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Comment by pmorici | Hacker News Reader

Calling this tweet "anti-union" seems like spin. It is pointing out facts that one might want to consider before deciding to unionize. The fact that employees lose stock options when they unionize isn't so much a threat as it is a fact about how unions work because historically unions are against any kind of incentive or merit pay so they refuse options as compensation. It is a fact that UAW hasn't negotiated options as part of the pay for it's members at any of the other companies where it represents workers.

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I'm a very pro-union guy, so I'll give my five cents just for the sake of discussion:

Firstly, I don't know the context in which this was tweeted, but looking at it, it's not in my opinion egregiously or "obviously" anti-union, but the definition of this is of course a legal one and not a subjective one, so it doesn't really matter what any of us "think" is anti-union, what matters is the legal text in the region where it is tried. With that said, I'd also like to state my opinion that I think it's at least quite unprofessional for any senior executive to voice any kind of anti-union sentiment regardless of how mild it is, I would expect that both parties keep to certain standards of discussion and avoiding bad faith, which in my mind means not discarding the entire raison d'être of the other party.

Secondly, pointing out that unions are opposed to individualized salary negotiations is hardly a criticism of unions as much as it is a statement of fact. If the unions cannot meet this point in debate but need to revert to legal action, I think that speaks to the sad state of pro-union ideology today.

You're talking about whether the most visible champion of Dogecoin, whose formal title at his company is Techking, and who added a fart-on-demand feature to his products, and saying that one of his tweets regarding a currently non-existent party, a Tesla union organization, is unprofessional.

Labels like "unprofessional" are repugnant to some people, because they have been, and continue to be, used to justify arbitrary application of personal taste and frankly BS in the workplace, for example to bully people into wearing neckties.

I doubt this is a good standard to go for when trying to engage Elon. I do understand however that it's your opinion — no argument that you are free to it, and I even think it's productive to air it… in part because it gives people like me a chance to offer a counter perspective.

> You're talking about whether the most visible champion of Dogecoin, whose formal title at his company is Techking, and who added a fart-on-demand feature to his products, and saying that one of his tweets regarding a currently non-existent party, a Tesla union organization, is unprofessional.

You bring up a good point here and I think it applies to all of his ventures: Why trust anything the guy does?

However, when it comes to safety, the public must have trust. Very solid trust. Because 2+ tons of car at 70mph that claims to steer itself cannot be untrusted.

It's wise not to trust fast moving heavy objects, yes.

There's something to be said for a hybrid of human and machine attention though. From real world personal experience, there are some safety advantages.

> I doubt this is a good standard to go for when trying to engage Elon

I agree, it's a much better to cut through the BS and go straight for the time that Musk and Tesla tried to have a former employee murdered by the police by accusing them of being a mass shooter[1] all because Musk thought the employee was a whistleblower for public safety.

I think that incident illustrates Musk's attitude towards Tesla employees well.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-13/when-elon...

I have a nuanced opinion on unions after dealing with a bunch of them in a former life as a construction inspector / structural engineer (EIT).

Some unions are great. IBEW Local 353 comes to mind. The best unions have slogans like "when the boss is well paid, we get what we want in negotiations" and the worst unions have essentially the opposite mindset. I've literally seen members from ATU Transit Union Local 113 throw an empty coffee cup on the ground during a nighttime subway construction project and say "job creation" during their duties.

There is a right way to do unions and a wrong way. Germany seems to get this better than North America. Too often in North America things get divided into pro-this or anti-that, instead of being a discussion on how to do something right or how to properly align incentives so that the right outcome happens.

I'm not anti-union. I like the protection that some unions provide their workers; especially in specialized, high risk trades like welding or electrical. That said, I don't think Tesla would be Tesla with a heavy union throwing unnecessary delays around. Their safety record is quite good and their compensation is better than average even without the stellar stock performance. Before advocating that Tesla should unionize I'd prefer to see structural changes in unionization come to North America so that we have an environment that fosters a healthier relationship between employer and union. I don't want every North American company rusting away like Detroit.

In your opinion is what Elon said in the tweet by definition a threat?

I don't see why my personal opinion matters, but even if it does I don't have enough context to understand his tweet. He said:

"Nothing stopping Tesla team at our car plant from voting union. Could do so tmrw if they wanted. But why pay union dues & give up stock options for nothing? Our safety record is 2X better than when plant was UAW & everybody already gets healthcare."

