM (4 children)
A big yes for Volkswagen. Keep in mind how stagnant they were for most of the past half century. Zero creativity or interest in challenging the status quo. And engine replacement every 90k or 120k miles was a huge turn off. It was painfully clear that you were buying not just a VW Bug, but the lucrative maintenance schedule that went with it. Japan ate their lunch for decades.
As to Toyota, Japanese labor unions are effectively another department of the company and have a very different relationship than US or European labor unions. That was exactly what I had in mind when I noted that labor unions were usually very adverse. Here, it didn't sound like anyone was interested in a Japanese-style union.
(Score: 2) by Rich on Tuesday January 03, @06:01PM (3 children)
Care to elaborate? They are doing well business-wise. They have absorbed a lot of the suffering remaining European auto industry (Audi, Skoda, SEAT, Bentley, Lamborghini, MAN, Scania,...) and seem to turn every of these into a profit source. Not with American-style short term quarter profits, but long term sustainable.
They may have neglected US distribution (including how they not only did that diesel cheating, but also how they dealt with it), but overall they do just fine. Also, despite having one or two lemon series engines, particularly a low displacement one that didn't even make it to the US, their engines in general are much, much more reliable than in your impression. They are boring, because it's the Golf that brings in the numbers. There isn't really much to innovate with the format. I'm not a fan of the brand, because they are indeed boring, and generally too expensive for what they offer. But take the Skoda equivalent of whatever VW offers, and you've picked a solid choice.
VW are a bit late to the electric game, but they did a lot of solid basic engineering in form of the MEB that now sees the light of day in ID.3 and 4 form. From pricing and especially the lean equipment it's quite clear that they don't want to sell too many of those, but for now position themselves where they could tackle the market below the Tesla 3. Major issues are not with tardiness, or unionization of the workforce, but mainly with sourcing of batteries and getting the software right.
Because of the sheer size of VW, the union probably has a similar position as in the Toyota case, including corruption issues in the past like the board supplying the workers council president with Brazilian hookers. But the "smaller" German manufacturers from US-owned Ford Cologne to Mercedes are also throughly unionized and don't seem to suffer beyond the usual ups & downs of the economy. Germany has not had one major failed manufacturer, except for Opel, which was bled dry by GM (the union should have gone on strike when GM re-assign the patents) and then sold to the French.
In the long term, I fear the Chinese lead in battery manufacture will be a problem for all manufacturers in the west, unionized or not.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 04, @05:09AM (2 children)
I consider this a sign of a decline in labor union power.
(Score: 2) by Rich on Wednesday January 04, @12:06PM (1 child)
That's a fringe opinion, plus the authors are aligned with capital (Dustmann) and employer (Spitz-Oener) interests.
German unions in general never went beyond what companies could afford. There are cases where the unions might have gone somewhat too far, partly due to ego issues of their leaders (with "ver.di", mostly office workers, "GDL", train conductors, or maybe "Cockpit", pilots), but the main industry unions ("Metall" and "BCE") generally stopped their actions before the companies themsevels suffered and just sought a fair distribution of the profits. Which in turn, in the past, kept the "gini-index" at a level that let the country feel a sense of unity that itself was beneficial. Today, this breaks apart, not because of the unions, but because the "Hartz" reforms created a new proletariat (*) and there is a large influx of uneducated and culturally alien migrants. (*) The kind of people who would have been used as supermarket bag packers in the US, or parking lot assistants in Japan, to give an idea.
Most of the "upturn" is still widely attributed to the "Hartz reforms" by chancellor Schröder (which I consider in their form as a sellout of the country, although in their amount they might have been justified by the influx of former GDR workfoce). It is very well possible that the sudden arrival of millions of well-educated native speakers without a job (after Treuhand dissolved their economy) to the market economy is the root cause here, but the operation mode of German unions never really changed.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 18, @04:36AM
Both which are irrelevant to my observation. Wages growing slower than productivity would be a sign of labor weakness, no matter who made the observation, their motives for doing so, or even if they were blatantly wrong in their explanation for why it happened or consequences it causes.
