Turns out buckets of money speak the loudest. It's wildly disenfranchising when things like the wife of a supreme court justice getting paid $10M by law firms who have cases in front of the court don't go severely punished.
Maybe opens a door for a civil suit for the worker that was fired? Having a document in hand where the NLRB is saying some of the events associated with your firing were illegal probably helps.
People always bring up San Francisco in these arguments as some sort of "gotcha", even though they know full well that it is an extreme outlier for many reasons.
I was referring to GP's claim that they "hate government". Believing that the federal government has evolved beyond what the Constitution legally permits and working to make it smaller isn't the same thing as hatefully burning it all down, which was the implication I took out of their comment.
Conveniently, Republicans aren't "working to make it smaller" and are "hatefully burning it all down" as seen in their constant debt limit antics, their lack of any cohesive platform, Grover Norquist's comments about drowning the government in a bathtub, their abuse of the filibuster to block anything at all from passing rather than working on compromise, and many more examples.
Hate is maybe too emotional a word but your entire comment is just another way of saying “they don’t like and wish to dismantle some parts of government,” which is not substantially different in practice.
The thrust of GP’s claim is: you elect people who wish to dismantle government and you get a dysfunctional government.
Obama appointed more federal judges than Bush: https://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/barack-obama-george-w... (As of April 2014: “Over the course of his presidency so far, Obama has nominated 301 judges and gotten 237 confirmed. By this point in his presidency, Bush had nominated 267 judges and had 234 of them confirmed.”).
Remember that Democrats controlled the Senate for all but the last two years of the Obama presidency. Republicans weren’t in much of a position to block his judicial appointments.
There is of course Garland, a rare show of GOP competence. But even for the Supreme Court judicial appointments are contentious. Kennedy was Reagan’s third pick for that seat. He went on to be a liberal squish that voted to uphold Roe, etc.
I would bet that if the filibuster could be depended on to prevent movement on these issues, you wouldn’t see close to $15 billion going into federal election campaigns.
Anyway, McConnell successfully blocked pretty much all Obama lower court judge appointments, causing huge huge backlogs in the justice system nationwide and allowing GOP to later install people who are e.g. trying to make the abortion pill illegal.
Our government HAS been changing pretty radically deep down in the bureaucracy. The justice system and election boards are extremely ripe for non-filibuster-able overhaul.
You don’t have to make things up. You can just look at agency budgets to see if any GOP president was able to make meaningful cuts in the federal bureaucracy. Remember that democrats controlled the House through Reagan’s entire presidency.
The GOP did succeed in overturning Roe. Overturning a precedent that was baseless to begin with and which by the end Democrats wouldn’t even defend on the merits isn’t exactly what I’d call a major victory.
Is budget size the singular metric by which government power and capability is measured?
Lack of success (and, frankly, probably authentic desire) in one dimension is not evidence of lack of success or desire in another dimension. Government power is not as simple as “more dollar = more powerful.”
Why would they have a “lack of authentic desire?” Over 90% of federal employees are democrats: https://www.govexec.com/pay-benefits/2016/10/federal-employe.... These are people who (deeply) believe in the missions of these agencies. If democrats continue to control agencies whose budgets are undiminished, what explains the “lack of success” that you assert exists?
It’s like blaming crime waves on “defund the police.” There are discrete measures you can point to that were adopted, like bail reform, that has had some effect. But in general, it was more rhetoric than something which actually happened.
“Lack of authentic desire” is referring to the GOP’s lack of authentic desire to reduce government spending. They wish to disrupt Dem agendas and to prevent money from going to Dem areas (made abhorrently obvious every single time a disaster strikes a blue area), but they’re not all that interested in reducing spending itself beyond paying lip service — so no, you wouldn’t expect to see budgets to go down. This doesn’t mean govt capability is left untouched though, because capability is not derived monocausally from budget.
Republicans have huge incentives to cut the budgets of these agencies. Again, 90% of the federal bureaucracy is democrats, many are members of the federal employees union, etc. Why wouldn’t republicans want to cut those budgets?
But they have been unable to do so. So what’s your theory of causation for why is agencies are ineffective?
Wow, now that is a shocking (and revealing) argument. Dismantle government not because you hate government, not because you think it has overreached, not because you think it’s ineffective, but to own the libs. And by own the libs you don’t even mean to disrupt their agenda, but just to put libs out of work. Do you hear yourself?
I never said agencies are ineffective, I said that the lack of reduced budgets is not evidence of much of anything.
