Tesla has now fired dozens of employees in Buffalo New York,
specifically, just one day after workers at that
specific facility announced their intention to unionize.
Now, the workers have filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board,
and considering the National Labor Relations Board is much better under
the Biden administration, relative to other administrations,
they might have a shot at just this here, we'll see.
But at the same time, Tesla is also voluntarily recalling more than
360,000 cars that were marketed as full self-driving vehicles
because it turns out they're not full self driving vehicles.
We'll get to those details in a moment.
But before we do hear the details on the firings.
In a filing with the United States National Labor Relations Board,
the union Workers United accused Tesla of illegally terminating the employees
in retaliation for union activity and to discourage union activity.
The union asked the labor board to seek a federal court injunction to prevent
irreparable destruction of employee rights resulting from Tesla's unlawful conduct.
Now, workers United successfully organized hundreds of Starbucks workers or
hundreds of Starbucks stores just last year.
So, they've been down this road before,
they have successfully filed complaints against Starbucks with the NLRB.
Now an organizing committee of 25 employees who label data for Tesla's
autopilot system, sent an email to Musk early Tuesday morning of this week with
their intention to unionize and surprise, surprise, then a bunch of them got fired.
Now several of the terminated employees had been involved in labor discussions and
at least one of them was actually a member of the organizing committee.
Now one union united worker's organizer told Bloomberg this,
this is a form of collective retaliation against the group of workers that
started this organizing effort.
The terminations are designed to terrify everyone about potential
consequences of them organizing as well as to attempt to call the herd.
Now real quick, just a refresher on what the workers wanted to unionize for.
These are individuals who analyze the autopilot systems on these vehicles.
An incredibly important job.
They were paid $19 an hour for this incredibly important job.
Now, compare that pay to what Tesla charges for their vehicles and
how much money they bring in.
Aside from that, they wanted to be able to take some time off their burnt out
overworked, which probably doesn't bode well for workers who are tasked with
an incredibly important job having to do with the autopilot system.
And then the other thing is they're all being surveilled, right?
So there's software implemented on the computers that they're using on
a regular basis, that keeps track of their keystrokes to make sure they're
constantly working, and that they don't take breaks.
And so they wanna unionize in order to change the working conditions in addition
to the pay, Jake.
>> So, in this case, the workers explained why the layoffs were so extraordinary.
Different than other layoffs.
And it's a very compelling case, right?
So they announced that you're gonna do a union and
then all of a sudden mass layoff of those specific people,
including a couple others, but mainly targeting them, it appears.
It's not that subtle.
But that's the thing about Elon Musk, he's not trying to be subtle,
he's trying to be the opposite.
In fact, let me tell you about another case.
In a bipartisan group of U.S. Labor board members ruled in 2021,
remember bipartisan, Republicans love Elon Musk now.
But even the Republicans were like, okay said that Tesla repeatedly violated
federal law on Fremont, including by quote,
coercively interrogating union supporters and firing one because of his activism.
Tesla's of course denied wrongdoing is appealing that ruling.
And so that, by the way,
even that last statement gives you a sense of why this is happening.
Moscow's seems to have made the decision.
Just fire them, fire, and fire, and fire, and violate whatever you gotta do,
it doesn't matter we have a ton of lawyers,
will just drag it out in the courts, right?
And so, and the amount of money that we pay to the lawyers will be less than we
would pay to the workers if they were unionized and actually had leverage and
power and earn what they're actually supposed to earn and can earn for
what we charge, right?
So that's just a math calculation that he did.
>> That's right. >> So
it appears he's screwing over these workers very much on purpose.
>> Right, and I mean, he has made his position on organized labor clear over,
and over, and over again.
He's against unionized workers.
He has said as much.
He has made it clear that he'll, he's just not in favor of it.
And we all know why that is, right?
Especially with a company like Tesla,
workers unionizing means that they have a seat at the table.
They're able to negotiate their pay, their working conditions, and
how some of those profits are distributed within that company.
And he's not in favor of that.
Now, at the same time again, I want to reiterate,
when it comes to something that Elon Musk really wants to market his cars on, right?
The driverless technology, you wanna make sure that you respect your workers,
you treat them well, they're not exhausted.
But that's not the case here.
And I think the chickens have come home to roost,
because it turns out that Tesla is voluntarily recalling 362,758
vehicles equipped with the company's experimental driver assistant software.
There have been all sorts of incredibly dangerous situations, crashes,
we've talked about some of them.
But for instance, if one of these vehicles is in a left turn lane, the vehicle
doesn't recognize it and continues to go straight through the intersection, okay?
So that's one example of what they've experienced with this technology.
What's hilarious about this though, is that Elon Musk is recalling
these vehicles, but doesn't want us to call it a recall.
What do you think it is?
>> [LAUGH] Yeah, everybody knows what it is.
Okay guys, it is rather remarkable that these stories are on the same day.
He fires the workers working on it and goes, by the way, it's a disaster.
Gee I wonder maybe it has something to do with you treating the workers who
are creating it so poorly, and are working under such terrible conditions.
Guys look, there's this disparity.
Some of you guys work in companies that are, maybe their mom and pops, or
whatever, and they treat you well, right?
But you don't know what your brothers and
sisters are going through in these giant corporations.
And so, I just talked to a reviewer recently and
he was telling me about some things that happened in enormous corporations.
It's just mind numbing how much injustice there are at those places, and
how little rights any of the workers have, right?
But this one also made me think of that,
because they're monitoring the number of clicks on your keyboard,
man, they're watching you like a hog every second that you're in.
It is so oppressive, I get depressed thinking about it, right?
And then when anybody goes, can we please get like a bathroom break or something?
You're fired, right?
This is what corporate rule looks like, and it ain't pretty