As to the rest, it doesn't sound like you've thought it through:
If they didn't have that influx of uneducated and culturally alien migrants, then they wouldn't have enough people to cover entitlements to the elderly. Remember that negative population growth thing that's happening now. And criticizing a labor reform that is well correlated with subsequent substantial economic improvement isn't a good look for your complaints.
A sellout that probably was better than not selling out for everyone involved.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Monday January 02, @02:45PM (15 children)
My first job after graduation, in the 1990s, I was informed that it was a "termination offense" to discuss pay with fellow employees. I was given to understand that this was normal for a workplace. I was there for a year, until the project was cancelled, and everyone laid off. The next job, it was the same, no talking about how much you were being paid.
One day at that first job, I proposed bringing a modem to work. My more senior colleagues (which was all of them) got all wide-eyed in shock that I didn't get what a terribly dangerous idea that was. A modem could transmit the source code of their proprietary software to anyone, OMG OMG! It was a termination offense to bring a modem onto the job site. Today, corporate LANs being connected to the Internet is routine, LOL.
I think a big part of the rampant age discrimination in IT is that employers want employees who are inexperienced with workplace norms, the better to abuse that inexperience.
(Score: 4, Touché) by mcgrew on Monday January 02, @02:53PM (14 children)
No, it's because old guys who remember when the minimum wage would raise a family might inform their fellow workers that their labor was being stolen.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02, @03:11PM
Not stolen, traded for pay/benefits. If you don't think the deal is "fair", leave. No one is being forced to work at a particular job. And, if you can't find any job that is "acceptable", then the problem isn't the employers, it's you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02, @03:16PM
I'm old enough to be retired, and I don't remember that ever being true. When I started working, the minimum wage was $2/hr, which certainly wasn't enough to raise a family.
(Score: 0, Troll) by crafoo on Monday January 02, @03:28PM (11 children)
your productivity and labor are not being stolen.
real wages have been stagnant since we left the gold standard. they are stagnant because inflation has overmatched labor market prices. But why?
Progressives voting in the welfare state. Progressives riot when their taxes increase. Progressives riot when the free stuff stops flowing. Progressives riot when government free gibsmedats are cancelled. So the only path forward is printing more money and inflation.
You are not being robbed. You are getting what you voted for. I hope you like it.
(Score: 5, Informative) by mhajicek on Monday January 02, @04:34PM (4 children)
Inflation is driven by corporate greed, raising prices at every chance.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02, @04:48PM (1 child)
They can only raise prices as much as their customers are willing to pay.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday January 02, @07:21PM
How much influence do you think the consumer has over fuel, rent, and utilities? What are they going to do, stop living and going to work?
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2, Troll) by ChrisMaple on Monday January 02, @08:17PM
The word "inflation" has a technical meaning: an increase in the quantity of money. This is under the control of the government, although in the United States this is indirect due to Constitutional restrictions. "Corporate greed" has no relation to the money supply, hence no relation to inflation.
"Inflation" does not mean "general increase in prices", although inflation can cause price increases.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03, @09:04AM
Inflation is being driven by the US Gov/Fed Reserve ( https://fortune.com/2022/12/12/why-inflation-target-2-percent-federal-reserve-economy/ [fortune.com] ).
That it appears to be higher than the target could be due to the eventual results of "quantitative easing" and the covid money pumping in the past.
FWIW it hurts most of the rest of the world more than it hurts the USA. This is because of the petrodollar and because most stuff is bought and sold in US dollars. And also the USA owes others in US dollars.
It's like Mugabe's Zimbabwe. Except that when the US Gov prints US dollars the rest of the world can't laugh because most of them are living in the USA's "Zimbabwe".
When the US create dollars and gives the US dollars to their cronies (those who receive the created dollars) most of the rest of the world becomes poorer (because the US dollars they hold become worth less).
When the US increases interest rates to "reduce inflation" this increases the relative value of the US dollars vs other currencies, which makes a lot of the world poorer (since most stuff is priced in US dollars and it now costs them more to buy it). Yes some companies benefit since they sell more stuff than they buy in US dollars but this does not apply to most normal people in the world.
