SpaceX firings likely violate US labor law, experts say | Hacker News Reader

SpaceX firings likely violate US labor law, experts say

theverge.com

64 pointspseudolus77 comments

This sounds like firing people for concerted action, which is one of two illegal reasons for termination in the US (the other being discrimination). I suspect the NLRB will reward them with an offer to get their jobs back or back wages.

Since absolutely nothing could go wrong with disgruntled employees making and launching rockets it has better be back wages, or something that limits the actual, physical damage they could cause. "Rocket science" has a reputation because it is not a forgiving domain.

It's usually back wages, but that's up to the fired party.

Depends on the roles of the people who were fired.

> the NLRA is restricted to nonsupervisory employees, said Kate Bischoff,

And whether the statements themselves qualify.

According to WSJ , https://www.wsj.com/articles/spacex-fires-employees-involved....

Anti-harrassment campaigns have historically been qualified statements. You're correct that they have to be nonsupervisory workers.

> an action has to be concerted (certainly the case here)

From the article, quoting a law professor. I'd never heard the term "concerted action," so I looked up the relevant text of the National Labor Relations Act. It says that employees have the right to engage in concerted actions "for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection..."[0]

I am not familiar with this law; could someone explain why employees complaining in a circulated letter falls into this category? I'm (pleasantly!) surprised this was a legally protected action.

[0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/29/157

This is the cornerstone of union protections under the NLRA. The act defines a union as two or more workers who undertake action together in order to improve their working conditions. In theory, this protects them from retaliation.

In practice, labor law violations occur all the time and there is very little recourse. The NLRB awards can take a long time to act and has no power to levy punitive damages, so there's a very small penalty for criminal behavior on the company's part, compared to the cost savings of union busting.

There must be some sort of limits to what's protected though, right? SpaceX said they were fired for sending company-wide emails badgering people to sign stuff, and I'd have to imagine there's some line when it comes to using company time/resources to organize. If you grab a megaphone and start disrupting a whole factory floor by using it to try to get people to organize for better rights while you're supposed to be working, that seems like it ought to be a fireable offense, where organizing at someone's house outside of working hours clearly should not.

What cost does an email have company wide?

Most people receive a bunch of emails every day and it's never considered as cost.

> If you grab a megaphone and start disrupting a whole factory floor by using it to try to get people to organize for better rights while you're supposed to be working, that seems like it ought to be a fireable offense, where organizing at someone's house outside of working hours clearly should not.

Can you organize on company time? It depends - can you discuss literally anything other than work while at work? Then yes. If not, then you'd have to organize off the clock but not necessarily off-site. There are exceptions for reasonability sake (a nurse can't interrupt an organ transplant to organize, for instance) but sending company-wide emails strikes me as sufficiently non-disruptive as to be protected.

If I was working at the place where my colleagues were trying to actively undermine CEO by character assassination, that would be disruptive for me. Those folks as my experience at workplace shows could be quite bullies. Working by their side would absolutely be disruptive.

That's not how anything works. Your sensibilities being offended is not the same as materially disrupting the operations of the business.

when I work on something important and someone approaches me with her left-wing political activism, operations will most certainly be disrupted. I work in tech, and I know firsthand what sort of bullying is being preceded by such people approaching you. It is absolutely material

> That's not how anything works. Your sensibilities being offended is not the same as materially disrupting the operations of the business.

The NLRB disagrees with you. Look up the James Damore case.

I agree, though the problem for me is that it was public not private. By blasting it publicly they violated their NDAs too (I presume)

And I thought this was about static test firings of their rocket engines…

Sometimes I think English language is not that great

EDIT: though I don't know if there's better alternative

The woke mind virus seeks to protect itself.

I don’t see how bitching about your boss’s tweets constitutes discussing working conditions.

'The Verge' says it all.

I've never heard of a company that let's you trash talk the CEO with no repercussions and as it goes, their firing was predicated on other employees discomfort with their activism.

Make your money somewhere else if you have a problem with the boss. NASA will give you a fair shake I'm sure.

They might finally get SLS working

You can find some expert to say anything. I have literally no idea whether it was legal or not. But finding an expert to quote for your narrative is not exactly breaking news.

If you know nothing about the subject, why would you think this law professor is lying?

IANAL but I know enough about the labor process to know the expert is probably correct.

The Verge has lost a lot of credibility. Since musk announced he was buying Twitter it has basically become a musk hit-piece firehose.

A few People got fired. This is not news.

What specifically have the verge reported on to make them lose credibility in your eyes? Personally I've got a bit tired of how often he comes up, but it's perfectly understandable considering he's a very public personality with a large following who leads some large tech companies and says/does some very divisive and controversial things

And one of Musks companies firing people for criticising him, when he's trying to buy Twitter claiming to want to change its policies because it isn't sufficiently pro-free-speech seems newsworthy to me

> What specifically have the verge reported on to make them lose credibility in your eyes?

This article, for one. It looks like they shopped around to find people with law degrees and opinions, even though those opinions may not be much on their own. But when put together in a montage of quotes, you can get a real spin effect. You don't notice it?

Motive (left-wing media)

Means (spin doctor on call)

Opportunity (Elon is public enemy number one with Trump all but out of the picture)

But let's ignore the fact that at least some of the employees that got fired were sending emails to most or all of the employees, more than once, during company time with company equipment, to solicit assistance with the letter. I'm sure there's more to the story that will be revealed, and it's certainly too early to be declaring that someone has a case, so putting these misleading headlines out (even if ambiguously worded) is a big red flag.

Which of these lawyers is a spin doctor?

Shopping around for informed opinions is normal and should be expected. That said, I’ve been a legal commentator and the pressure to be aggressively sound-bitey is real. However, it’s often self-imposed by the expert and not always the reporter’s doing. I remember chatting with a Reuters reporter about the Uber/Lewandowski case and it was pretty clear that if I didn’t say something sexier, the article wouldn’t run. Yes, she was presumably under some pressure to find some sizzle, but I was also asking myself how badly I wanted to be quoted.

Do we know for sure that the behavior that SpaceX says those employees did actually happened? All we have is a few quotes from SpaceX, not actual evidence but I could be wrong.

You're suggesting that the official, public statement from the COO regarding the email activity was false? No chance. There are laws regarding email retention. The company stands to lose a lot while gaining little by releasing a false statement like that.

When things like the incident below happen it does make me wonder if the COO fully knows everything that is going on at SpaceX.

"In late March, SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell told CNBC, "I don't think the US has given us any money to give terminals to the Ukraine." She also said that most of the funding came from private sources, and acknowledged some help from France and possibly Poland, according to CNBC."

https://www.cnet.com/news/politics/spacex-starlink-terminals...

it really has less to do what they did than how it can be listed in their firing. if they sent an email to all spacex employees non work related during company hours they can mark that as 5 minutes wasted across whole company and grounds for firing. now it falls into the realm of cases that have been heard for union voting during company hours to the opposite end of spectrum of traveling to rallies and completely skipping out on work. so battle of who has the best lawyers/ if they choose easier to settle or make an example of them

Those experts don't understand the absolute free speech principles that Elon Musk cherishes

Free speech unless you criticize SpaceX?

For himself. Not absolute, obviously.

You can always find a lawyer who will lie for you.

Yeah, but this lawyer is almost certainly right. Firing people for taking concerted action is illegal in the US.

Why chime in at all if you don't understand the subject?

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