Tesla fired hundreds of employees in past week
reuters.com
reuters.com
[1] https://electrek.co/2017/06/01/tesla-elon-musk-employees-har...
EDIT: Just so you know ... the cumulative quarter average (done annually) cull of the bottom 10% (people who have been put on improvement plans 3 quarters ago), is done by people that have nothing to do with interviewing/hiring. You'd probably be firing the wrong folks.
Well over 99% of my work has been thrown out. (I'm a software engineer & entrepreneur.) I think I calculated that when I was at Google, the half-life of my code was roughly 1 year, i.e. after a year, half of my code would be ripped out and deleted. So after 5 years there, 97% of it was gone. The remaining 3% had made a few hundred million dollars in revenue. It's been similar (but worse) in the startup world, where I had 4 ideas that all failed in my startup before Google, and 10 so far in the startup after.
This is a 'company on the up' dropping people, which is quite a different thing from a 'company who can't afford to keep people and letting them go;
That 3k would include line assembly workers, material delivery, quality inspectors as well as skilled trades like electricians, pipe fitters, tool and die makers (for stamping operations)
Another 1-2k assembly staff (IT, Quality Engineers, Controls Engineers, Material Coordinators).
Tesla does a lot of in-house component manufacturing, so that may be another 3-10k (I'm including gigafactory in this estimate, but I have no real clue here, as I don't know how much of this they actually do).
Then you have people like automotive designers, engineers, and buyers, no real clue here, but almost certainly less than 2k.
Then you have corporate functions: accountants, hr, IT, other back office, another 500?
Then you have the sales side - not sure how they structure this, but they have a lot of show rooms with a good number of people working them - another 1k?
3 + 2 + 10 + 2 + .5 + 1 = 18,500
They're doing a lot of plant construction and equipment installation; generally in the industry most or all of that is outsourced, but Tesla seems to prefer strong vertical integration, so maybe those are straight Tesla employees as well.
Are janitorial/maintenance staff considered to be employees in this count? Or are they contracted out?
Model 3 production rates were missed by a wide margin, so at least a few people should have known that management would react.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_Adjustment_and_Retraini...
California also has their own version: https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/hr-...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_Adjustment_and_Retrai...
http://www.edd.ca.gov/Jobs_and_Training/Layoff_Services_WARN...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_Adjustment_and_Retrai...
As an employer, getting rid of your worst 1% of workers once a year is just housekeeping.
The former is your fault as the employee, the latter is due to larger business conditions and generally recognized as no immediate fault of your own. In real world terms, you can be personally fired for not doing your job and can be laid off because the company can't afford to keep your plant/office/division running due to outside conditions.
Edit: Added more lines from the preceding paragraph
I hate sneakily-worded sentences like this.
Also among them, were women, hetrosexuals, and probably one or two Vietnam veterans. Some believe they were targetted.
While historically they were necessary, today fewer examples exist of employees as the captive market--where a union makes sense. In other words, many times it is the employer who is taken advantage of.
If unions were open and free to join for all people, I mean that would be one thing; but they are not. Membership is dependent on things such as family. They're tough and politically correct, but regressive and unfair.
Other demographic groups like the ones you pointed out really don't have that same collective effect on the bottom line for shareholders across industries like those that unionize, whose only trait in common is that of a provider of labor.
Yes, pro-union people were targeted. This may or may not be statistically significant. And what is "pro-union?"
If they have 30k employees, and 3% of them are pro-union, and they laid off 1% - what are the odds that some of the folks laid off are pro-union but weren't targeted?
What what are the odds that someone that wasn't targeted assumes they were?
I have no idea what the facts are, but blind assertions like those in the article are foolish.
Imagine reading an article about you that says "Some neighbors felt he was holding more guns than needed and enough ammunition to kill dozens of people." Or they said that your Internet service provider had noticed large bandwidth which is consistent with someone watching perverted pornography.
These are baseless assertions - and therefore shallow.
