Tesla fires gigafactory staff after someone made the mistake of mentioning unions Tesla has reportedly fired employees at its Buffalo, NY, gigafactory just a day after workers announced plans to unionize. In a complaint filed with America's National Labor Relations Board and viewed by The Register, representatives from the Rochester regional Workers United joint board named 18 employees they say were …
Its not "Tesla", its "any US corporation". They spend big on fighting unions, there are consultancies that will organize anti-union efforts and so on. The mistake appears to be to assume that because Tesla is a technology company that its somehow works by different workplace rules.
Unions have published guides to organizing workplaces. Lesson One is "Do Not Try To Organize At The Workplace On Work Time". Lesson Two is "Do Not Use Workplace Facilities like Email".
Incidentally, after the 1980s I thought that unions were effectively illegal in the UK. Sure, they exist, but any attempt at effective union organization will get attacked big time. (Am I just old for remembering what happened back then? Or has everyone just forgotten? Done terms like "Srophshire" and "Builders" mean anything?)
I'm surprised that you have written this in the context of the current industrial relations disgruntlement. Here in the UK we are facing a massive wave of strikes - rail, nurses, teachers, mail, etc. and these are all organised by unions. Unions are clearly not illegal, clearly still have teeth, and are clearly not shy or wrecking businesses to get their way.
You are free to strike so long as you balloted the members properly - in ancient Greek by hidden scroll buried in a pyramid not less than 3000 years before the beginning of the action.
The strike doesn't reduce the service below statutory minimum levels - defined as 110% of the normal operating level
And doesn't cause any financial damage to anyone in the company, its customers, its customers tennis partners, its customers tennis partner's friends, etc
"Incidentally, after the 1980s I thought that unions were effectively illegal in the UK."
No, Unions had their wings clipped to stop them destroying the economy.
What was learned from the Miners strikes in the UK was that if a Union gets too powerful, it demands more and more until the business collapses, which can have a cascade effect on dependent industries. If the Business management is too powerful, they run rough shod over the workforce, reducing productivity and worker cooperation with equally disastrous effects. What is needed is that delicate medium when unions and employers keep each other in check and the work force is able to flourish as the business grows. While that balance remains, you don't hear much about the Unions because they don't have anything to shout about. Rather, they do their business of looking after employee rights, and are fair to the employers should there be a problem and downsizing is needed or there's a troublesome employee.
But a Union that's hostile to the management just causes trouble. This I learned from a former millionaire. He never had much money, and lived modestly: He and his partners drew the same salary as a manager in the company and reinvested profits into the business. This grew the business and hence its value until it was worth millions, hence the owners being millionaires. However, they invested in the people and in the machinery and were working to make the business safer as tech advanced. Then came the strikes and the union wanted the workers to be paid more, more holiday, better benefits, and better facilities. Forget that most of this was already planned and being worked on (new workshop with new machinery being in progress so workers would move in there while the old area was refurbished, for example, and the company paid a decent wage to its workers already) - the Unions called a strike to get what they wanted, and everyone walked out.
Now, the Managers and owners all stopped drawing pay, the owners put their own money into the business to keep it going despite it not producing anything, covering costs and debts and they tried to talk to the Unions, who simply kept adding to their demands, not negotiating on when things would be delivered. End result: An ultimatum. Either the workers returned for ONE WEEK to clear the backlog of orders, or the company would close. The union leaders were delighted! They REFUSED! Next day, the company was shut, and receivers were in, sorting out debts. Employees got nothing.
The Union reps and employees were furious and went to the owners houses to find them moving out as they'd mortgaged their homes to pay workers wages while they were on strike. The owners were bankrupted by the Unions, and every single worker was out of a job WITHOUT redundancy pay. Worse, there were precious few jobs out there due to the various strikes that were happening. Worse still, employers were not about to hire people who had been on strike: Way too risky. So those workers had to find low paid jobs where they would be easy to replace if they made demands and caused trouble.
That former millionaire was only so because of the value of the company he part owned. He didn't have millions to spend on things: It was all invested in the business. He built his wealth back up slowly, and never trusted others after that: He'd been stung once that way and it cost him his marriage. He worked in a paper shop, got promoted to manager, and raised enough money to establish his own shop. He ran it, with his son, and that's how I met him. He was a nice guy, too: Friendly, helpful, but he would not longer give you the shirt from his back because he wanted to keep his trousers, thanks... (and if you don't understand that one: he'd learned that some people, when given help, only go on to demand more). Was some time before I learned of his past, and then only because he'd had a stroke and I'd asked him why he didn't hire someone to look after the shop for a bit. He wouldn't because he'd lost trust in people. After learning about his past, I could understand why.
It's a fine balance, and it's one easily disrupted by greed.