Keep in mind this scenario is a good thing for the USA because the trillions of USD that the USA owes China and other creditors become worth less... It's wonderful for the USA that they can owe other people in US dollars - it's a currency they can create if forced to. Most of their creditors know that, so they will only resort to discreet grumbles (sorry can't find a link to their grumbles) - because they don't want panic (which would hurt them) or the USA to just say "You really want your USD2 trillion? OK here they are - just like new, heck they're actually new!".
Good luck doing that if the USA owed trillions in EUR.
Of course if you're a US resident it's only a good thing for you if you get enough of the created US dollars. Otherwise it still sucks for you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02, @06:44PM
Corporations riot when their free money from tax breaks and government welfare stop too.
As an example, compare farm subsidies (and include the money from tariffs) to any of the evil progressive social welfare programs. The biggest welfare queens don't necessarily sit in the big cities.
(Score: 5, Touché) by mcgrew on Monday January 02, @07:05PM (3 children)
they are stagnant because inflation has overmatched labor market prices. But why?
Because Congress was bought and paid for by the super rich, who wouldn't allow their puppets in congress to raise the minimum wage. Like President Reagan said, a rising tide lifts all boats, although tax cuts for the rich weren't a rising tide. A rising minimum wage is.
Progressives voting in the welfare state.
You're clueless, son. There is no welfare state, not in America. European countries, yes, but not the US. AFDC was abolished in 1996. In America, now you can't collect any kind of federal government benefit at all, not even food assistance, unless you can prove that you're disabled, working, or actively looking for work.
Progressives riot when their taxes increase.
You're confusing the right wing extremists with progressives.
Progressives riot when the free stuff stops flowing.
Citation needed! Do you get all your news from Rush Limbaugh and Tucker Carlson? The last riot I heard of was on January 6, 2021. Technically, it wasn't a riot, it was an insurrection and attempted coup.
So the only path forward is printing more money and inflation.
Government doesn't cause inflation, greedy rich people do, the 1% who own more than 50% of everything. The billionaires who own Amazon and WalMart and Kroger and the shipping companies, and especially the oil barons. The inflation from 1973 until Carter's presidency was the direct cause of the OPEC oil embargo in 1974, and the current inflation is the rich, especially oil and shipping, taking advantage of Covid and Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
You are getting what you voted for.
You are ignorant of history, son. Every Republican administration after Eisenhower ended in recession with record high deficits, especially the Shrub administration that almost caused another Great Depression like Coolidge and Hoover did, while both Democratic administrations ended in boom times with lowered deficits. My money says that the present administration will be no different.
Did that tax cut the Republicans passed in 2017 do you any good? If so, I see where you're coming from, because we middle class people didn't see our taxes go down by a dime.
Read a book some time, kid. I suggest this one. [goodreads.com] There's a Netflix documentary based on that book if you're a subscriber.
Or keep swallowing the right wing lies, fool.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Tuesday January 03, @03:53AM (2 children)
While the Republican side has been remarkably poor at economics given their alleged positions on the matter (and the Democrat side similarly performing surprisingly, relatively better given their alleged positions on the same matter) we have some deviations from the narrative. Republican Reagan didn't end in a recession. Republican Trump was a dumpster fire, but covid US would have performed poorly anyway just due to the inevitable economic decline and goofy self-destructive politics of the era (not just anti-vaxxers/pro-spreaders, but also the numerous policy hypocrites).
And all three Democrat presidencies had serious economic problems - both Carter and Obama finished with very weak economies and Clinton ended a good economic stretch (I would consider him the strongest president in this entire stretch on economic issues followed by Reagan) with the dotcom bubble burst.
My take is that the last 60 years of the US has been decent economic growth due solely to the private sector. Public goods like roads and national security have been amply paid for by them. A lot of what's missed in this discussion is that the US government system has been in growing dysfunction since the end of the Second World War (Eisenhower himself warned of two such dangers: the military-industrial complex and the public-academic complex). The amazing economic growth since then is what has kept things together not the economic virtues of US presidents who mostly had modest negative impact.