If I said "Some believe we didn't land on the moon", that would be a true statement. But, it's also a way at hinting that we may have really not landed on the moon without offering any evidence or even citing specific people who believe that.
"why", because they were distributing union related materials?
"without offering any evidence", which is why it says "believe"
And why did they believe that?
Without some grounds for accusation it's "sneaky".
I have no Tesla stock, products, nor am I employed by them. Not a "fanboy" in any way.
No.
It would be impossible to verify and to say with certainty the fact that Tesla was targeting Union folks - if this were true.
Second - the journo is communicating the opinions of others, not his/her own.
There would be Musk, and a very small handful of trusted lieutenants who would have been behind it (if it happened).
But - one could look at the totality of those who are fired - and find that 'most of the vocal union bakers' were let go.
So what does this mean?
It doesn't prove anything - but it looks pretty bad, doesn't it?
So a journalist talks to some of the current or laid off workers, and they say 'off the record' - that this has happened, and 'we think they did this to kabosh the union agenda' - well, then it's reasonable.
If the journalist is just 'making it up'- that would be a deep dereliction of their duty.
But if 'some were actually saying' this, in this journalists interviews, then it's fair for them to say.
And it would be irresponsible for the journalist to say 'Musk specifically targeted Union advocates' unless they had some pretty good evidence that this were true. Which would be very hard.
I don't object to statements like that. Your proposal actually make some attempt to quantify proportionality. The article did no such thing: "pro-union workers were among those fired this week." It doesn't say "mostly pro-union workers were fired" or "most vocal pro-union workers were fired." It isn't reflecting someone else's opinion. It's just an attempt to fit a narrative around zero evidence. If they had interesting evidence, they would report that instead!
> It doesn't prove anything - but it looks pretty bad, doesn't it?
No! Because they didn't actually make any interesting statements of fact. Just that some pro-union employees happen to be among the 1% of fired employees, like you would expect in a population of hundreds.
> And it would be irresponsible for the journalist to say 'Musk specifically targeted Union advocates' unless they had some pretty good evidence that this were true. Which would be very hard.
But they are suggesting it anyways. I think that is similarly irresponsible.
Probably they don't want to spend the time gathering statistics before they rush to be the first to publish on this story, but in preliminary reporting like this, I think they should be hesitant to suggest a narrative they haven't made any attempt to confirm.
They're not paid a lot, and they have to churn out stories.
They don't have the resources to hire PI's and do interviews, follow people around.
It's just a dude (or dudette) who might have time to ask a few questions, and then put out a story.
So that's it.
I wish it could be more, but what they've done is within reason, so long as it's valid and they're not making it up.
There's one other case mentioned, but that involved a libel suit against Tesla. The characterisation of GP is not substantiated.
Claims rejected by the court.
That fails to meet the threshold of "notoriously fond" in my book.
I generally don't like unions, but I've of the mind that wherever they are 'trying to be formed' - that there is probably a reason for it.
Quite a number of auto-plants in the US don't have unions, because there's some kind of 'de facto' standard-ops that have been established, and as long as the company plays by those rules, it works out.
There has been some negative press about worker situations at Tesla, and it's hard to say for sure, but I wouldn't be a bit surprised if there were corners being cut etc..
Highly odd for a company that's just starting production of its highest-volume product ever.
Is there something about Tesla beyond the hype we should know? If I were an investor, this news would have me quite concerned.
You would think they can't hire fast enough.
The plan as I understand it was to use the technology at this company to speed up production but it hasn't been going as planned, in large part due to misunderstanding of cultural differences i.e. No one is going to be happy here in Germany if you start changing the terms of contracts that were supposed to last for the next few years and people in general don't respect abusive bosses. Unemployment rate is 3%, no need to (and lower for highly skilled workers). And you can't just tell people to not take vacation because production is behind, you'll get laughed at.
And yes, this has happened a few times now - American corp buys some German corp and replaces managers with American ones (or American-styled ones) and a few years later no one in the industry wants to work for them any more.