What does he mean by "giving up stock options"?

They won't have access to stock options if they make a decision to unionize.

It's simple but people seem to be trying to make it seem convoluted to try to maintain confusion to make it look like they have a case to call it a threat. It's ridiculous.

The actual solution in fact is to take the burden off of employers: we need adequate UBI so people don't need to work to survive (including covered healthcare etc), therefore if a company isn't treating or paying their workers adequately for the work at hand then they can simply stop working there - and that is them taking a stand against the company; taking income is also problematic - you're penalizing work getting done, instead a VAT on production is much better method of skimming off some value created to redistribute back into society; feed some of the ROI back into society, fuel the largest cog of capitalism - consumers - via UBI - and the system, society, will thrive.

If I'm interpreting this correctly then the company is providing incentives not to unionize, which at least in my country would be illegal.

I don't get it. Are you saying that unionised employees are unable to get stock options? It's meant in a literal sense? I thought this was about unions not liking stock options or something like this.

How can this be legal in america? Isn't it pressuring the workers not to unionise?

I'm not sure if it's the union who prevents stock from being part of the negotiations and/or Tesla, however to me it doesn't make sense to be illegal: if you have two choices for jobs at different companies and they both offer good incentive packages, both are good offers but in different ways - there will be pressure depending on what you value more. Perhaps you'll value higher immediate payout vs. long-term payout via a stock that you believe will go up - and you're willing to take that risk because you believe in what the company is doing - and you'll be working there to help make sure that it happens.

I can't understand the reasoning. It's tesla directly denying options to unionised employees, this is direct pressure. It's like denying a promotion based on whether you're unionised or not. Or denying certain benefits based on whether you're unionised, or closing a unionised brach etc. This has nothing to do with the choice between different companies. Tesla shouldn't be allowed to directly influence the establishment of unions using pressure. I really can't believe that this would be possible. It's madness. A company shouldn't be able to pressure workers into not joining the unions. A lesson learned through a lot of blood and loss of life in the late 19th, early 20th century.

A company can care enough for its workers so that they don't see value in unions. But it can't force them via pressure.

Weather unions would be anti stock option or not is debatable, certainly not a fact, and the tweet is absolutely clear cut a threat that workers would lose them if they unionized independent of what the union would do.

Can you cite any instance where a union representing blue collar workers has negotiated stock options or similar stock based compensation as part of their member's pay package?

Maybe someone else finds something more recent, but it looks like 20 years ago, unions got options at about half the rate of non union (table 1).

https://smlr.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/documents/facul...

That doesn't really say much, since non-union labor is usually better compensated, in general.

Can you cite any instance where a union representing blue collar workers who already have stock options or similar stock based compensation as part of their member's pay package has lost them in negotiation?

(I have a gripe with the stock market so take this post with a grain of salt)

idk. In my experience I would much rather get payed for my work in money I can use immediately, rather then being forced to play a game in a system I don’t believe in. I’ve worked for a few companies which gave me stock options (one of them was really good) and in practice what you end up getting is less then a month salary at best. I think companies love to give stock options because it adds bells and whistles to your benefits, it looks like they are giving you more then they are. If I had a choice I would much rather see my salary go up as the company raises in value then to be handed out stock.

That said, I’m not well versed in union logic so I don’t know if this is the reason why unions are against this practice. I am just glad they are.

Correlation is not causation, and in this case it’s a stretch to argue that’s what he was saying. “Don’t vote union, you’ll have to move to Detroit!”

Has anyone seen joining unions actually cause positions that got stock to stop getting stock? Is this like an overwhelmingly common thing I don’t know about?

It's a made up lie. Actors are in a union and they get profit-sharing and individual performance-based pay.

> Has anyone seen joining unions actually cause positions that got stock to stop getting stock? Is this like an overwhelmingly common thing I don’t know about?

It's an overt threat. Tesla has used it's stock compensation as a weapon against employees in the past. There are countless examples of people being fired days/weeks before stock options vested, essentially a form of wage theft:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-19/tesla-wor... https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/07/01/tesla-p... https://www.reddit.com/r/RealTesla/comments/iiwuxr/she_moved...

It's so odd that one of the key aspects of socialism is workers owning the means to production (the company).

...and one of the main things Unions prevent - is employee ownership in the company. Crazy.

Try explaining that to the people downvoting and commenting where I point this out - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26602600

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