Tesla Terminated Dozens in Response to New Union Campaign, Complaint Alleges | Hacker News Reader

Tesla Terminated Dozens in Response to New Union Campaign, Complaint Alleges

bloomberg.com

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Living around one of Tesla's Gigafactories, I have lots of friends who have worked/do work there.

In the case of our gigafactory, there's horror stories not just inside (machines injuring people), but everyone I talk to specifically talks about the dangers of the commute. It's not super far from town, but the road there is almost entirely used for commuting to and from Tesla, and it's one of those highways where the average speed of traffic is minimum 30mph above the speed limit. Crashes can be seen weekly (daily in the winter) and it affects people. It's a factory, so people are driving there at like 5am and racing there to not be late (they're super strict). Tesla has tried to solve it by providing buses to the factory, but then you'd need to wake up at like 3:30-4am and get home later too.

> they're super strict

that's literally every factory ever, I really don't see how commuting is Tesla's problem, and I've never heard of a factory offering a bus service to employees, an amazing employee benefit that's usually reserved to highly paid tech workers who live around their company's HQ city

>I really don't see how commuting is Tesla's problem,

Well, we can clearly see why Tesla is unlikely to pull a Toyota ever in the Quality department then.

Why is having to show up to work on time a horror story? I don't get it, especially if Tesla commissioned busses to pick people up.

Serious injuries from machines is much more concerning, however.

Auto accidents are extremely serious. Wasn't that originally one of the arguments for why you should invest in Tesla? Because they will supposedly, one day, have cars that drive themselves safely?

But now that you completely punctured that thought bubble in my head with your incisive comment, I guess they are no big deal. They can all pack it up and liquidate.

What's different about this Tesla factory that people speeding on the highway leading to it are attributable to the factory? I don't see anything different from any other place where people are speeding to get there on time. Put police there. This is not Tesla's fault in any way.

Here in Sweden we solve that kind of problem with speed cameras that issue automatic speeding tickets…

Where I live they had those but the people running the cameras would snap the photos and stack them so you'd get 60 or 90 days of violations and then they would send them in a big stack so you wouldn't know until the last minute you even did anything wrong, and get all 90 at once. There was also the issue of due process, which means a process server ($$$) had to actually serve the person (who would probably hide and not answer the door) as just sending it in the mail isn't legally considered served.

The other issue is for them to mean anything beyond a civil penalty against the car, you need to show who the driver was and give the public a chance to face their accuser. So people just started driving to work with ski masks, etc and if actually caught would demand a representative from the photo company actually show up in court.

In the off chance you actually were found guilty after all that (process server actually got to you, proved it was your face, accuser actually showed up in court, no technicality was found, and on and on) then the city had to spend practically half the fine money on royalty/maintenance fees to the companies running the camera (the city doesn't have the expertise to do all that on their own). You can imagine the anger and resentment that caused amongst the populace about sending their money away to some for-profit black hole (the executives of this company themselves are on record dodging the process servers too lol after being snapped by their own camera).

It is so abused and fucked up system from so many angles at least where I live it was voted out after having been thoroughly tested and tried.

Every single one of these problems is solvable by a society who actually cares to make roads safe.

But fundamentally you just have a bunch of assholes who think arriving literal MINUTES earlier to something is worth putting their own and dozens/hundreds of strangers’ lives at risk.

There are no speed cameras on the highways though. But on principle, Sweden does it best with the cameras. Before the camera, there is warning sign that gives you plenty of time to slow down(unless you are seriously speeding) which makes much more sense than hidden cameras IMHO. It makes people slow down at dangerous spots on the road, which is the whole point with the cameras right?

If only Elon believed in what he says: "Vox Populi, Vox Dei" and dared them to a vote given his past comments [1].

1. https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/3/22959592/elon-musk-tesla-u...

It’s pretty obvious that Elon does not respect votes as he hasn’t stepped down, and is preoccupied with his tweets’ popularity or better the lack thereof.

> i will abide by the results of this poll

> …is preoccupied with his tweets’ popularity or better the lack thereof.

To a pathological degree, ICYMI. https://mashable.com/article/elon-musk-super-bowl-joe-biden-...