It sounds a bit rough but sometimes you need to let people go, for a variety of reasons. Long term, I'd only be concerned that it gave them a poor reputation because they didn't adequately warn people and that may turn away good applicants. But, that seems unlikely, so I'm not terribly concerned.
My investment in Tesla is worth about 10x what I invested, last time I checked. I don't check often as it is a long-term investment. I feel comfortable keeping my trust in Musk.
[A] US labor law which protects employees, their families, and communities by requiring most employers with 100 or more employees to provide 60 calendar-day advance notification of plant closings and mass layoffs of employees, as defined in the Act. In 2001, there were about 2,000 mass layoffs and plant closures which were subject to WARN advance notice requirements and which affected about 660,000 employees.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_Adjustment_and_Retrai...
I've seen companies get spanked for a pattern of layoffs which stay just below the threshold, so there's that. If there's a plausible case that this is targeted at union organisers / organisation, there's that as well, though prosecution at the national level strikes me as unlikely, even with Musk's testy relationship with the Trump administration.
There's also California law to contend with. Same article:
California requires advance notice for plant closings, layoffs, and relocations of 50 or more employees regardless of percentage of workforce, that is, without the federal "one-third" rule for mass layoffs of fewer than 500 employees. Also, the California law applies to employers with 75 or more employees, counting both full-time and part-time employees.
But, unless the penalty is insignificant, it seems unlikely that they'd flagrantly violate the law. It seems very likely that they were advised by legal council and followed those recommendations. The visibility of Tesla makes me suspect they are very likely to be aware of both optics and law.
Disclosure: I am invested in Tesla and have been since the early days. However, I've made every effort to remain objective,
I am, however, pointing out that there are in fact legal notice and procedural requirements to be followed.
I used to get those every so often. Since I've been massively firewalling sketchy domains, not so much.
(About 33k entries, mostly based on uBlock and other blocklists.)
I've discovered that Android does seem to have dnsmasq installed by default in explorations of my own non-jailbroken phone. Though I've not configured it.
Most of this I deal with at the router, using wifi.
AT&T in particular are exceptionally bad about this based on my exploration.
I don't agree. Average CXO position lasts 3-5 years...
https://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2017/31713/the-average...
Lots of fat trimmed all around.
Kalanick, etc...
The process of evaluating the people that make up the organization should be under constant improvement though, and again, simply because of dealing with large numbers, there might be a few false positives, but on the whole as an organization, management should be on the lookout for who isn't performing.
Like most things in life you need to strike a balance. Most managers hate firing people, even when they probably should. The person might be just the kindest sweetest person they know and maybe a friend but they're just not very good at their job. A big overall workforce cut gives them the excuse to fire the person without having to hurt feelings or look bad.
This is not necessarily because working conditions make workers feel that they would prefer the tradeoffs of unionization, but simply because Tesla is much more competitive without its workforce unionized, and so labor groups that are entrenched in legacy car manufacturing wish to prevent Tesla from accelerating those companies' decline.
In many states labor unions have significant power granted by favorable laws that far exceed the market power they derive simply from organizing labor and leveling the playing field a bit. [3] [4]
So while I strongly support organized labor in abstract [5], it's difficult to blame Tesla for wishing to make its workforce less vulnerable to attack from big labor. Like many interest groups, big labor is mostly concerned with its own survival [6] and growth, and is not really about the workers at all.
For example, when Borders Books employees went on strike, it was the big labor groups that sponsored ruffians to join the employees on the picket line and make the strike much more aggressive. Similarly, whenever you see an inflatable rat alongside striking workers, chances are that rat was brought in by big labor to help dramatize the strike effort. [7] They also help name and shame fellow employees who aren't enthusiastic about the union to exert social pressure to make it form.
1. https://groundswell.org/whole-foods-employees-move-to-unioni...
2. http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Union-Organizers-Targ...
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_labor_law
4. http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-charged-uaw-employees-s...
5. While labor laws came to exist for good reason and helped improve living standards quite a bit, they went too far and tried to address too many issues via labor laws. Many things that are given to workers via labor laws should be given to all citizens, whether employed or not. Labor laws should not create an incentive for firms to eliminate unions, and should not act to correct social inequality. If such measure are needed they should happen via other laws.
