Sort of... If you are getting unemployment then your past employer notifies the state that you have been recalled (or something similar) they (the state) will deny your claims
Sure, but the reason Tesla can really start is that legally they're essential and there are plenty of other auto manufacturers who are in the same boat. Musk just makes people crazy, so you might as well make the story about him.
"Even if your employer has complied with the state’s requirements for reopening, and any and all government safety regulations, you would have good cause to refuse to return to work if you are at greater personal risk due to higher risk factors as identified by the” California Department of Public Health. These factors include being older than 65, having a weakened immune system or having certain serious chronic health conditions, such as heart disease, lung disease or diabetes."
This seems pretty reasonable to me. Ultimately there are many reasons that lockdowns and blanket bans on assembly and commerce can't continue, aside from the collateral damage and the legal questions, anyone who thinks they're even enforceable beyond a few months lives in a fantasy land. Violations are growing by the day.
If we try to just go back to normal, though, a lot of people are going to get sick and die.
The solution has to be policies which seek to protect people from the virus with minimal collateral damage. This is no different from other spheres of public policy - for example we have speed limits on the road, and we have road deaths. We could lower all speed limits to 5mph and prevent all deaths, but the roads would become practically useless and society would grind to a halt. So we've selected limits that we feel are a reasonable compromise between safety and practicality.
The vast majority of COVID-19 fatalities are people who are over 65 and/or have the mentioned chronic conditions. So it makes sense to do everything we can to protect these people.
As an aside, since cars are pretty dangerous, I think we're very lucky that social media and the 24/7 news cycle didn't exist when they were invented. What with the panic these mediums generate, you have to wonder if cars would have gotten off the ground and become commonplace or if they would have just been panic banned.
I think you're taking exactly the opposite lesson on cars there. They are incredibly dangerous, killing tens of thousands in the US alone each year, yet we're immune to the carnage because it's always been that way. They should have had that kind of scrutiny on them from the beginning.
Agreed, the fact that we ignore so many gruesome vehicle fatalities is doing society no favors. The nation has been designed for cars from the ground up, but if we had been more privy to their risks, perhaps we would have built more pedestrian focused cities instead, and more emphasis on robust mass transit solutions.
Designing cities around cars is a great mistake of urban planning imo. Ideally there should be no motorized vehicles above ground within a city's boundary. The improvements to safety, air quality, and quality of life in general would be immense and would make cities infinitely more livable. There are European cities that have been moving in this direction: https://www.fastcompany.com/90456075/here-are-11-more-neighb....
I'd need a citation, as I do not know what "a lot" is in this context. Greater than 0 is a "lot" in a sense, but I'd like to know if these are actually common.
> What with the panic these mediums generate, you have to wonder if cars would have gotten off the ground and become commonplace or if they would have just been panic banned.
It was opposed by a concerted effort from car companies and other advocates to depict car skeptics as out of touch and paranoid, and to simultaneously lobby for a bunch of new laws around right of way, jaywalking, and so on. It may well be that if YouTube and cable news had existed then, the concerned advocates would have carried the day and North America might have built a robust, high speed rail network instead of the interstates, with every major metro area having the comprehensive regional rail needed to bring commuters in from suburbs without private vehicles.
We can't know exactly what that alternate present would have looked, but there are many for whom it might have been much better (though definitely not car companies or airlines, of course).
I remember an article[0] from mid-March saying Tesla employees could have up to two weeks paid time off if they didn't feel comfortable coming back after the shelter-in-place order was lifted.
Is paid time off not a big thing in the US? I would have thought Tesla would have good employee benefits, or would it not really cover wanting to be off for preventative reasons if they're not currently sick.
I work for a tech company in the UK and they pay up to a full year of full sick pay, then reduced for up to five years. We're covered under that if we're advised to stay at home due to having pre-existing medical conditions or advised to by a doctor, or if showing any symptoms and thus self-isolating.
Arizona, California, Connecticut, DC, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington
> In the US you often get 10-20 sick days per year, not more.
If you get that many in the US, you're probably actually getting "PTO," which combines sick days and paid vacation to make the vacation benefit seem better than it actually is.
For instance, I knew someone who worked for a company literally called Grimco, who only got 10 days PTO per year.