I’m just responding to your theory that republicans don’t have an “authentic desire” to reduce agency funding—even if you assume they have some hidden political motive that’s different from what they say, what possible reason do they have for not wanting to cut agency funding?
You did say agencies were ineffective, because republicans had made them ineffective. I’m asking you to offer a theory of how that could be the case. Their budgets are undiminished, and they’re run by democrats who believe in the agencies’ missions.
Because federal programs are actually very popular among the people who depend on them (e.g. get your government hands off my Medicare)? They do like holding budgets hostage though to get policy concessions, it’s not some secret motive, it happens literally every budget cycle.
I did not say agencies are ineffective. I said GOP tries to dismantle federal agencies and insofar as they succeed, it yields dysfunction, which is of course the purpose of dismantling them (so it’s not bad faith). But this has almost nothing to do with saving money, as evidenced by the fact that GOP does not actually reduce budgets when they have the ability to.
So agencies are dysfunctional, but not ineffective. And that dysfunction is caused by the GOP “trying to dismantle” agencies—but not by reducing their budgets. (How? When did the GOP have any opportunity to reduce any agency budget meaningfully?)
Also, entitlements like Social Security are an entirely separate category of spending, subject to different rules. That’s not what we’re talking about here.
Since both parties have a track record of increasing the size and scope of government in most measurable ways I can think of, I’m not even sure which half you’re talking about!
This conflict appears to be a single manager who told people not to complain about new people being hired at higher rates or to discuss wages, in conflict with Tesla's own policies on the matter. I would probably expect them just to fire that manager and move on, though it's possible a few individual employees would have some sort of claim.
> The same supervisor also told employees in the meeting not to complain "about pay or any other issues" to anyone higher than the regional manager.
The "or any other issues" is extremely broad, and seems reckless. When an employee then tried to _internally_ escalate a concern, that employee was suspended and fired. A minimal slap on the wrist means that Tesla is likely to continue to suppress discussions of wages or workplace conditions, which sucks for workers -- but if the message coming out of this is that escalating _any_ concern above local management is likely to get you fired, I wonder what other kinds of issues will go unaddressed? Workplace safety issues? _Product_ safety issues? Would some of the quality control issues that were in the press some time ago have been more quickly addressed if internal communication didn't put people at risk of being fired?
An organization in which people cannot honestly escalate concerns _internally_ is dysfunctional, and has the potential to create harms for customers and shareholders in addition to employees.
Oh, it's definitely harmful to have a manager saying things like that. Fortunately, this story seems to be about precisely one person. I'd be surprised if they didn't give this guy the boot.
...and they had to put up posters outlining worker rights.
Almost 100% of the comments in this thread seem to gloss over the fact that this lawsuit was due to the actions of one manager in an autobody store. And his actions were counter to Tesla's official policy which clearly states that it is acceptable to discuss salary. Based on the comments alone you'd think the article was about a class action suit.
Why extrapolate the actions of one person to those of the entire organization?
Go look at the job board on the Tesla website. Their salaries and benefits look great to me.
To Musk haters, any bit of news concerning Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter, etc. is just waiting to be spun into a negative headline that can then be an excuse to whine about him. Somehow the smear campaign against him seems to be more effective than most in shaping opinion in the tech sphere. I've noticed coworkers whom I thought were reasonable rational people turn into playground-bully types since the Twitter acquisition, bringing him up in work-related chatrooms just to insult him, sharing hit pieces, memes and tweets with the same intent, etc. Others seem afraid of getting cancelled for praising anything he does, and preface any positive or neutral statement about him with "I think he's a <some negative trait>, but...".
I'm not a musk hater because of this sort of thing, I'm a musk hater because of Elon's own words and actions which consistently show him to be a shit person.
Respectfully, not everything that involves Tesla can be reduced to love or hate for Elon Musk. In fact, my original post isn't even about Tesla - just laws about worker's rights.
You're right, it isn't directly relevant to your post, but other top-level comments were making snide remarks about Elon Musk, and I ended up conflating them when replying. The larger point that I forgot to make is that publications are quick to publish hit pieces and negative headlines about anything Elon Musk has touched. And since most people don't read past the headline (as pointed out by the comment I initially responded to) and are eager to have another excuse to complain about Elon Musk, they are often misrepresented and repeated without context by the haters, and it's hard to have a good faith discussion about anything connected to him.
As with so many things recently, I went from a Musk "hater" - maybe "detractor" - five years ago, to finding myself defending him now, without really changing my position on him, due to the major change in popular opinion, for silly idolatry to religious hatred.