6. https://www.unionfacts.com/employee/Air_Line_Pilots/TIMOTHY/...
7. http://mentalfloss.com/article/28466/story-behind-giant-infl...
That part is simply my opinion, no other citation is available.
I won't forget the way it felt to be intimidated by those thugs. It's worse than intimidation I've received from police, etc.
Then watching unions destroy the American auto industry with their greedy pension plans and inadequately underwritten PBGC was the last straw. They once served a noble and important purpose in society but have become parasitic and backward.
The controversial and racist rhetoric used by Trump to win over disgruntled rust belt voters was taken from standard pro-labor rhetoric.
That is the whole point of unions, yes.
Union membership/power has been steadily decreasing over the past 50 years. To me, it seems disingenuous to refer to "big labor" as if they're some sort of powerhouse given the way that corporate interests have been chipping away at them.
Also, not that I have any proof that they are, but firing employees for being pro-union is illegal.
Some states have passed less union-friendly laws, and firms have located to those states and have massively invested in robotics and automation simply to avoid the morass associated with having a unionized labor force.
When unions are too strong (such as they have been in the past) they take too much for their own members at the expense of the health of the firm, and the firm dies.
In the case of the automakers and the auto worker pensions, the pensions were negotiated as defined benefit plans and backed by the PBGC. Lawmakers failed to require firms to pay adequate PBGC premiums, and so when the companies failed taxpayers are left holding the bag.
Workers need to have power, but unions are on the decline because they got too greedy and resulted in massive (and inefficient) economic shifts to route around them. Thus they are less relevant now than in years past, but significant harm has been done. This is not just the fault of the unions, but of the politicians and firms that colluded to make the pension deals possible and who refuse to let dying firms simply die.
Unless we want to go back to a world where everyone aspires to become a "lifer" at a firm and retire after holding one job for his/her whole working life, unions really can't offer much. The economy shifts much more rapidly now and I'd be shocked if skills that are highly marketable this year are still marketable in 10 years.
The idea that unions can magically get a level-playing field in any country without support from the state also suggests you are a bit naive about how employers have reacted and still react to unions absent such protections.
Didn't essentially every private-sector labor union in U.S. history start without support from the state? (and, arguably, despite the opposition of the state?) Government intervention on union behalf generally doesn't happen until after a union installs a number of its candidates into that level of government.
It's not that they want to hurt tesla (or walmart, etc) any more or less than they want to help GM, Ford, etc... it's that they, like any other business, wants to grow their revenue and they grow by representing more people (union dues). Sure, it might cause a little more competition for the other people they represent, but like any good business they want to diversify their holdings as much as possible so they're always on the winning team too.
Do you really think unions believe that they have a negative effect on business? This action fits in with the stated ideals of unionization, so why do you feel the need to explain it as part of some hidden agenda?
>In many states labor unions have significant power granted by favorable laws that far exceed the market power they derive simply from organizing labor and leveling the playing field a bit.
This doesn't provide evidence that unions are overstepping their bounds in this case.
>So while I strongly support organized labor in abstract, it's difficult to blame Tesla for wishing to make its workforce less vulnerable to attack from big labor. Like many interest groups, big labor is mostly concerned with its own survival and growth, and is not really about the workers at all.
What in your mind separates ordinary labor unions from "big labor"? What made you draw the conclusion that the workers distributing literature were part of "big labor", and not just "leveling the playing field a bit"?
They don't care. Unions drove the US automakers into bankruptcy with unsustainable pension plans, and corrupt regulators failed to adequately insure them via the PBGC. Thus Unions and firms colluded to foist pension risk onto taxpayers.
I've encountered the most bigoted, anti-immigrant, racist rants from union workers. Rather than focusing on larger economic trends and the obvious need for continual training and skill-improvement, unions focus on workers feeling entitled to a certain wage or standard of living even when economic shifts render those skills obsolete.