"…Musk's cousin, James, sent an internal message on Slack to Twitter's engineers at 2:26AM on Monday morning concerning a "high urgency" situation. The emergency was that Biden's post performed better than Musk's. Around 80 Twitter engineers were brought in to work on the issue. By Monday afternoon, a fix was implemented to the algorithm that allowed Musk's tweets – and only Musk's tweets – to "bypass Twitter’s filters," which in turn "artificially boosted Musk’s tweets by a factor of 1,000," promoting Musk's content in everyone's feed."

It pays to pay attention to the specific wording of his post. He really doesn't want his workers to unionize, and the reason he dared UAW to hold the vote is because he knows that because of historical reasons UAW is really unpopular in Fremont.

In short, Fremont used to be a GM plant and have their own union. When this union was absorbed into UAW, it was fairly contentious and many in Fremont believed that UAW didn't care about auto workers in California. Then very shortly after, UAW negotiated with GM about downsizing, and the end result was that the Fremont plant was shut down. This was seen in Fremont as a total betrayal. Soon after, Tesla bought the plant.

So UAW really isn't liked, and any vote about organizing under them would be a landslide against. A different union might be a lot more successful.

NUMMI was a union plant. UAW office was right across the street.

Not sure I understand what you're saying - are you disagreeing with something the parent said?

Over past year I've watched my partner switch from wanting a Tesla to wanting a Polestar 2. The decision is based entirely on Tesla's brand image and it's things like this and Elon posting on twitter that just keep doing it damage. It's difficult to boycott Amazon but it is not difficult to boycott Tesla, do they not understand their customer base cares about this sort of thing? Or is it not doing actual damage to the brand?

Oh they understand it - you saw the massive price drop right?

For me, Tesla's brand impression is more favorable than Amazon. I don't give either one of them any money though. I would consider buying from Tesla though. This particular news story doesn't strike me as being particularly significant. At least in a way I understand. I have a pretty loose understanding of what union stuff is all about.

Do you also boycott other brands for worse crimes than shitposting on twitter? Is it more important to boycott Tesla because of Elon than it is to boycott Geely, which owns the Polestar brand, which has been linked to forced Uyghur labor in Xinjiang?

https://www.aspi.org.au/report/uyghurs-sale

I think s***posting on Twitter is a huge undersatement, what Elon has done on Twitter is un-ban right-wing and hate speech people. He has made the world significatly more full of hate. That is not s***posting.

The citation on your post about Geely is a "data is based on supplier lists" so I think we can take it from a different perspective:

So what is worse imo? What are we weighing up here? Tesla vs Polestar. Elon making the world more full of hate vs Geely having suppliers on this list. If I had to pick one of those two, it would still easily be Polestar.

No, I do not think I will boycott Geely based on this, I will contact them and see if they can clear their act up. I hope Nintendo and Nike do too on that list. I cannot forgive or get over the damage Elon has done.

> He has made the world significatly more full of hate

This is demonstrably false. Hate speech impressions and the number of tweets containing slurs are lower than they were pre-acquisition. He has actively reduced it. The TwitterSafety account provides this data.

Also if you're upset at Twitter for not censoring perspectives counter to the typical American left, are you also going to boycott Facebook, Youtube, WhatsApp, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc? Virtually all of these platforms host far-right influencers. Are you going to boycott ISPs for providing service to these people? Boycott Apple for selling them iPhones? These companies all have the same choice and ability to refuse services to these people. Why is only Elon the bad guy here?

Also, good to know where you stand. Letting Ben Shapiro post stupid shit on twitter is worse than literal slavery imposed on a group of people for their religious beliefs. Stay classy, HN.

I'm sorry I've no idea who Ben Shapiro is, could you go into a little detail here please? I'm from the UK so I'm not sure what's going on over there, Elon's reach does come here though because Twitter is global.

Edit - I showed my partner your messages and he said it's a moot point because the Tesla doesn't have Car Play, so even if Elon started acting nice he still wouldn't get the Tesla until Car Play is supported. The Polestar 2 does have Car Play.

> Tesla Workers United told News 4 on Thursday that over 30 workers were fired from Gigafactory 2 in Buffalo on Wednesday, after workers attempted to organize earlier this week.