> And his actions were counter to Tesla's official policy which clearly states that it is acceptable to discuss salary.
If managers are not following the policy, and leadership doesn't enforce the policy on the managers, the policy may as well not exist.
> Why extrapolate the actions of one person to those of the entire organization?
An employee was suspended and fired for talking about their salary, and for attempting to talk to the manager's manager. This kind of activity doesn't generally happen without the leadership chain being aware. It's a part of their job description to be aware. They, and/or HR, should have shut that shit down.
They didn't. Tesla should be held accountable, not given a softly spoken warning. Especially since it's not the first time the NLRB has had to point out to Tesla that they're breaking the law.
> Go look at the job board on the Tesla website. Their salaries and benefits look great to me.
> this lawsuit was due to the actions of one manager in an autobody store.
There are two named people who violated labor law, according to to the judge. They are Andre Ayala (manager) and Cedric Leith (associate manager). Quoting from "Legal Analysis", "The Section 8(A)(1) Violations" on p 14:
] During an all-hands shop meeting around mid-December, Ayala violated Section 8(a)(1)
by instructing employees not to discuss their pay rates or the newly hired employees.
] After picking up his tools and turning to leave, Leith told him, "If I were you, I wouldn't talk to anybody." In the circumstances, Leith’s statement also violated Section 8(a)(1).
The facility has "approximately 25 employees, including 22 collision technicians", so it's not like there's much other local management.
Further, Tesla's organizational response was judged to be inadequate:
] Its attempted repudiation of Ayala’s statement regarding pay was timely since it was disseminated on June 13 - a little over a month after it first learned of the Region’s investigation regarding the statement and four days after the amended charge issued on June 9. However, the notice was deficient it all other respects.
Yeah, I’ll say that I have grown tired of the default Tesla hate position on HN. Did the average age of HN posters drop to emotional 15 years old readers?
To me, this is the scariest part of Musk's desire to colonize Mars. With such disregard for workers rights, outside of global jurisdiction, what can we expect? Dystopian sci-fi has explored this thoroughly, well-justified looking back at human history: capitalists can be trusted to exploit people to the fullest extent that they are allowed, and Mars is an explicitly rules-free zone.
This comment is operating under two assumptions: that Mars colonization will occur within his lifetime; and that permanent settlement will be established without applying any legal framework to it. Even sci-fi writers would tell you both these things are highly unlikely.
I assume nothing. Whether or not Musk succeeds, it is worth discussing probable outcomes. I am commenting on the current legal framework. I think that your view that a legal framework will exist before colonization (permanent or disastrously temporary) occurs is quite optimistic. I will remain pessimistic about the legal situation until a legal framework exists to prevent human rights abuses in space, with sharp enough teeth to actually discourage abuses. As we see here, even when laws exist, penalties are rarely sufficient.
Even if specific laws aren’t established along with or prior to settlement (which I doubt), it’s not true that Mars is “an explicitly rules-free zone“. Existing Earth laws would still apply:
Musk has detailed the plan he envisions for the pioneers/settlers, and it's essentially indentured. Whether it happens or not, Musk certainly has a pretty questionable plan for it.
I guess there's a better word for it than "detailed". As a non-native speaker I was under the impression there's a difference between "detailed a plan" and "details of a plan". In this case I simply used it to explain that he had specified his intentions on that front.
Seems like he was just throwing out an idea for how people could fund trips. I think it’s a pretty big stretch to say his plan is to put people into servitude on Mars.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 96.7 ms ] threadJesus. Can someone explain how worker’s rights laws became so toothless?
The thrust of GP’s claim is: you elect people who wish to dismantle government and you get a dysfunctional government.
Remember that Democrats controlled the Senate for all but the last two years of the Obama presidency. Republicans weren’t in much of a position to block his judicial appointments.
There is of course Garland, a rare show of GOP competence. But even for the Supreme Court judicial appointments are contentious. Kennedy was Reagan’s third pick for that seat. He went on to be a liberal squish that voted to uphold Roe, etc.
Anyway, McConnell successfully blocked pretty much all Obama lower court judge appointments, causing huge huge backlogs in the justice system nationwide and allowing GOP to later install people who are e.g. trying to make the abortion pill illegal.
Our government HAS been changing pretty radically deep down in the bureaucracy. The justice system and election boards are extremely ripe for non-filibuster-able overhaul.
The GOP did succeed in overturning Roe. Overturning a precedent that was baseless to begin with and which by the end Democrats wouldn’t even defend on the merits isn’t exactly what I’d call a major victory.