Keep in mind that most of the problems listed in that book were due to the deliberate breaking of capitalism, often by said progressives. For example, the huge amount of entitlements spending/wealth redistribution (a typical progressive policy, right?) is wildly anti-capitalist and allowed for huge revenue streams for crony capitalism to exploit.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday January 04, @09:11PM (1 child)
Carter didn't finish with a weak economy, the economy was in the toilet since the late sixties and stayed there until Clinton. Clinton left office with a budget surplus and smaller defect, unlike his predecessors the previous two decades. I voted against him before I voted for him.
You say Reagan didn't end in a recession. I say it's obvious you weren't looking for work then. It must have been one of those "jobless recoveries" the rich talk about, but they're not America, we, the 99% are. We whose labor enriches them.
The Bush administration was a dumpster fire. First he ignored Clinton's and the FBI's warnings about the Arab terrorist threat (the WTC was bombed during his administration but the truck bomb didn't take it down) and we were attacked. Then he cherry picked from intelligence reports enough so he could invade the guy who tried to kill his dad. Eisenhower started NASA, Bush started the TSA. All along, the Oil Man President and vice president conspired with his fellow oil barons around the world to jack up oil prices to the point of taking gasoline from $1.05 to over $5.00 here in Springfield, which is why I think the economic meltdown happened. Pay to get gas to get to work or pay the mortgage? He was listed by historians as the twelfth worst president for good reason.
Obama inherited the biggest deficit in history and the worst economy since the Great Depression thanks to President DumpsterFire and brought it back. When Obama left office the economy was the best this century after 911, and he decreased the deficit and like Clinton, had a balanced budget. Growth slowed slightly under Trunp, who was a nuclear dump fire, not a simple dumpster fire. Since 1-6 historians rate him the second worst. He was certainly the worst in my lifetime, and I was born the year Eisenhower was elected.
But the growth came as a result of stagnant wages, starting with Reagan. The rich folk's economy grew, the 90%'s economies shrunk horribly. Before I joined the service in 1971, few women I knew had jobs. They didn't need them, one paycheck was enough to raise a family. There weren't any homeless shelters or food pantries; they weren't needed. There was AFDC and Section eight and Food Stamps. After the Capital Gains Tax cuts that unleashed an orgy of greed and hostile corporate takeovers, everybody had to work because congress refused to raise the federal minimum wage; in 1965 it would buy ten McDonald's Burgers, today it buys two.
Public goods like roads and national security have been amply paid for by them.
National security, yes, in fact overpaid, despite Eisenhower's warnings. But roads? They didn't have potholes back then, and there were far fewer vehicles traveling. Some states have kept up, but not the feds. The Federal government has ignored the nation's infrastructure since Carter. Remember, I lived through this history.
A lot of what's missed in this discussion is that the US government system has been in growing dysfunction since the end of the Second World War (Eisenhower himself warned of two such dangers: the military-industrial complex and the public-academic complex).
He warned of the future, not his present. I'd like to read about him speaking of the "public-academic complex", that's a new one to me. Have a link?
Keep in mind that most of the problems listed in that book were due to the deliberate breaking of capitalism, often by said progressives.
Not according to my Grandmother, born in 1903 and a lifelong Republican, or the book I mentioned [mcgrewbooks.com] that was required reading in my college history class in 1977.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 05, @05:14AM
Indeed. [yale.edu]
[...]
That very "military industrial complex" warning which he is famous for is immediately followed by:
He didn't give it a catchy name which is why I believe this danger didn't get the attention of the military-industrial complex. But seriously, he talks about it in the very next breath. And I think we have plenty of evidence that this is a real danger FWIW, such as fusion that is constant time away despite more than half a century of massive public funding or the growing incident of irreproducibility and even fraud in scientific research (particularly, of the publicly funded or regulation-oriented sort).
Is a "economy in the toilet" weak or not? And sorry, but I lived through Carter and Reagan too. Things were definitely better in the 1980s: more employment, lower inflation, and profound technology development. I take it you also forgot about the Japanese menace that was going to overwhelm the US (leading to a variety of US art and music of the time bemoaning the coming takeover). Both the US and Japan endured serious recessions around 1990. But the US emerged from it stronger while Japan just finished the third decade of its "lost decade".
I blame the US high tech industry not Reagan for that.
I had work at the time though I was just starting. Wasn't a problem for me.