> “I returned to work (from COVID and a bereavement leave), was told I was exceeding expectations and then Wednesday came along,” said organizing committee member Arian Berek in a release. “I strongly feel this is in retaliation to the committee announcement and it’s shameful.”

> Thursday, News 4 reached out again and received a bounce-back email, which said Tesla’s press email inbox is full and cannot currently accept messages.

> which said Tesla’s press email inbox is full

is this even possible in 2023?

You sure could set a mailbox size limit in Exchange environments, though even at small companies Ive set limits of 50gb/mailbox - thousands and thousands of messages.

If it is on-prem, not really. You'd have to intentionally or unintentionally set a restrictive quota on it and I have no idea why you'd do that for a press inbox. There is a user in my org who has a 120GB mailbox because they never delete anything ever. It is annoying to us, but it works just fine.

Source: Exchange on-prem admin. Cloud hosted email is probably less accommodating.

My org only recently upgraded our mailboxes from 1gb. So, yes very much so.

I was having to archive stuff roughly every 3 weeks, it was a complete pain.

My understanding is that Tesla no longer has a Public Relations department[1]... so they may have simply set their inbox size to zero?

[1] https://electrek.co/2020/10/06/tesla-dissolves-pr-department...

Local news - https://www.wgrz.com/article/news/local/tesla-employees-anno...

This guy and his companies keep showing us what a terrible person he is yet people keep buying their cars and the government keeps subsidizing musks companies...

The guy is an asshat. The car ticks the right boxes for people, though. And why would you subject yourself to ant other phone app that barely works?

https://archive.is/E5nQc

Isn't this just blatantly illegal? Not an American, but I was under the impression that it was federally illegal to fire employees for organizing.

That's why you fire them for being 15 seconds late when coming back from break. Or give no reason at all.

Wire tap laws in a workplace setting are absolutely bullshit and intended to shield managers and companies from liability.

Should be exempt if you are recording racial/sexual harassment or illegal labor practice

NY is a one party state.

Right, although apparently you can make more restrictive workplace policies. Recording your employer (without sharing) should be a legal right.

California law bans recording without consent and explicitly says such recordings can’t be used as evidence in court. This applies in all settings except a few very narrow carveouts.

Organizers, say, on a zoom call with anyone in one of the 12 states requiring all parties to consent are committing a crime if they record.

This is one of those cases where some people like protections when they protect people they like and don’t like protections when they apply to people they don’t like.

Yes, I don't like sexual/racial harassment or illegal workplace conduct, so I don't think the laws should apply in these cases.

I don't think I get the point you are trying to make unless you are just describing wiretap laws to me.

Ok let’s turn that around, every other crime should get those protections from wiretapping outside of labor laws and sexual harassment? Why are those topics special?

Seems a stretch to just assume it was union busting without more evidence.

200+ people doing the exact same job in another facility in CA, that was not trying to unionize, were also let go 6 months ago.

Seems clear that Tesla didn't need as many of these people doing this particular job function anymore.

https://archive.is/i6BCD

Yup. Project Vacation is in full swing these days.

"Project Vacation"?

Operation Vacation automation

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4305856-tesla-operation-vac...

Solid approach to data; completely wasted on a product they’ll never achieve…

I won’t weigh into the politics of the situation, but anyone who has their head on straight can see by now that “full self driving” isn’t becoming a reality any time soon. Even if the technology works out somehow, the politics of thing will take decades.

More interesting to me is the lessons the engineers learn there and take with them to other efforts, where success is more possible.

I'd argue it is a stretch to assume it's anything but union busting given the timing, as if the goal is not to disrupt the union formation they'd have every reason to delay to prevent the appearance of it.

The timing of press articles was _entirely_ up to the people claiming to want to unionize. They most likely knew layoffs were coming, announced they wanted to unionize, then when layoff happened (which would likely have happened without the unionization announcement) accused Tesla of union busting.

According to this article, Tesla terminated employees one day after the unionisation campaign was announced. As such, even if the layouts had been planned beforehand, it was entirely Tesla's choice to still go ahead, knowing the impression it'd create. If Tesla didn't intend this to be a union-busting move, the smart move would be to delay. For that reason, coupled with the fact they've been found to illegally fire staff over unionisation efforts before [1] it's very hard to give them any benefit of the doubt. Either it's intentional, or Tesla are being idiots. Or both.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/25/business/musk-labor-board...

