One day when you have the time, feel free to explain what the problem is with unionized labor in the USA.
To me it seems pretty far down the list of challenges the home country of Tesla faces.
Unions tended to spring up in industries where workers were frequently abused by management and unhealthy, long standing wars between the two were the norm for quite some time. This is a story about the NUMMI plant which is now the Tesla factory:
NUMMI 2015
It talks about the changes Toyota brought in culture that put management and workers on the same side. In it's previous incarnation as a GM plant, the battles between management and the union was constant.
Most Japanese and some European auto makers now build cars in the US. Most of those plants are not unionized and the workers tend to get along better with management, so they get about the work of making cars without a lot of drama.
If management can't treat their workers with respect and pay them a reasonable income, then I do think unions are necessary, but if the workers are being treated decently by the company, I think a union is an unnecessary level of bureaucracy. When I worked at Boeing, the engineers had a union as well as a separate one for the production workers. Management used the union as an excuse to pay poor salaries compared to the rest of the industry and generally abuse their engineers. It was my first job out of college and I knew something was wrong, but quickly saw the difference when I started contracting after leaving Boeing. I saw how a lot of companies worked and learned a lot about how to treat employees well vs how to ruin morale and make it more difficult to turn out a good product.
The company I work for now is the best run I've seen. They are a small test instrument company in the integrated circuits field. Everyone from management to the techs seem pretty happy. I've made more per hour, but I'm pretty happy there.
I've seen companies that should have a union to protect people from bad management (or alternatively the top management should be put out to pasture and some people who understand how to treat people well should take their place) and I've seen places that had unions that were busy trying to justify their existence in an otherwise decent work environment.
I know Tesla expects a lot from every single person in the company, but upper management aren't sitting back collecting big paychecks, they work harder than anyone else. I don't know how the line workers are treated compared to other car companies, but I suspect they are treated more like techs in the better run Silicon Valley companies where everyone has a voice and people are respected. If that is the case, I think the UAW should just keep their nose out of Tesla's business. I could be wrong and Tesla workers might be abused, though I've never heard a hint of that.
As for union support of Democrats. The Democrats have traditionally been supported by unions, but American unions are much weaker than they used to be and are much less of an influence in American politics. In the 50s and 60s, almost 1/3 of American workers were in a union, but today it's closer to 10%. Additionally because of the weird patterns of this election, a lot of union workers favor Donald Trump this time around.
In 1980 Reagan courted working class white Democrats who did vote for him and that population has leaned Republican since. States like West Virginia still have more Democrats than Republicans, but they tend to vote Republican in presidential election years. When they do elect Democrats, they tend to be very conservative.
Unions are sometimes flank support for Democrats, but they aren't a critical part of the strategy anymore. One of the Democrats biggest sources of funding comes from high tech areas where union employment is low. Another big source of money is Hollywood, which is heavily unionized.