Health care costs started to shoot up in the 1970s and they haven't slowed since. If you look at total compensation [heritage.org], not just wages, it keeps up pretty well with worker productivity with a slight drop in the 2000s (I don't know about the 2010s which aren't covered by the graph). Thus, the obvious - US wages weren't keeping up precisely because of that enormous health care inflation - nothing else!
As to the merger environment, I recall some 1960s whining about conglomerates which are what these huge merged businesses were called back then. We've long had phases of merging and fragmentation.
And finally, I don't support a minimum wage for two important reasons. First, anyone willing to work that cheap isn't going to be better served by becoming unemployed instead. Second, there is huge overhead in regulating minimum wage that goes away when we let the market, which is good at this, regulate minimum wage instead. Contrary to feels, businesses no more can force you to work for nothing any more than I can force you merely with the intensity of my desire to give me a lollipop.
And? I would expect less pothole creation with that lower vehicle traffic.
The book you mentioned that time in turn only mentions "progressive" in one sense, the phrase "progressive education". It definitely wasn't capitalist in that use. It is not the same book you mentioned [goodreads.com] earlier in the thread.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 03, @03:00AM
Wages and benefits tracked labor productivity [heritage.org] quite well (the actual slight decline in wages and benefits versus productivity occurs after 9/11!). I agree that wages have been relatively stagnant over that time, but that's due explicitly to business-paid health insurance. Sure, it's inflation, but it's inflation due to health care inflation in the US not the gold standard or a generic corporate greed (as claimed by mhajicek).
(Score: 5, Insightful) by mcgrew on Monday January 02, @02:50PM (22 children)
I thought you were talking about the guy who invented the AC motor.
A billionaire breaking labor laws? REALLY??
Like any fine he would have to pay isn't like you buying a beer, and won't be more than made up by stolen labor. Yes, paying less than ten times the price of a McDonald's hamburger (that's 24.90, in 1965 the minimum wage would buy ten McBurgers and 40 hours of that wage bought food, rent, clothing, and maybe a beer or two. One full time paycheck raised a family). An employer, like the evil Musk or the equally evil Bezos, who tries to hire foolish working people who are dumb enough to be against unions is stealing labor. Just because the victim doesn't realize he's being stolen from doesn't mean the thief isn't stealing.
It should be illegal to pay a full time worker so little that he or she is eligible for food assistance!
The rich scream "I don't want to hear about class warfare!"despite waging it against the 99% since Reagan.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 3, Insightful) by inertnet on Monday January 02, @03:46PM (6 children)
Long ago one salary was enough to raise a family. Now for most families both parents need full time jobs. Children are raised in groups by strangers. Where toddlers who scream the loudest get the attention they need, and the rest is largely ignored. I don't want to sound too negative, but that impacts the rest of their lives and it shows.
Progress has brought a lot of good things, but it also has its dark sides. We can't turn it around anyway, but ultimately one of the root causes for the poor mental health of many people is low wages.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday January 02, @06:16PM
Progress didn't bring us tiny paychecks and children raised by strangers, selfish, super-greedy rich people did.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ChrisMaple on Monday January 02, @08:38PM (4 children)
Long ago nearly everybody lived on farms. Farmers worked from shortly after the time they were able to walk until they died.
With the industrial revolution, factory work made possible wages higher than the effective wages of farming.
The ability of one person's work to support a family applies to a portion of people limited in location, historical time, and financial health in relation to the rest of society.
Many modern households have more than one worker because a second income allows the purchase of luxuries like a larger house, better clothes, better food, etc.. Not essentials, not "both parents need full time jobs." The word "need" should always include context (need in order to do what?), otherwise the proper assumption is "need in order to stay alive." In modern times in the United States, few families need two workers in order to stay alive.
(Score: 2) by pdfernhout on Tuesday January 03, @12:57AM (3 children)
You make interesting points about change over time.
If you go back a little further to hunter/gatherers, people had more leisure:
https://web.archive.org/web/20200222051122/http://www.eco-action.org/dt/affluent.html [archive.org]
"Hunter-gatherers consume less energy per capita per year than any other group of human beings. Yet when you come to examine it the original affluent society was none other than the hunter's - in which all the people's material wants were easily satisfied. To accept that hunters are affluent is therefore to recognise that the present human condition of man slaving to bridge the gap between his unlimited wants and his insufficient means is a tragedy of modern times. ...
