also, not trying to be on Musk side, of course he has made some embarrassing and stupid tweets. But if you created a letter that your CEO's public comment is "frequent source of embarrassment", won't you get fired in any other company??
in meta, someone even got fired for being a youtuber, criticising the CEO and spreading the letter is worse right??
- "7. About June 15, 2022, Respondent, by Gwynne Shotwell, through an email unlawfully restricted employees from distributing the Open Letter."
- "11. About June 16, 2022, Respondent, by Gwynne Shotwell, in an email to all employees announced that employees had been discharged for their involvement in the Open Letter."
https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/CPT.3... (pdf)
“Yo, stop bringing politics to work, your job is to make flight controls - not criticize the owners of the company outside of work. You’re being disruptive - stop.”
Idk, Musks behavior is what it is, idk why these employees thought it was their role within the company to continue to speak out.
So companies now own 24 hours of their employees' day?
The open letter used work resources and hours to go after what their boss did outside of work. Worse, after being told to stop, they continued.
You might find more sympathy for your point of view if it were not enforced as criminally illegal behavior. Workers don't need to respect an illegal order just because it comes from their master - it's a free country with protected categories of speech.
Which part of the open letter discusses working conditions?[1] It's about how they don't want to work for a company owned by a person expressing their opinion in the public sphere because it causes embarrassment in their own social spheres being voluntarily associated with that.
The court case is now about them demanding to have their jobs reinstated to a company owned by that exact same person where absolutely nothing has changed.
I agree that workers should have freedom of speech, but the owner of the company they work for also has that same right, a right they oppose and which seems to be the root of all their problems leading to this case.
Freedom of speech was never freedom from consequences was it.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/16/23170228/spacex-elon-musk...
The sections regarding unacceptable behavior seem like potential candidates:
> SpaceX’s current systems and culture do not live up to its stated values, as many employees continue to experience unequal enforcement of our oft-repeated “No Asshole” and “Zero Tolerance” policies. This must change.
> [snip]
> Define and uniformly respond to all forms of unacceptable behavior. Clearly define what exactly is intended by SpaceX’s “no-asshole” and “zero tolerance” policies and enforce them consistently. SpaceX must establish safe avenues for reporting and uphold clear repercussions for all unacceptable behavior, whether from the CEO or an employee starting their first day.
What's your opinion? Do you allow ceos to have private lives?
I’ll leave the specifics of the law and this case to the authorities, but in principle it’s not unreasonable for an employer to expect discretion in public about said employer. It’s a far cry from “owning” that time and not in principle even determining what the discourse otherwise involves.
If I understand correctly they were actually fired for internal discussions and petitioning within the company complaining about Musk's behavior. This wasn't an engineer going on CNN and bashing Elon or SpaceX, these folks were advocating internally for changes in terms of things they saw affecting their jobs and the company (which is why the NLRB can be involved here, since that is a form of organizing activity)
I have received some comments about criticism of the company's vendors on LinkedIn in the past. Note: Not even clients or our company itself! Just vendors, companies that sell stuff to us. Unfortunately some entanglement is always happening.
But to fire someone over it and claim this publicly is bringing it out in the open.
In a similar vein, the employees don't own their position at the company. Employment arrangements are made through mutual agreements.
If the company says something an employee doesn't like, the employee is free to leave.
If the employee says something the company doesn't like, the company is free to dismiss the employee.
It's astounding that the NRLB is defending an insubordination termination after accusations were made against the executive. This is pretty obviously a political prosecution and the end result won't be good for anyone.
> If the company says something an employee doesn't like, the employee is free to leave.
> If the employee says something the company doesn't like, the company is free to dismiss the employee.
If an employee loses their job they may not be able to pay rent or buy groceries. If SpaceX fires an employee they have 10,000+ that can pick up the slack. Similarly, companies often have large legal teams on retainer whereas getting legal repression can be difficult for individuals.
It's not an equal playing field, hence why workers protections are important.
That's why unemployment is important.
None of these factors prevent someone from being let go without notice. Those points aren't germane to whether someone can be laid off. Criticizing the CEO isn't a protected activity in any event.
Except they are not, even in the US with its meagre employee protections there are entire classes of protected activity that you cannot be fired for, and discussing your working conditions while at work(and being critical of them) is protected.
>>This is pretty obviously a political prosecution
Going after the people who break the law is political now? Fascinating. What's next, we let burglars walk free if they are of a specific political belief?
Discussing working conditions is unrelated to criticizing the CEO.
> Going after the people who break the law is political now?
They didn't break the law. Wait and see.
Come on, don't be ridiculous. The NLRB is operating a farce with this suit. They're used to companies negotiating and not fighting. Their position here is untenable.
Maybe - I guess the courts will have to decide. But courts also regularly rule that complaining about you boss isn't a valid reason for dismissal - the only difference here is whether doing it on such a wide scale and in this way is or isn't acceptable.
I wouldn't call it a farce at all - I think neither one of us can predict what the court will rule here.
It is undoubtedly a farce.
It seems like the NLRB disagrees with you.
I could also say “shut up your job is to make the stock go up, this isn’t twitter tea party time” to the owner
In fact if I said that to our customers I would probably be fired.
At a public event. On camera.
And of course some higher up dismissing it and telling them to stop complaining just makes it worse.
[edit - but in this case looks very much female]
And the root means "white", which if it's going to be coded as one sex or the other is again always going to be female.
I would never have expected the name to be masculine. I'm surprised to see males reach 50%. (Actually, in the Wikipedia list, 55%.)
(Looking into it a little farther, the same name in Irish appears to be Finn, a legendary (male) hero. Probably relevant.)
That said as history has shown over and over I would not put it past people doing illegal things to document the illegal things they are doing.