Tesla Unionization

[mars_or_bust]

Logic is not really enough. You’re up against a sturdy current of Ayn Rand dogma here.

Ayn Rand dogma created the Tesla we have today

Communism/unions/socialism/wokism and similar marxist crap have never created anything but misery for all involved (except for the ruling party/union leadership).

 

[mars_or_bust]

There are rumors going around in Sweden that Tesla has cancelled their agreement to refer customers to the car repair company Werksta that has been in sympathy strike against Tesla and refused to service Tesla cars. This 2 days after Werksta sent an email to their customers that they will no longer be able to service Tesla cars:
View attachment 989292

Not seeing anything official about this yet, just random posters on facebook. But might be an indication of where this is going that the autoshops that refuse to service Tesla in this difficult time will lose future business with Tesla.

Good. Hope these autoshops go bankrupt.

 

[mars_or_bust]

Unions - employees must follow chain of command, no ands ifs or buts
Tesla - managers are there to assist workers, to help them do their work. If a manager is impeding progress, go over their head - per Elon

Unions - this is your job, you don’t ever do anything outside of it, don’t you dare lift a finger to help another or the company as a whole
Tesla - there is no ‘I’ in team, everyone do whatever needs to be done to get the job done even if it means you go work in a pop up tent for a few weeks or help deliver cars at the end of a quarter and you work normally in HR, the cafeteria, on the paint line - doesn’t matter

Unions - the majority want to go on strike so everyone must go on strike
Tesla - if you don’t like working here, you are free to lodge a complaint with HR, quit, sue us, whatever but it’s on you and not anybody or everyone else

Unions - when layoffs happen - those with less seniority go first regardless if they’re a good worker or not
Tesla - layoffs happen to those not needed or less valuable - has nothing to do with how long you’ve been there. Your work speaks for itself and the more invaluable you make yourself, the less likely you are to be on the layoff list

Unions - virtually impossible to fire a person even those with egregious behavior
Tesla - you mess up, you gone

Unions - divides a company - management vs everyone else
Tesla - we’re all in this together, management is hyere to help not hinder

Etc., etc.,

And at end of the day, because of these differences: nonunion Tesla keeps hiring more and more people (over 100 k now), while union GM/Ford keep shrinking, and will eventually bankrupt - but the union leadership does not care - all it cares is milking its members, through mafia style extortion of companies that employ these members.

 

[Mengy]

Werksta that is on sympathy strike is now removed from Tesla's website:

https://www.tesla.com/sv_se/support/body-shop-support

Sometimes, when you play with fire, you just get burned.

 

[EVNow]

"None of this would have been happening if it were the old UAW. Top UAW leaders were caught in very egregious corruption. Thirteen of them went to jail, including two presidents, for embezzlement and other crimes, dealing with the companies in an unprincipled way."

Funny thing is noone mentions that management was bribing them.

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

Ayn Rand dogma created the Tesla we have today

[...] unions/socialism/wokism and similar marxist crap have never created anything but misery for all involved (except for the ruling party/union leadership).

Really?...

Unions, DEMOCRATIC socialism and "wokism" has in large parts CREATED Europe as it is today.

How much has Tesla benefitted from Government loans, tax credits on EV's and regulatory credits?

Where does all the roads come from?

What part does the Internet play in Tesla's business model? Where did the Internet come from?

All the people working at Tesla – where were they born? Where did those hospitals come from?

Wow... Just wow.

 

[jabloomf1230]

People in the US always answer that they love labor unions. But if you ask if they would join one, they invariably say no. That's why union membership pretty much consists of public employees these days. And most of those unions have no legal right to strike.

 

[Krugerrand]

Really?...

Unions, DEMOCRATIC socialism and "wokism" has in large parts CREATED Europe as it is today.

How much has Tesla benefitted from Government loans, tax credits on EV's and regulatory credits?

Where does all the roads come from?

What part does the Internet play in Tesla's business model? Where did the Internet come from?

All the people working at Tesla – where were they born? Where did those hospitals come from?