Paid time off/sick leave is already rare enough in the US, I don't think tesla has any incentive to really go above and beyond there. They don't need to attract talent using things like compensation and benefits or showing basic human decency in caring about their health during a pandemic. The cult of personality is really strong around Elon (and that's not a diss in any way, he's so powerfully charismatic and driven that he's willed a rocket company and an electric car company into existence). He's got a natural ability to get some of the best technical talent and financiers to believe in him and his vision and spend ridiculously long hours on their mission of saving the world while they could have far more comfortable jobs elsewhere. Why would you complain about long hours and unsafe conditions when you're boss who is basically a real life iron man (to the extent he was actually in the MCU as a cameo) is sleeping on the floor next to you in the factory? You can get away with an awful lot when you're that charismatic (yes of course he doesn't smooth talk and mostly communicate in hesitation technical snippets and weird tweets, a smooth talking clinton/jobs type wouldn't get the same type of bubble he does). I don't know how long that can be maintained, but he's been at it for decades and there are rockets landing on barges and sleek, fast cars charging in people's garages.
There is not much at the federal level and each state does its own thing. California does it better than most. There is a state disability insurance payed through payroll deductions that give up to 52 weeks of coverage and "provides short-term benefits to eligible workers who have a full or partial loss of wages due to a non-work-related illness, injury, or pregnancy." If you qualify it is 52 weeks of coverage. I believe you would qualify if you actually have COVID19 and have to isolate but I don't they will cover you if you are just scared of getting sick.
Also most people with good paying jobs will additionally have private short term and long term disability coverage through their employer. I know someone who had unbearable back pain who had to quit his job and the private long term insurance will cover him for 20 years till he reaches retirement. And if structured right, there are no taxes on this income.
Lower paying job may not provide the private disability benefits so many rely on the social security long term disability benefit but that is not as good as the private one and they are pretty strict in evaluating.
Unemployment benefits are available not only to people who lost their job, but also to furloughed people, i.e. people who are told by their employer "your services are not needed at this time, and by the way, we aren't able to pay you either, but when we'll need you back, we'll give you a call". Well, now these guys got the call. If they decide to stay at home, should the Government keep paying them unemployment benefits, or not? If yes, then it should be yes, if not, not, but this is Government's problem, not Tesla's problem.
Unemployment isn’t available if you voluntarily leave your job. So the question is whether refusing to go to work when the factory is operating illegally is more like voluntarily quitting or more like being fired.
> “Once you are called back, you will no longer be on furlough so if you choose not to work, it may impact your unemployment benefits as determined by your local government agency — and not by Tesla,” Workman wrote in the email. “We completely respect your decision and will support you, without any penalties from us.”
I feel like this is going to be a common problem as things start to reopen. I hope the state devises a workable solution.
I don't know the details of California's regulations, but if feasible, and if Tesla actually respects and supports these decisions, they should find a way to figure out who wants to be called back and who doesnt and only call back people that are willing and wanting to come back. I don't know if asking first violates any labor laws (I don't know why it would since that's a pretty pro-employee thing, but it might impact the budget and lots of states have very strange regulations like prop 56) but if it doesn't then that would be actually supporting workers.
THIS is why I don't like the idea of states reopening quickly. It puts people who may have elevated risks in a bind - go to work and risk your health or lose your benefits and risk your health.
Which concluded that the title here is misleading. The statement from Tesla is just a legal-speak that they don't know. ...but the reality is that if the state isn't allowing you to report to work, then you can continue to file and collect unemployment.
This is your fake idol - Elon Musk! The guy who was going to colonize Mars is behaving like an infant using recreational drugs for his teething and throwing tantrums... or more like tweetrums! Elon Musk is not a nice guy! He's never been! He's not hero material, as narcissists are no heroes!
The weird part is he found a way to finally be liked by the far-right by acting like a freetard (a pun of "libtard"). He dethroned Trump among Muricans! He's their new idol now - a rebel against the sense of reason!
Stop buying his cars! Tesla is not the only EV company, and glorifying and buying mostly Teslas, you're not doing the market a favor!
51 comments
[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 99.4 ms ] threadIn California, EDD released guidelines today: https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/networth/article/Califo...