The alternative is that anyone can make themselves unfirable by claiming to be making a unionization attempt. That’s a worse outcome than some optics.

The alternative for Tesla would be to not put themselves in a situation where firings like this look inherently suspect because they have a history of attempted union busting, including by illegally firing people.

It's best not to assume. The NLRB is involved and have more information about the situation.

>Seems a stretch to just assume it was union busting without more evidence.

LOL you can't actually be serious?

you make a compelling argument

It's better than being facially stupid

please provide the reporting and analytics and data that tesla uses to make these decisions and provide your analysis on why this isn't a legitimate reduced need for certain job functions

I don't have to prove anything, it's called being reasonable. It's a reasonable assumption to make. It's going to be what they have to rebut in court. Past that you are just being unreasonable, obtuse, and argumentative.

Just based on their responses in this article thread, he's a Tesla apologist, if he doesn't work there, it's impressive volunteed work.

It turns out that they weren't as important of employees after all. Tesla was underpaying them anyway so this is ultimately a good thing for people who were working below market rate because they liked the company.

Not being able to unionize is an aberration of capitalism. In my country unions do exist and albeit being soemwhat outdated now on some fronts, they are the main reason behind huge advancements in worker wellbeing.

As I'm not an expert on American Employment and Labour Union laws, does anyone with more experience know: is this not very likely to cause significant problems for Tesla with the NLRB?

It depends. If they were violating an existing corporate policy and got fired, there won’t be any problems for the company. Likewise if they were recording meetings with participants in California or one of the other states which require all parties to consent to recordings as those are explicitly crimes and Tesla could have the employees charged.

If the policy didn’t already exist there might be problems. You have to be squeaky clean in order to defend your job while trying to unionize in a company unfriendly to the idea.

I was going to post yesterday, jokingly, that this was the likely outcome.

And here we are.

Elon Musk is a small, thin skinned pathetic child.

I won't touch a Tesla or anything else associated with that fool.

Did you see something that said Elon directed these firings?

He owns the company, no?

Meanwhile half of HN happily holds indexed funds with TSLA equity, which makes them literally the owners of these actions.

is there a SPY with some bar to meet for ethics to be included?

That's what the whole ESG kerfuffle has been about. There are some funds that are "socially minded" that try to exclude cigarette manufacturers and other bad things. They're smaller and have a higher expense ratio than VTI.

I'm not an ardent socialist, but seeing this stuff happen time after time, makes me want to take everything the capitalist class has.

It's pretty hard to keep seeing major companies with insane pockets work together against their employees easily rid themselves of employees who want to meet them on a more level playing field by working together.

I am an ardent socialist, and seeing this kind of bullshit happen over and over and over again is how you become one.

These are data labellers... A union would probably not have helped them.

Imagine they all join a union... And they are all very unhappy and vote to go on strike... And they strike for many months...

Tesla will just send their data labelling workload to Mechanical Turk and it'll be done by people in India...

A union only has power if the company is hurt by a strike. And in this case, there is nothing beyond minor inconvenience.

It's still illegal to fire them for unionizing

> Tesla will just send their data labelling workload to Mechanical Turk and it'll be done by people in India...

If this approach is just as good, why not do it in the first place?

At a guess, they were given tax incentives for hiring americans based out of an american office...

This type of work isn't a good fit for being done by americans anyway.

So the workers do have leverage? You're arguing in both directions.

>A union only has power if the company is hurt by a strike. And in this case, there is nothing beyond minor inconvenience.

So they're working in a horrible situation from a job security standpoint, and that should make them less want to organize? What would you suggest they do?

Why are they working at Tesla if they are in a "horrible situation"? There are plenty of other jobs in Buffalo.

Why are they not allowed to try to improve their "horrible" situation.

Corporations are allowed collective action but workers are not, seems kind of untenable.

Unions already tried to kill the auto industry once make sense they would try again in the EV era

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/561/nummi-2015

I don't think they intentionally tried to kill the industry, as it was foreign production didn't have this problem of unions. Also the Japanese during the 70s had a lean six sigma type thing going on.

Little more complicated than Unions I think, that lead to the point we were at.

It just makes it that little harder to respond to market disruption.

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