Wow... Just wow.

You just did exactly what you accused me of;

- complete mischaracterization of reality
- shifted focus to something completely different

For someone claiming to be so supportive of workers and workers’ rights in your country, you sure don’t support or respect the people of your country who willingly chose to apply to work for Tesla and accept jobs at Tesla knowing full well there was no collective agreement.

 

[Mengy]

Really?...

Unions, DEMOCRATIC socialism and "wokism" has in large parts CREATED Europe as it is today.

How much has Tesla benefitted from Government loans, tax credits on EV's and regulatory credits?

Where does all the roads come from?

What part does the Internet play in Tesla's business model? Where did the Internet come from?

All the people working at Tesla – where were they born? Where did those hospitals come from?

Wow... Just wow.

The unions you are applauding, public service unions, are NOT auto unions nor industrial unions. Two very, VERY different environments there.

Can unions be beneficial in certain job environments? Sure, public jobs for one where the unions have regulations and limitations. Are they useful for manufacturing environments? No, historically they are not.

 

[advocate8]

Ayn Rand dogma created the Tesla we have today

Communism/unions/socialism/wokism and similar marxist crap have never created anything but misery for all involved (except for the ruling party/union leadership).

Ayn Rand dogma also had... Ayn Rand living on Social Security in her later life.

 

[Krugerrand]

Funny thing is noone mentions that management was bribing them.

It’s not relevant that’s why nobody mentions it. UAW leaders were corrupt, doesn’t matter how they got there. Their job was always to represent and work on behalf of workers that paid them union dues to do so and they did not. I’ll remind you, because it’s actually relevant, that they embezzled millions of dollars of union fees from workers.

The ‘new’ UAW with ‘new’ management has been resoundingly told by Tesla workers ‘we are not interested in joining you’ on more than one occasion. Yet the president of the UAW, Fain, recently said this publicly about Elon:

We can beat anybody,” Fain said. “It’s gonna come down to the people that work for him deciding if they want their fair share ... or if they want him to fly himself to outer space at their expense.”

Hey, Stupid! Clearly you didn’t get the memo. I look forward to Mr. Fain’s, if he’s even still the UAW’s president in 2028, planned assault on Tesla, Toyota, and Honda to fail and for him to be handed his butt by the employees of those companies yet again.

But back to our current story; we have a union in Sweden that is trying to hurt workers at a company they chose to work for knowing full well it had no collective agreement. Hey, IF Metall buy a clue!

Yes! Absolutely trying to hurt workers by blocking the company (Tesla) they work for from doing business and now encouraging/asking/telling/pick your verb of choice other unions to have their workers and companies to not do business with Tesla, thereby taking away business from those companies too in these stressed economic times, and jeopardizing the existence of the companies, and therefore the jobs of the workers. Brilliant. Are we back in China trying to tell a company it can’t do business in China unless it has a Chinese business partner?

Yes, it is the same. It’s someone trying to tell someone else how they have to conduct and do business. It’s bs all day long, every day, and as controlling as the Chinese government likes to be, someone there took their head out of their butt and gave their brain some oxygen long enough to realize Tesla alone is better for business and their country than no Tesla at all. Precedence set, history made.

I hope Tesla gives the middle finger to every single company, union, and person not minding their own business and overstepping. If the employees of Tesla Sweden wanted a collective agreement they’d have not applied for a job nor taken a job at Tesla to begin with OR organized themselves and gone to Tesla management (which by all accounts they did not) because that’s what a logical, reasonable and intelligent person would have done. Tesla, by its nature, attracts and hires the best and smartest people in the world, unless someone wants to suggest this particular group of Swedish people are particularly dumb.

 

[Krugerrand]

Ayn Rand dogma also had... Ayn Rand living on Social Security in her later life.

She was forced to pay into the system, she’s got every right to get it back out.

And no, that’s not a suggestion that Social Security isn’t a good idea or beneficial to people. It’s simply a fact.