"Even if your employer has complied with the state’s requirements for reopening, and any and all government safety regulations, you would have good cause to refuse to return to work if you are at greater personal risk due to higher risk factors as identified by the” California Department of Public Health. These factors include being older than 65, having a weakened immune system or having certain serious chronic health conditions, such as heart disease, lung disease or diabetes."
If we try to just go back to normal, though, a lot of people are going to get sick and die.
The solution has to be policies which seek to protect people from the virus with minimal collateral damage. This is no different from other spheres of public policy - for example we have speed limits on the road, and we have road deaths. We could lower all speed limits to 5mph and prevent all deaths, but the roads would become practically useless and society would grind to a halt. So we've selected limits that we feel are a reasonable compromise between safety and practicality.
The vast majority of COVID-19 fatalities are people who are over 65 and/or have the mentioned chronic conditions. So it makes sense to do everything we can to protect these people.
As an aside, since cars are pretty dangerous, I think we're very lucky that social media and the 24/7 news cycle didn't exist when they were invented. What with the panic these mediums generate, you have to wonder if cars would have gotten off the ground and become commonplace or if they would have just been panic banned.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladislaus_Bortkiewicz
So far the 5-year survival rate for people under 65 is 0%.
Ironically this is happening now with Tesla autopilot:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Autopilot#Incidents
I wonder if these kinds of lists will appear in relation to covid.
They tried: https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/murder-machines/
It was opposed by a concerted effort from car companies and other advocates to depict car skeptics as out of touch and paranoid, and to simultaneously lobby for a bunch of new laws around right of way, jaywalking, and so on. It may well be that if YouTube and cable news had existed then, the concerned advocates would have carried the day and North America might have built a robust, high speed rail network instead of the interstates, with every major metro area having the comprehensive regional rail needed to bring commuters in from suburbs without private vehicles.
We can't know exactly what that alternate present would have looked, but there are many for whom it might have been much better (though definitely not car companies or airlines, of course).
10-15% of US population has diabetes, ~40% have hypertension. The top two chronic conditions related to covid.
workout, eat healthy , take care of yourself = go back to work.
I understood it to be directive for those with health issues in the current pandemic.
Is paid time off not a big thing in the US? I would have thought Tesla would have good employee benefits, or would it not really cover wanting to be off for preventative reasons if they're not currently sick.
I work for a tech company in the UK and they pay up to a full year of full sick pay, then reduced for up to five years. We're covered under that if we're advised to stay at home due to having pre-existing medical conditions or advised to by a doctor, or if showing any symptoms and thus self-isolating.
[0] https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/13/tesla-employees-who-dont-r...
Edit: This is what I have experienced and I meant this as a ridiculously low number. I had no idea that people would get even less.
Rough population count [1] of those states divided by population of 50 states + DC is 0.3032003614019388.
Edit: most of those are also capped at 40 hours a year, which amount to one week maximum sick leave. [2]
[1] Per https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_pop...
[2] https://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/paid-sick..., via https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/03/12/as-coronavi...
If you get that many in the US, you're probably actually getting "PTO," which combines sick days and paid vacation to make the vacation benefit seem better than it actually is.
For instance, I knew someone who worked for a company literally called Grimco, who only got 10 days PTO per year.
Also most people with good paying jobs will additionally have private short term and long term disability coverage through their employer. I know someone who had unbearable back pain who had to quit his job and the private long term insurance will cover him for 20 years till he reaches retirement. And if structured right, there are no taxes on this income.
Lower paying job may not provide the private disability benefits so many rely on the social security long term disability benefit but that is not as good as the private one and they are pretty strict in evaluating.
> “Once you are called back, you will no longer be on furlough so if you choose not to work, it may impact your unemployment benefits as determined by your local government agency — and not by Tesla,” Workman wrote in the email. “We completely respect your decision and will support you, without any penalties from us.”
I feel like this is going to be a common problem as things start to reopen. I hope the state devises a workable solution.
Why is this newsworthy? Why is this even a headline? Pretty low, even for TC.
The weird part is he found a way to finally be liked by the far-right by acting like a freetard (a pun of "libtard"). He dethroned Trump among Muricans! He's their new idol now - a rebel against the sense of reason!
Stop buying his cars! Tesla is not the only EV company, and glorifying and buying mostly Teslas, you're not doing the market a favor!