Judge rules that Tesla, and Musk, broke labor laws

Bubbajim

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Recap: Electric-car maker Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk broke U.S. labor laws by trying to repress attempts to organize a union, according to a judgment released on Friday. Judge Amita Baman Tracy has set out numerous actions the company must take to remedy the situation – though Tesla will almost certainly appeal the decision.

Two of the main pillars of the National Labor Relations Act protect employees from companies who aim to interfere with unionization efforts or coerce employees away from exercising their federally-backed rights. According to Californian judge Amita Baman Tracy, Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk contravened these laws in 2017 and 2018.

Judge Tracy found that the company illegally threatened and retaliated against employees who sought unionization, and that a tweet by Musk further sought to coerce workers away from similar efforts.

As a company, Tesla had attempted to deter pro-union activities by instigating policies against off-duty employees being able to distribute leaflets, as well as interrogating people about union activities. Musk’s tweet in May 2018 said that staff who opted to join a union would “give up stock options for nothing,” and that the presence of United Auto Workers (UAW) members had an adverse effect on safety.

Judge Tracy’s ruling stipulates that Tesla must offer reinstatement and back-pay to an employee who was allegedly fired for being pro-union, as well as quashing a warning that was issued to another pro-union employee who was not fired.

Further, the judgment calls for a meeting at the Fremont, CA, factory, where Musk must read aloud a notice to employees informing them about the company’s breaches of the law.

None of this is likely to happen any time soon though. As Judge Tracy herself said during the hearings, “this will be appealed no matter what I decide.” Judging by Tesla’s refusal to comment thus far, it seems she may be proven right.

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The thing that bothers me most about American car industries vs. Japanese/ Korean/ German/ etc...

is that all of those countries have healthcare, and typically are "homogeneous" to the point where they have a shared sense of purpose - while in America the lack of healthcare (a huge cost to employers) tends to undermine our companies competitiveness and has created an economy filled with underemployed workers who not only need to work multiple jobs to get by, but are walking sick.

For the most part, these labor strikes aren't due to low pay. Most of them are due to lack of healthcare amid rising health maintenance costs.

How can an American company compete with these socialized companies?

Even Chrysler products - mostly made in Canada benefit from Canadians having nationalized healthcare - allowing them to put out $70,000 cars with over 710 HP.

Tesla's interiors are trash.

But how much better would they be - and how many fewer layoffs would Tesla have if healthcare wasn't something they needed to worry about?
 
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The thing that bothers me most about American car industries vs. Japanese/ Korean/ German/ etc...

is that all of those countries have healthcare, and typically are "heterogeneous" to the point where they have a shared sense of purpose - while in America the lack of healthcare (a huge cost to employers) tends to undermine our companies competitiveness and has created an economy filled with underemployed workers who not only need to work multiple jobs to get by, but are walking sick.

For the most part, these labor strikes aren't due to low pay. Most of them are due to lack of healthcare amid rising health maintenance costs.

How can an American company compete with these socialized companies?

Even Chrysler products - mostly made in Canada benefit from Canadians having nationalized healthcare - allowing them to put out $70,000 cars with over 710 HP.

Tesla's interiors are trash.

But how much better would they be - and how many fewer layoffs would Tesla have if healthcare wasn't something they needed to worry about?

While sounding simple, it is not .... American industry could lead the way by backing health care reform back to an earlier time when health care was not an impossible situation:
1. Hospitals go back to non-profit.
2. Elliminate Health Care conglomerates.
3. Manditory publishing of costs of care by hospitals, doctors. and pharmacists (not previously done)
4. Manditory publishing of doctor stats (patients lost, died, law suits against & public evaluations)
5. NO in market, out of market price differences.
6. NO hidden charges and specific information on what procedures & drugs were performed, by whom,
and when.

These four things would pull medical costs down by making all competitive; something that does not exist today.
 
Musk’s “threat” that unionized employees would lose stock options is due solely to the way UAW works. They wouldn’t allow their members to be given stock options by their employer because it would be a conflict of interest in their eyes. The union sees the company as an obstacle to employees‘ interests, while owning stock means the employee will also care about the company’s success.

With that in mind, the tweet definitely isn’t coercion because any action to remove stock options would be done by UAW. Instead this is normal dissuasion.
 
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Oh, okay, but squashing unions in other industries is totally fine. Tesla is the jagoff, though.

I'm not saying Tesla is right for doing this but let's atleast hold other industries to the same standard.
 
4. Manditory publishing of doctor stats (patients lost, died, law suits against & public evaluations)

Not nitpicking you, just this idea, which seems good but has negative consequences.

If you publish doctor stats like this, docs will be incentivized only to take the easy cases to pump up their stats and anything remotely difficult will just be passed. This will leave otherwise treatable patients to suffer and die earlier because it's "too risky". Difficult cases will go underground or to other nations where your odds of a positive outcome are likely lower than they are today.
 
4. Manditory publishing of doctor stats (patients lost, died, law suits against & public evaluations)

Not nitpicking you, just this idea, which seems good but has negative consequences.

If you publish doctor stats like this, docs will be incentivized only to take the easy cases to pump up their stats and anything remotely difficult will just be passed. This will leave otherwise treatable patients to suffer and die earlier because it's "too risky". Difficult cases will go underground or to other nations where your odds of a positive outcome are likely lower than they are today.
I view this as symptomatic of the underlying problem - the world's economic systems. IMO, they are all F'd and something new needs to be found. I don't have any answers and I do not expect a change like this to happen any time soon - if at all.
 
How can an American company compete with these socialized companies?
Replace the whole labour force with robots. Make sure the robots are never granted sentient status and demand representation.
But then, what to do with a huge segment of the population that are no longer contributing? I'd suggest forcefully deporting all non-Americans, leaving only the native American tribes who can reclaim the vast prairies for their horses and livestock.
But then, what to do when the robots break down? The corporations will probably have contracted that out to the cheapest suppliers which would probably be Chinese companies that can log in remotely.

Alternatives?
Fix your broken economy and broken society. Make healthcare affordable again, like it is in almost all other modern societies. Reduce homelessness which is becoming rampant in US cities. Reduce opiate addiction. Create an economy where most people can survive and thrive on a single job. Reduce the stranglehold that corporations and select industries (pharma, oil) have on your country. Reign in the *****ic litigation cases and huge payouts that are the example to all other nations of how not to run a legal system.
Just some thoughts. Not very nice thoughts. Certainly thoughts with no easy solutions. But necessary if you want America to be a strong nation that looks after its citizens and can face up to and compete with external threats. Or, you know, just continue to bully everyone (including your own citizens) into submission and see how far that takes your economy.
America used to be the ideal that all us other nations looked up to. Now? Not so much. Now it's more like Norway and Germany.
 
While sounding simple, it is not .... American industry could lead the way by backing health care reform back to an earlier time when health care was not an impossible situation:
1. Hospitals go back to non-profit.
2. Elliminate Health Care conglomerates.
3. Manditory publishing of costs of care by hospitals, doctors. and pharmacists (not previously done)
4. Manditory publishing of doctor stats (patients lost, died, law suits against & public evaluations)
5. NO in market, out of market price differences.
6. NO hidden charges and specific information on what procedures & drugs were performed, by whom,
and when.

These four things would pull medical costs down by making all competitive; something that does not exist today.

#3 would be a huge improvement to allowing the free market to improve costs. Multiple times my wife and I have tried to shop healthcare services to get the best deal but were not able to get pricing to make the comparisons.
 
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