 

[MP3Mike]

But back to our current story; we have a union in Sweden that is trying to hurt workers at a company they chose to work for knowing full well it had no collective agreement. Hey, IF Metall buy a clue!

They aren't only trying to hurt their own workers, they are trying to hurt Tesla owners. (By not repairing Tesla vehicles or installing/repairing charging for Teslas. And given that Tesla Superchargers there tend to be open to all vehicles, actually hurting all EV drivers.)

 

[samppa]

All this IF Metal strike makes me wonder if Tesla workers even want to be in the union.. or is it just the union that demands a collective agreement.

I mean, has anybody actually asked Tesla employees?

 

[betstarship]

I did some research on pros/cons of unions:

They might improve benefits, but they also create a substrate of molasses to promoting great employees and getting rid of bad employees. The key benefit to them, in essence, is better benefits and wages. Just pay people what they deserve and promote aggressively, no?

 

[Krugerrand]

All this IF Metal strike makes me wonder if Tesla workers even want to be in the union.. or is it just the union that demands a collective agreement.

I mean, has anybody actually asked Tesla employees?

At least one employee spoke publicly and said that he didn’t want a collective agreement and worried that having one would lead to lower pay. He claimed he was already making more than minimum.

Additionally, some/many/most? employees have continued to show up for work at Tesla during these strike actions and new people have showed up to work in place of those who’ve chosen to represent the union. That alone should be proof enough they aren’t interested as a whole and that there are other people willing to work at Tesla that previously didn’t - if a person wasn’t already clued in that employees were not interested based on them applying for and accepting jobs in the first place with no signed collective agreement.

By all reports, the union started this not the employees. I hope Tesla finishes it with an exclamation point, continuing to allow people to decide for themselves if they want to work at Tesla or not, as it stands - culture, mission, pace, drive, innovation - not as how a union wants it to be.

The union and Tesla met Oct 24th with a mediator and I believe they met again very recently and Tesla’s stance is that what the union wants is not conducive to Tesla’s business culture.

I would love to know what the union SPECIFICALLY wants put in the agreement. So far they keep harping on ‘just wanting to ensure’ fair wages, good working conditions but to date there’s been zero proof employees aren’t already receiving fair wages and aren’t content with working conditions. Show me the proof employees are being underpaid or mistreated and I’ll support the union’s actions. Until then I’ll continue to assume the workers aren’t interested because of their actions to date over the past 6 years or whatever.

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

You just did exactly what you accused me of;

- complete mischaracterization of reality
- shifted focus to something completely different

For someone claiming to be so supportive of workers and workers’ rights in your country, you sure don’t support or respect the people of your country who willingly chose to apply to work for Tesla and accept jobs at Tesla knowing full well there was no collective agreement.

mars_or_bust made a claim about unions and "wokism". I refuted that claim.

And you apparently don't know how the labour market works in Sweden.

 

[Mengy]

I would love to know what the union SPECIFICALLY wants put in the agreement.

The only thing most unions want is more members, which equates to more union dues, which makes the union larger, wealthier, and more powerful so they can go after other businesses and gain MORE members to continue the cycle. Union management will often play on the heartstrings of employees and whisper sweet things into their ears to accomplish this one overarching goal.

In modern times unions are largely not needed due to better regulations and a more prolific job market, particularly in the US, but power is rarely relegated or let go of.

 

[Krugerrand]

I did some research on pros/cons of unions:

They might improve benefits, but they also create a substrate of molasses to promoting great employees and getting rid of bad employees. The key benefit to them, in essence, is better benefits and wages.

Right.

Just pay people what they deserve and promote aggressively, no?

Exactly what Tesla does.

People and organizations have been trying to hamstring Tesla since it became apparent they were going to succeed.

 

[johnnycnote]

From what I've experienced having worked for DHL for a brief stint, the good employees are held back and bad employees get to retire while contributing the absolute bare minimum to the well being of the company. I see no benefit from Tesla becoming an union shop, except that maybe the gov would get off Tesla's back a bit