A good case can be made that hunters and gatherers work less than we do; and, rather than a continuous travail, the food quest is intermittent, leisure abundant, and there is a greater amount of sleep in the daytime per capita per year than in any other condition of society. ...
Above all, what about the world today? [Written in ~1966] One-third to one-half of humanity are said to go to bed hungry every night. In the Old Stone Age the fraction must have been much smaller. This is the era of hunger unprecedented. Now, in the time of the greatest technical power, is starvation an institution. Reverse another venerable formula: the amount of hunger increases relatively and absolutely with the evolution of culture. This paradox is my whole point. Hunters and gatherers have by force of circumstances an objectively low standard of living. But taken as their objective, and given their adequate means of production, all the people's material wants usually can be easily satisfied.
The world's most primitive people have few possessions, but they are not poor. Poverty is not a certain small amount of goods, nor is it just a relation between means and ends; above all it is a relation between people. Poverty is a social status. As such it is the invention of civilisation. It has grown with civilisation, at once as an invidious distinction between classes and more importantly as a tributary relation that can render agrarian peasants more susceptible to natural catastrophes than any winter camp of Alaskan Eskimo."
And see also the results of a financial arms race including a bidding war on homes in top-rated school districts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two-Income_Trap [wikipedia.org]
"The authors present quantitative data to demonstrate how American middle-class families have been left in a precarious financial position by increases in fixed living expenses, increased medical expenses, escalating real estate prices, lower employment security, and the relaxation of credit regulation. The result has been a reshaping of the American labor force, such that many families now rely on having two incomes in order to meet their expenses. This situation represents a greater level of financial risk than that faced by single-income households: the inability of either adult to work, even temporarily, may result in loss of employment, and concomitant loss of medical coverage and the ability to pay bills. This may lead to bankruptcy or being forced to move somewhere less expensive, with associated decreases in educational quality and economic opportunity.
Among the expenses driving the two-income trap are child care, housing in areas with good schools, and college tuition. Warren and Tyagi conclude that having children is the "single best predictor" that a woman will go bankrupt.
Warren and Tyagi call stay-at-home mothers of past generations "the most important part of the safety net", as the non-working mother could step in to earn extra income or care for sick family members when needed. However, Warren and Tyagi dismiss the idea of return to stay-at-home parents, and instead propose policies to offset the loss of this form of insurance.
Warren and Tyagi attempt to overturn the "overconsumption myth" that Americans' financial instabilities are the result of frivolous spending– they note, for instance, that families are spending less on clothing, food (including meals out), and large appliances, when adjusted for inflation, than a generation prior. They also note that dual-income households have less discretionary money than single-income households a generation prior."
The biggest challenge of the 21st century: the irony of technologies of abundance used by scarcity-minded people.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Tuesday January 03, @03:13AM (2 children)
They produce far less energy per capita too. They need to have that leisure time, in the sense of "need in order to stay alive", because they otherwise would sooner or later run into a few marginal years where food wasn't as plentiful and die off.
This is the reason why. Artificial restrictions on both homes and good school districts. While there's some corporate influence via developers, the key impetus comes from home owners who want to increase their net worth by restricting supply.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04, @01:08AM (1 child)
> the key impetus comes from home owners who want to increase their net worth by restricting supply.
???
I'm a home owner, what have I done to increase my net worth? Between taxes and maintenance my suburban house in western NY state hasn't been much more profitable than bank CD rates, over the 15 years I've owned it. I do get to live in it, that's the benefit. And, how have I restricted supply?
Sometimes your comments make sense, but this seems like complete bs to me.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 04, @04:53AM
Restrict supply of low income housing.
In other words, you bought during a housing bubble and now are comparing it to covid-era prices. It would have been very different, if you had bought 30 years ago and compared to 15 years ago. That was the end stretch of a huge run up in house prices.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday January 03, @03:19AM (14 children)
Voluntarily giving something is a strong indication that it's not stealing.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday January 04, @08:18PM (13 children)
So you're okay with defrauding people? They willingly give fortunes to fraudsters daily, you're saying it's okay to fleece a fool, to take advantage of the thinking-disabled?