Lack of success (and, frankly, probably authentic desire) in one dimension is not evidence of lack of success or desire in another dimension. Government power is not as simple as “more dollar = more powerful.”
https://youtu.be/mtPgUrVPXeI
It’s like blaming crime waves on “defund the police.” There are discrete measures you can point to that were adopted, like bail reform, that has had some effect. But in general, it was more rhetoric than something which actually happened.
But they have been unable to do so. So what’s your theory of causation for why is agencies are ineffective?
I never said agencies are ineffective, I said that the lack of reduced budgets is not evidence of much of anything.
You did say agencies were ineffective, because republicans had made them ineffective. I’m asking you to offer a theory of how that could be the case. Their budgets are undiminished, and they’re run by democrats who believe in the agencies’ missions.
I did not say agencies are ineffective. I said GOP tries to dismantle federal agencies and insofar as they succeed, it yields dysfunction, which is of course the purpose of dismantling them (so it’s not bad faith). But this has almost nothing to do with saving money, as evidenced by the fact that GOP does not actually reduce budgets when they have the ability to.
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/the-supreme-court...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/08/us/politics/trump-asylum-...
Also, entitlements like Social Security are an entirely separate category of spending, subject to different rules. That’s not what we’re talking about here.
One more lane argument level
The "or any other issues" is extremely broad, and seems reckless. When an employee then tried to _internally_ escalate a concern, that employee was suspended and fired. A minimal slap on the wrist means that Tesla is likely to continue to suppress discussions of wages or workplace conditions, which sucks for workers -- but if the message coming out of this is that escalating _any_ concern above local management is likely to get you fired, I wonder what other kinds of issues will go unaddressed? Workplace safety issues? _Product_ safety issues? Would some of the quality control issues that were in the press some time ago have been more quickly addressed if internal communication didn't put people at risk of being fired?
An organization in which people cannot honestly escalate concerns _internally_ is dysfunctional, and has the potential to create harms for customers and shareholders in addition to employees.
HR should probably be more on the ball too. And implemented policies/procedures.
There's never just one person who messes up. Kinda like how it's never just the Junior Dev's fault when they delete the production database.
Almost 100% of the comments in this thread seem to gloss over the fact that this lawsuit was due to the actions of one manager in an autobody store. And his actions were counter to Tesla's official policy which clearly states that it is acceptable to discuss salary. Based on the comments alone you'd think the article was about a class action suit.
Why extrapolate the actions of one person to those of the entire organization?
Go look at the job board on the Tesla website. Their salaries and benefits look great to me.
If managers are not following the policy, and leadership doesn't enforce the policy on the managers, the policy may as well not exist.
> Why extrapolate the actions of one person to those of the entire organization?
An employee was suspended and fired for talking about their salary, and for attempting to talk to the manager's manager. This kind of activity doesn't generally happen without the leadership chain being aware. It's a part of their job description to be aware. They, and/or HR, should have shut that shit down.
They didn't. Tesla should be held accountable, not given a softly spoken warning. Especially since it's not the first time the NLRB has had to point out to Tesla that they're breaking the law.
> Go look at the job board on the Tesla website. Their salaries and benefits look great to me.
Completely unrelated.
There are two named people who violated labor law, according to to the judge. They are Andre Ayala (manager) and Cedric Leith (associate manager). Quoting from "Legal Analysis", "The Section 8(A)(1) Violations" on p 14:
] During an all-hands shop meeting around mid-December, Ayala violated Section 8(a)(1) by instructing employees not to discuss their pay rates or the newly hired employees.
] After picking up his tools and turning to leave, Leith told him, "If I were you, I wouldn't talk to anybody." In the circumstances, Leith’s statement also violated Section 8(a)(1).
The facility has "approximately 25 employees, including 22 collision technicians", so it's not like there's much other local management.
Further, Tesla's organizational response was judged to be inadequate:
] Its attempted repudiation of Ayala’s statement regarding pay was timely since it was disseminated on June 13 - a little over a month after it first learned of the Region’s investigation regarding the statement and four days after the amended charge issued on June 9. However, the notice was deficient it all other respects.
followed by three points where it was deficient.
https://2009-2017.state.gov/t/isn/5181.htm
Not much sense getting scared about fantasy scenarios. Nobody is seriously working on a Mars colony, it's not happening anytime soon, if ever.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1217991853615677440
At times, it feels like we're cruising for a bruising but natural selection seems to be the only solution we can agree on.