Because of the cronyism with regulators, massive sections of the economy get hijacked by their deals, and consumers have to essentially pay them welfare for failing to be competitive in the marketplace for decades.
Think of the most backward industries in the US, those are the ones with the strongest union involvement. Yes, those industries helped in the past to elevate people out of poverty, but now they simply hold back progress in the same way that cozy regulations benefitting financial firms and banks hold back progress in banking.
Whereas of course banks, Wall Street, corporations in general have _never_ been accused of being a little too cozy with their regulators, right?
The hell is "big labor"? that's some ridiculous level of conspiracy here. Time to read Marx again(or for the first time for most of the people here). Employers and employees don't necessary have the exact same interests. If Employers can be free to pursue their own interests, so should the employees.
You say this but Tesla got absolutely spanked in the last 3 quarters in its auto division by the supposedly inferior unionized likes of Chevrolet, Fiat, Nissan and Toyota. ALL of them got much more affordable offerings out to market before the Model 3 was ready. Fiat managed to get refurbed and quite enjoyable 500es on sale for under $13000. The Leaf has enjoyed brisk national sales that picked up substantially last year. Toyota's Prius Prime and Chevy's Volt are sophisticated large-bank hybrids with outstanding reviews. The real kicker is Chevy's Bolt, which is pretty much competitive directly with a model 3 and gets outstanding reviews, with Chevy dramatically retooling to convert their Sonic lines to start selling more Bolts (an act that was curiously misrepresented by a lot of traditionally very pro-Tesla press, btw).
These EVs are moving well anywhere the economy is in okay shape, bucking the trend of slowing car sales as the market is glutted by used cars that are flatlining in value due to oversupply.
This idea that labor unions area a conspiracy to decrease productivity is difficult to prove, and given the magnitude of that allegation the lack of performance on Tesla's part with the Model 3 seems pretty damning for your argument here.
> So while I strongly support organized labor in abstract, it's difficult to blame Tesla for wishing to make its workforce less vulnerable to attack from big labor. Like many interest groups, big labor is mostly concerned with its own survival and growth, and is not really about the workers at all.
This, "I am sympathetic but actually these people are distilled evil, lie about everything including their mission, and are actually made up of saboteurs" line is the pinnacle of disingenuous discourse. I hope you don't think this passes muster for rational discourse here.
You obviously do not, "support organized labor in abstract" if you view a unionization effort (which you centralize into some kind of phantom called "big labor" as if it isn't actually made of a multitude of loosely cooperating worker-run-and-governed groups) nor do you seem terribly interested in "the workers" or their fate when productivity might be at stake.
Especially since: conspicuously absent from this list is the Model 3. What month is it again? What month was the Model 3 supposed to launch?
I know I jumped off that stupid waiting list, I paid less and I got a great car that doesn't require I own and partially remodel a home for best experience.
Every Tesla owner I know (and I know a few, I'm part of an EV modding community that Tesla owners show up at) is jealous of some core aspects of Bolt, Spark, Volt, and Leaf owner's experience. The fiat people maybe less so, but they like to point out they paid 10% and it's way easier to mod the acceleration curves so they get a pass.
But it's true, we lack gull wing doors and the S's stock configuration is really fun to drive. We also paid less than half the price for more than half the upside. So.
There is NOTHING objective about that site. It's run by a company for the express purpose of conveying "corporate messaging", funded by, among others, Walmart.
Hacker News is influential. Votes can easily be gamed. Fake accounts are easy to make and hard to track.
Noise is added to mix good info with misinformation to confuse and frustrate people sifting through comments trying to make sense of things.
These people will make weaker arguments against Tesla's actions so those arguments can be easily discredited. People making stronger arguments against Tesla will be clumped with them.
Trolling increases noise and frustration. It makes people not want to read or post adversarial comments.
Denigrate, dismiss, discredit.
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One of the top 3 upvoted comment is usually gamed, because it makes the most lucid argument (it was pre-written; look at timestamp) and is seen as the most solid piece of info amid the noise.