Tesla workers’ unemployment may be suspended if they don't return, emails show

There's no scenario in which the workers get charged with anything as they are not breaking any laws.

If a health department finds that a restaurant is too dirty to operate, they don't jail the workers or the workers but fine or shutdown the restaurant.

This is a similar kind of an order - the best county could do is to fine Tesla or shut them down.

You're not missing anything. The local county has already said they won't prosecute the workers for violating the health order since Elon Musk is making them choose between their health or their livelihoods.

It's also unlikely the local county or state will prosecute Elon Musk since it's difficult to pinpoint the actual criminal violation he could be charged with.

However, it's very likely that Musk will be sued in civil court by one or more of his (ex) employees. There are a variety of different legal claims they could make, so it's hard to say what the outcome would be.

You've missed some news:

>If Tesla’s Prevention & Control Plan includes these updates, and the public health indicators remain stable or improve, we have agreed that Tesla can begin to augment their Minimum Basic Operations this week in preparation for possible reopening as soon as next week

https://twitter.com/Dare2BWell/status/1260430367061876736

You've missed that Tesla was already negotiating to open up one week from now. This is a 7-day advancement of a plan that was already likely to happen with complete legal support.

We could still debate the moral wisdom of resuming production with significant additional safety procedures. Tesla is communicating that they've managed to do this successfully and safely at a similar factory in Shanghai.

There's really three aspects to this:

(1) The wisdom and timing of resuming normal activities with sufficient precautions (and if not now, then when?)

(2) The specific legal problems of doing this after the state has allowed re-opening, but before the county has done so, and one week before it would otherwise be allowed

(3) Musk's seemingly-irrational and spastic way of communicating his intents and opinions on Twitter

The US debate on the quarantine measures is so polarized it's ridiculous. I personally disagree that all nonessential economic activity involving face-to-face contact should be shut down for >12 months until a vaccine might be ready. So it follows that a return to workplaces that can mostly be made safe must happen at some point. Should this happen when it's safe, or at some predetermined point in time? Who decides? How should companies behave if their competitors choose a specific strategy?

I was the first person in my area to call out for social distancing, shutdowns and quarantines, even before any official response was in the cards, so please don't write me off as a right-wing parrot for pointing this out. The US response was atrocious, cost hundreds of billions and tens of thousands of lives already. But now it's the reality we have.

Musk's apparent Twitter insanity is its own story. I think it's mostly relevant for the court of public opinion. He obviously has other motivations for his tweets than seeking the truth, but his plays are quite rational. He has a history of framing reality in ways that aren't compatible with the most objective interpretation. Calling it lying would generally be an overstatement, but some of it has been very dishonest.

In this case, the most likely explanation is a strong wish to not lose the competitive position of Tesla, along with playing an existing political divide to build support with the right-voting population that would previously dismiss him and Tesla as liberal tree-huggers.

This is actually a decent marketing strategy in the social media, Twitter-fuelled post-truth world. But as many other things Musk has done over the years, both in public and out of it, it's a balancing act on the edge of the abyss.

The workers aren't risking any criminal consequences. It's much more effective for CA to go after the company.

The email is just trying to intimidate people into coming in or not filing for unemployment.

The normal process is that an unemployed person files for unemployment and also reports earned income and rejected job offers. Both can negatively impact their unemployment claims. Unemployment actually costs companies money.

Normally turning down the same job with the same pay you were laid off from would disqualify you from receiving unemployment. You'd need a great reason. A pandemic, and a shelter in place order are both great reasons. I'm assuming not showing up the factory would not disqualify you.

But CA's unemployment system is overloaded right now. I really wouldn't want to be dealing with it, let alone have my claim be a special case.

"potentially unsafe"

Thanks for putting in the word "potentially" because it recognizes an inescapable reality: the world is unsafe. We have to live in this world. That's just life.

I would however take another step and say some people disagree about opening the factory being more unsafe than other options.

There absolutely will be COVID cases at the factory. But there will also be cases outside the factory.

It's really difficult to say wether opening is safer (because employees are in a pretty safe environment with respect to COVID, relative to their homes or other places they can travel to, and because they have health insurance) or whether it's more dangerous and somehow the factory will be a hot spot of viruses, even though it's a super dry place full of metal and sparks.

Let's just recognize, on your point 4, not everyone agrees that keeping the factory closed is the safer option here.

The fire he is playing with is Public Opinion.

The first covid death - no matter why/who or how - will make the press and if he was saying 'mean things' ... it will be bad.

This is a pandemic, people's lives are at risk, the only thing coming out of Musks' mouth should be how much he cares about his staff, how much he is doing to make sure they are safe, that they get 100% paid time off if they or their partners get covid, that it will be 'the safest factory in the world', testing for anyone who wants it - etc. etc. etc..

It's actually an opportunity for him to look like a 'Covid Leader' but he's going the Trump/Twitter/Constitutional-crowd style populism on this one. I think it's just a mistake not borne by any communications strategy, just an angry, frustrating, flinching twitter thumb. That's not a strategy it's just 'reacting'.

He’s certainly decided to become the bully.

The thing is, the Alameda County Public Health Department changed their policy now that they received Tesla's plan (that was posted to the company's blog when they announced the lawsuit), and is now allowing Tesla to augment their operation activities beyond the bare minimum, in preparation for a full reopening next week. I guess both parties will claim that they went ahead according to their original plans but somehow, Tesla will have been able to restart much sooner than Alameda County's goal. In that case, "playing with fire" would be fruitful, esp. if Alameda County pretend things went just fine.

This is really overdramatizing things. People in the region are no less healthy with the factory open, unless it’s a pollution source or something.

It’s not like a meat plant where people are working with wet protein items all day long. They are probably more spaced out and socially distanced in the factory than they would be at home or visiting their local supermarket, hello kitty store (Daiso), or car detailing shop, all of which are allowed to be open, and are in fact open in Fremont.

It a no-lose situation for him. He can afford better lawyers than the county has. He can afford all levels of appeals.

And to his target market, he'll look heroic, and this becomes priceless advertising.

On Joe Rogan he said he was selling all his houses and will rent.

You've been using multiple accounts in ways that break the HN guidelines badly. We've banned several of these accounts. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

They're all at fault. it's not just Tesla.

No presumption, but demand outstrips supply for teslas so they are always atleast a few months behind, and now probably much more.

Not risk their employees' lives just to keep the Musk profit machine going? Let their workers stay safe while collecting unemployment benefit?

Unemployment benefits in California are not generous. The maximum benefit is $450/week. That is less than the state's minimum wage. Assuming that you received UI for an entire year, that is only $23,400.

Workers are saying "please don't make us back to work during a once-in-a-century pandemic because it's unsafe and we don't wanna die"