Former Tesla workers claim they were fired for using maternity and sick leave | Hacker News Reader

Former Tesla workers claim they were fired for using maternity and sick leave

theguardian.com

29 pointsdoener13 comments

> A Tesla spokesperson claimed Maggie Aranda’s termination was due to cellphone usage at work, and Carlos Aranda was terminated over a tweet that violated Tesla standards.

Way to bury the lede: Tesla now fires people over bad tweets! Who will be the next CEO?

More seriously, I don't doubt that Tesla treats its employees badly. The company went through a self-described period of "production hell." I don't get the sense that anyone was treated well, and replaceable hourly workers tend to be the most vulnerable.

This quote is also misleading:

> Nevada is a right-to-work state, so they didn’t need any sort of reason for firing me

"Right-to-work" means that employees can't be required to join a union as a condition of being employed at a company. What she's referring to is "at will employment" which is the norm in most US states (including California.)

>Tesla now fires people over bad tweets!

Many companies, especially publicly traded ones, have social media policies now. Some go as far as to require you to provide all of your usernames.

If I wear my work badge outside of work, and someone makes a complaint about my actions or behavior while I'm off the clock, corporate security similarly investigates it.

This is nothing new. This is also why you'll see, with higher profile persons, "These views reflect my own and not that of my employer" or similar verbiage on their social media and blog bios.

https://www.americanbar.org/groups/business_law/publications...

PDF WARNING https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/publications/lit...

I was just making a joke about Elon Musk, who is prone to tweeting things that cost him and the company tens of millions of dollars:

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/16/judge-approves-elon-musks-se...

I'm not surprised they have a blanket social media policy. It was just ironic in context.

I’m at one of the big tech companies. Contrary to popular belief, we still do something akin to stack ranking and managers have to pick out their “bottom” performing candidates each year to let go if needed.

I know of someone who ended up in that pool simply because they contributed less to the team, as they were out for 2 months on legitimate medical leave.

My point being - it’s a known practice in the industry. Not saying it should be tolerated but remember this folks next time you consider a career decision out of loyalty. Your employer is loyal to no one other than shareholders.

This doesn't surprise me at all. I use to work in a place where your work output was constantly monitored and graded. If you have vacation time banked up and took too much time off in one year, it negatively affected your ranking. Too much vacation time coupled with maternity and sick leave? Management will label you a "low performer" and they'll start looking for excuses to replace you for your "lack of commitment"

Classic tragedy of the commons. Everyone wants worker's rights protections but no one wants to chip in and pay for it.

How must/can those rights be paid for?

I think he's referring to union dues. One of the jobs of a union is to advocate for their workers. But that requires paying somebody to do it, preferably without having them on the corporate payroll (and thus subject to management's orders).

So, I wish I had something more substantive, but that's kinda hard to do in this format. My experience in the workforce has been that the impact of someone taking leave is greatly exaggerated. Busybodies, workaholics, and managers act like it's the end of the world, yet somehow the sun rises the next day, and everything is fine.

Usually, a few people are minorly inconvenienced, but overall everything is perfectly fine. Meanwhile, the benefit to the individual is enormous. Arguably, it can actually improve productivity; people are more rested and mentally healthy. Either way, it's pretty clear to me that we can afford to give people more leeway.

There are jobs that make this more difficult, especially ones that aren't 9-5 desk gigs: Doctors, critical engineers/trades (needed to be on call for emergencies), even service jobs can be more challenging to schedule. I still think it's worth the effort to try to protect people's personal life; both from a cost/benefit perspective and an ethical one. Elon likes to talk about changing the world, but I don't think it's for the better if people have to work in hostile environments, can't raise their children, travel the world, or pursue their hobbies.

Low wage jobs are miserable to work at and workers are being abused? Reminds me of Amazon Warehouse stories from years ago. I don't think anything really changed there even after they were raked over the coals by the media.

Much of the general public isn't hip to the reality that their "favorite brands" engage in unethical and abusive practices. They're either unaware or willing to give them a free pass, because "they like them".

This has changed a bit with the backlash against amazon, but hasn't gone far enough. Lots of people are unable to look past the convenience to them personally. You saw this with Walmart: "they have great prices, and I can get everything cheaply in one place". I have friends with extremely progressive views on employment that love Musk and Tesla.

I could never understand the love in the US for Ayn Rand type of social predations labeled as "right to work" (sic).

Her description of "right-to-work" had nothing to do with what the term actually means. It just means that employees can't be required to join a union as a condition of being employed at a company. What she's referring to is "at will employment" which is the norm in most US states.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com