"No, Unions had their wings clipped to stop them destroying the economy."
BS. It's because they want their share of the profits. Can't have any of that, can we? "Economy" is *always* same thing as "Profits". Why you bother to lie about that?
So lower salaries for workers and billions in profits to company. Only blatantly greedy people would see that as Right(TM).
"But a Union that's hostile to the management just causes trouble."
No, you've roles reversed: Managers make the rules and they hate Unions as Unions limit their infinite greed by wanting a very small share of the profits.
Top management, less than 100 people, typically cause >10% of *all* personnel cost in a corporation employing tens of thousands of people.
>There are enough poor people worldwide in a need of a job for him not to worry about this.
But are there enough rich people in the USA who are eco warrior enough to want a Tesla but also hate unions ?
A Tesla is a flash bastard asparational purchase, not sure who buys it if it comes with a MAGA hat
"...not sure who buys it if it comes with a MAGA hat"
You underestimate the power of denial. Eco warriors like to have flash brands on their not particularly special overpriced cars too, and they'll just make up some excuse and drive off in happy smugness anyway. It's powerful!
But I suppose there are options now: if Tesla can't do better you might as well just get that hybrid Porsche minivan (which you can pretend is an SUV) that can tell yourself you've also always wanted instead.
Denial can be used in so many different situations. I'm pretending someone is reading this and thinks it's interesting right now! ;) Happy friday!
I know two people who have a Tesla, one of them has already when she's in the market for a new car Tesla will be off the list. Though I think half of that was due to all the build quality defects it took a couple months to resolve after taking delivery, but Musk turning into a Trumper definitely didn't help the case with her. There are more and more alternatives for EVs every year, and within a few years every major automaker will have them.
There's no first mover advantage and no network effect with cars, it is nothing like tech products. Every time you buy a car there is no benefit to buying the same brand you had before, no cost for switching to a different brand.
>There's no first mover advantage and no network effect with cars
There was with Tesla originally, at least here in the former colonies. It was the first EV that wasn't a huge compromise (looking at you BMW i3) , then the model 3 was "affordable" and you had the fast charger network.
Now that you can buy an EV version of every car and there are DC fast chargers, although still not as good as the Tesla network if you are driving cross country.
I wonder if Tesla can force a buyer lock-in? The drawback of not having a dealer network. You could allow owners to transfer "licensed" features, like self driving to new models. IIRC there was a case where some add-on feature was blocked on a car that was sold 2nd hand, can't remember what the court ruling was.
Transferring licensed features to your new car is only valuable if you CAN'T transfer them to whoever you sell your car to. I doubt they would have a lot of takers for $10K+ options that are not transferable to a second owner, especially when Tesla has already introduce 'autonomous' features twice first with autopilot and then with "full self driving".
Since they still are nowhere near autonomous there may be more iterations. How much value does "full self driving" have as a feature in the future if in order to realize that goal you have to get "complete for real this time we mean it autonomous driving" and "full self driving" remains stuck at Level 2? Or they say you need to get an "upgrade" to that package to use new sensors in your newer car, so fork over another $15K or your existing licensed feature will not work in your new car?
You start off very cold. Then you can watch the false hope as it gets comfortable, and then the slow realisation as it gets hotter and hotter. You could even take a leaf out of David Blaine's book and do it all in a transparent tank suspended over a bury city street. Find the right politician in need of the circuses part of "bread and circuses" and you probably could get your wish.
What was their civilisation? Vast, I allow: but vile. Cloacae: sewers. The Jews in the wilderness and on the mountaintop said: It is meet to be here. Let us build an altar to Jehovah. The Roman, like the Englishman who follows in his footsteps, brought to every new shore on which he set his foot (on our shore he never set it) only his cloacal obsession. He gazed about him in his toga and he said: It is meet to be here. Let us construct a watercloset.
In Germany unions are crucial to keeping productivity high and thus companies competitive. Enlightened self-interest suggests that it's better to get people to agree to necessary changes than simply to impose them and 150 years evidence suggest there might be something to this.
The US labour market is, however, different with public sector unions, especially teachers, notorious for downing tools over non-work related issues.
"being humans" didn't help Nazis in Nürenberg much. Or "just obeying orders" ... which, BTW, Police *will* do.
So it's irrelevant what they are outside uniform: They still do what they are told when in uniform. Or what they like to do and obviously murdering wrong coloured people is one of the hobbies Police likes to have.
And "punishment" for that? 2 weeks paid holiday.
Here in North Police exists to provide revenue to the state, about 220M euros per year from 5M people. Being a Police is *good business*.
Actually if the union is properly managed and contracts properly drafted, it can be an overall 'win' to allow the unions into a shop.