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 04, @10:06PM (12 children)
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday January 06, @08:23PM (11 children)
Why is refusing to work for US labor unions with their well-known problems somehow fraud?
Oh my, the faux ignorance, where do I start? First, a union member doesn't work for the union, the union works for the union member, who pays the union to negotiate pay, benefits, and working conditions with the rich corporation. The rich and their dim witted syncopates speak of "union bosses". The phrase is bullshit. The union itself is a democratic institution; members vote in their representatives, and vote to accept or reject company offers, to picket, or to strike.
There are no "well known problems" with unions for a worker. They're only a problem to the employer who wants to fuck over the employees. Now, there is corruption in some unions; I was in the Teamsters when I worked for Disney, and those assholes were in bed with management and my idiot co-workers were too stupid to vote the union officers out (we were still underpaid less than other theme parks, with better benefits). AFSCME, on the other hand, is a good one. They kept my employer from cheating me out of a day's pay once.
The fraud is the lies about unions that corporations use to keep unions out, making bigger profits for themselves. When you lie for money, you're a fraudster.
police unions are the strongest supporters for police brutality and the various legal gimmicks like police immunity that allow wrong-doers to stay in the force
That's because like the IBEW supports electrical workers, and my young friend's union supports construction workers, police unions support the police officers! What's more, government employee unions like that are the only unions that you have any say in unless you're a union member or corporate shareholder, because you ARE a shareholder! If your cops are dirty, don't be stupid enough to say "oh, well" and throw up your hands, vote the damned mayor and city council out and vote in some honest people.
This ain't rocket science. The people like you who don't understand it, don't because they don't want to, not because they can't.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday January 06, @11:36PM (10 children)
Not my experience, but I grant there might be different natures of labor unions even in the US.
And as it turns out, police brutality.
And fire some cops too - over the union's protests.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday January 07, @02:36PM (9 children)
Not my experience
I find it hard to believe that you've had any experience with any union at all, except perhaps negotiating with them in the service of the corporation. If you were a union member, what union? What local? AFAIK few in workers in STEAM are unionized. Sorry, but my bullshit detector is screaming loudly.
And fire some cops too - over the union's protests.
Keep voting in authoritarians and you'll keep the police brutality. A contract is a contract. If the contract is up, fire the entire force. It's been done before. [mcgrewbooks.com] They were striking for better pay, when they were earning a higher wage than the median income two decades later. This ain't North Korea, we elect our various governments. If your city has a lot of police brutality, it's because you voted in a city government that allows it. All union contracts are negotiated.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday January 07, @11:07PM (5 children)
UAW 2865. [uaw2865.org] Got to pay them 1% of my graduate student salary (at UC Davis), even though I wasn't a member, for doing nothing.
And of course, there's that police brutality thing that I keep mentioning and the commonplace presence of the mob. And those stories about the incredible dysfunctional workplace of a union shop and how it holds back anyone who wants to do anything or get ahead in life.
Finally, there's decades of experience with shitty union products like cars. I stopped buying US cars in the early 80s and have yet to regret it though the quality gap has narrowed some since the worst.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday January 08, @02:07AM (4 children)
Got to pay them 1% of my graduate student salary (at UC Davis), even though I wasn't a member, for doing nothing.
Auto workers are well paid BECAUSE OF the union! That 1% taken out was to save the 20% or more the company would have fucked you out of had there been no union.
And again, "And of course, there's that police brutality thing" that I already slapped you upside your thick head with, to no avail.
commonplace presence of the mob
Yes, some unions are corrupt. Most corporations are, as well. Wherever there is a group of people, many will be dishonest. That's why we have laws, cops, judges, and prisons. Sorry, but that's such a stupid argument it's past brain dead.