As long as there are 'right to work' provisions, and no mandatory union dues for political purposes, at any rate...
SO if I built a factory I would check with local unions in the desired locations and have them tell me what the labor will cosl and do some research on them on top of it. This way you get a fair cost estimate and the employees are already IN the union. Then you work with the union to hire/fire and do the HR, with contracts that do not limit your ability to automate or or 'adjust staffing'' or hire contractors when needed. Then you make sure the union gets a chunk of stock so that when the company does well, so does the union. Then you build your factory with a known cost and focus on process efficiency and that sort of thing, knowing the costs, knowing the likely productivity, and then adjusting the business around it.
If you are non-union it helps to pay union scale, also. And if employees "feel intimidated" about the continuous monitoring, perhaps they become more productive with INCENTIVES!
Problem #1 (Disincentives): Pervasive monitoring and "meet your (ever-increasing) quota or you're sacked!"-mentality executives just cause emplyee resentment, "working to rule", and encouragement to fuck with or screw over the company in whatever creative ways the workers can think of.
Problem #2 (Incentives): If you give rewards to employees exceeding production quotas, they will do so at the expense of everything else: "you get what you measure." If you give rewards based on company performance (be careful how you measure that), it doesn't work if a worker's extra (cash|stock) depends on decisions made in the boardroom, since the worker has no control or significant influence over them.
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Well that's one plan that will be going forward now. Well done on quelling dissent, Tesla.
Major success.
What is it with companies in the USA these days ? It seems they are all pining for the Pinkerton days of yore.
"informing them of a new policy prohibiting the recording of workplace meetings without all participants' consent"
This coming from a company that's monitoring every keystroke of its employees?
Also, I'm guessing that if it's your superior doing the recording then consent is mandatory.
I am trying to figure out why this is an issue. Everyone is on the clock, and it is a company related meeting (it is a workplace meeting). The company can decide what policy they want for recording meetings, and the employees who receive a paycheck need to comply with that.
It is safe to assume Tesla has a lot of intellectual property & confidential information to protect. Why would they blindly permit any recording without full consent from all parties involved?
The policy is set up so they can have someone say something like "If you do anything like that you will be fired immediately and we have the ability to alter your performance history to indicate misconduct then have lawyers pursue you for it", or likely a less intense version of the above threat. Employee-hostile companies have perfected the art of threatening people without making it too obvious that's what they're doing. Nobody can get evidence of that statement, so in the NLRB meeting they can say that the reporting employee (fired by now, of course) was just making it up. It wouldn't stop me from recording anyway if I thought such a statement would be made, but if they announce a policy like this, people may think it's legally binding.
"The company can decide what policy they want for recording meetings, and the employees who receive a paycheck need to comply with that."
That's what you believe. At least here (EU) I have a right to record everything I discuss with HR or with my managers and they have no say on that: It's all about worker's rights, you know?
In some countries workers *have* rights. Not much, but some at least.
Remember when he wanted to set up a hard core (X-rated?) litigation department made up of streetfighter lawyers and apparently offered to pay them in blood. He must have expected Tesla would become a litigation company.
"Those forming the group consisted of Autopilot data labelers working on the company's driving assist software."
"Musk has previously stated he wanted to automate the data labeling process so that humans only had to confirm outputs - a good way to reduce some of the salary budget"
Given the current capabilities of the Tesla software this might not be the best way to go.
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here is a bunch of commentators who are extremely smart, been at the sharp end of business for god knows how long and have observed what works in the workforce and what doesn't
They are also bitter and resentful because they cannot be promoted beyond a technical grade because of the amount of knowledge and skill they bring to bear on solving their employer's problems.(remember kids.. if you cant be replaced , you'll never be promoted)
And what works with employess is that you treat them with respect and a degree of freedom(within limits), and suddenly the production problems seem to melt away because they'll help you out if you help them out.
The public sector is different because theres 2 classes of employees there... those that deliver the service and those that administer the service/build themselves little empires/always get promoted to senior manglement because we cant afford to lose any frontline staff who actually know what we do.
if you cant be replaced , you'll never be promoted
Then you need to look for a job elsewhere. Once you've gotten some solid offers, see what jobs are available within the company that you would want and are qualified for, then talk with your boss (or your boss' boss?), explaining that your usefulness in your current position has dead-ended you, that you'd like to stay with the company, but if they can't or won't offer you any advancement, then you have to jump ship. And stick to that, regardless of any excuses or future promises (delaying actions) they may give you.
Nono, it *is* about equality: Every dollar is equal and free to do what ever it wants. What? You thought it was about *people*? No, it hasn't been that since ... WWI, perhaps? If ever.
Naturally, those who have more dollars, make the rules to benefit those who have more dollars.
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