Finally, there's decades of experience with shitty union products like cars. I stopped buying US cars in the early 80s
Neither the unions nor the workers they represent have anything to do with the quality of the product; that's the greed and stinginess of the rich owners. An example, (sorry this is second hand) is a guy I worked with at Disney who had been employed by GE as a quality control inspector. He told me they fired him for letting bulbs that would last too long through. The shitty products are from the cocaine-soaked owners, not the union. I feel sorry for anyone too learning-disabled to understand such a simple concept. The union is not the boss, the owner is.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 08, @06:15AM (3 children)
I quite agree. I also agree with the observation that most people aren't dependent on auto workers for their livelihood - particularly after half a century of decline in the US auto industry. As I see it, they're well paid at the expense of a lot of suckers buying their cars.
Except, of course, I wouldn't have bothered to be a graduate assistant at UC Davis if there really was any such going on. I get how the graduate school racket works and I knew what I got into. No union made it any easier or better for me.
Finally, I'll note that the union really was for the "A" in STEAM (Arts, that is)
Happens to be right too. Lot of organized crime in labor unions.
They made the cars right? That makes them vastly more responsible than I was for all those authoritarians I supposedly elected. You know, if we were to actually consider a genuine brain dead argument.
GE is a union shop, right? There's a pattern here.
And the owner does everything and makes everything, right? Look US labor unions in such a situation are just more pigs at the trough. They have no more interest in making good products or happy customers than anyone else. A lot of companies probably have been producing shit product for an entire life time. And well, I noticed that.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 08, @06:41AM
What I meant by that was that there was a well-known value ranking of degrees by PhD. First, all PhDs have more value, if you're planning to stay in academia. Past that, engineering and technology on top, followed by the sciences and mathematics (applied over pure), with arts trailing badly. What that meant is that if you were getting a PhD in art related field, it pretty much was either for a future academic career or self-betterment, there was no plan C unless you think you can use it to get better tips when you're driving taxis (yes, I saw someone successfully work that angle way back when). And all the fields had the huge problem that there were way more PhDs produced than professors hired. So your typical arts graduate student is poorly funded and overworked. And when they get out, they have about 50% of getting anything in a college system (like a basic lecturer), with very low chance of getting a tenure track position unless they happen to be very hot stuff and a college with an open position happens to like that flavor. Unions made much more sense for them because by the nature of the system, they had to be ruthlessly exploited and lied to throughout the pipeline. It was insane.
But in my case, there was decent money for various assistantships and scholarships, and I went in with decent financial resources and expectations. Didn't need a labor union.
I'll note also we have the usual dysfunctional dynamic I mentioned before. They weren't interested in changing this horrid pipeline, merely in getting a piece. I guess I still see that as a typical California failing. Do their best to pretend that they're a bunch of moochers trapped in an Ayn Rand novel.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday January 08, @09:49PM (1 child)
they're well paid at the expense of a lot of suckers buying their cars.
What insipid nonsense, I can't decide if you're insulting my intelligence or are actually stupid enough to not realize that the cost comes from profits. They're going to price their goods at what the market will bear regardless of labor or any other overhead.
They made the cars right?
They did what they were told to do by management. Did you not see my post about light bulbs? Stop trolling. It just makes you look stupid.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 08, @10:21PM
Costs come from costs. And profit and cost are relative. Everyone has different profits and costs than anyone else. And the additional benefits that union workers have come from somewhere - the customer. So do the costs of their actions - like building lousy cars.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday January 07, @11:11PM (2 children)
You know who has a bunch of voters? Police unions. Yet another case where a focused special interest can beat a diffuse general interest.
The end of Poland in the Second World War was negotiated [wikipedia.org] too. At some point you have to realize that there's more to good faith contracts and agreements than the mere presence of negotiation.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday January 08, @02:16AM (1 child)
You know who has a bunch of voters? Police unions
There a thousand civilian voters in Chicago for every 43.9 cops. How's your grip on statistics?
At some point you have to realize that there's more to good faith contracts and agreements than the mere presence of negotiation
Good faith contracts? With proven thieves like inhabit most board rooms? None has ever existed. You might as well ask Zelinskyy to have a good faith contract with Putin about war reparations.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 08, @06:20AM
Pretty good. For example, I see that you just acknowledged that there's a unified voting block of more than 4% of voters in Chicago. Given that Chicago has more unions than just the police one, that goes a long way to explaining the power of the Chicago political machine. There's a lot of made people in Chicago and they get something in return.