SpaceX is suing to bust up federal union protections

https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/4/24025712/spacex-nlrb-lawsuit-constitutional-violations-elon-musk

by cdme • 3 years ago

61 55 3 years ago

Just when you think there's no end to Musk's dip-shittery, he goes and dives head first into a pile of nonsense and butt-hurtedness.

PM_me_your_math• 3 years ago

Unions are cancer. This isn't the late 19th century anymore. Unions do very little but enrich themselves and exert political power.

kibwen2• 3 years ago

I'll happily get rid of unions once we also get rid of corporations ruled by wannabe-dictators. Until then, unions are a necessary counterbalancing force to keep executive behavior in check.

BudaDude• 3 years ago

Sounds like those Walmart propaganda training videos got to you. I suggest doing your research on what unions are doing in the 21st century to protect employees.

standardUser6• 3 years ago

This isn't the late 19th century anymore.

Nope, it's the early 21st century, and inequality in this country is higher than it's been since the Gilded Age. Not exactly a comparison we should want to be making. And the trajectory is still moving primarily in the wrong direction.

wolverine8762• 3 years ago

Unions do very little but enrich themselves and exert political power.

How does that differ from business owners? Such as private equity?

IshKebab• 3 years ago

Come on. Don't fall for American brainwashing. Some unions abuse their power. But most don't.

But there aren't any unions here anyway - this is a federal agency that facilitates unions.

Frankly this case seems pretty silly on all sides. Some employees sent an open letter to everyone in SpaceX... what did they expect to happen? I think SpaceX was fully within its rights to fire them, and I also support unions.

But also SpaceX's legal argument here is kind of insane. It's predicated on their assertion that the president would definitely have intervened in this dispute if he could have! The law says he can't and that's apparently unconstitutional. Maybe so but it'll probably get dismissed as irrelevant because how are they going to show that the president would have intervened?

Hammershaft• 3 years ago

The United Auto Workers union just a month ago won a 33% raise for GM workers and a 30% raise for Ford workers.

Unifor just won a 25% raise for Stellantis workers 2 months ago.

Just 2 months ago the Writers Union just won raises to compensation, health benefits, pensions, and protections against AI.

Just a few weeks ago SAG-AFTRA reached a tentative deal to secure compensation increases, benefits, improvements to royalties & residuals, and protections against AI.

So literally in the last 3 months we've seen unions win major compensation improvements for nearly 2 million workers.

LargeTomato3• 3 years ago

Unions are cancer.

This is not an appropriate hacker news tone.

legitster7• 3 years ago

It's not actually clear that Musk was involved in this at all.

By all accounts, he has not really been present at the day-to-day operations of SpaceX in years. And the open letter was targeting the executive team, not Musk.

LargeTomato3• 3 years ago

While we don't know if Musk was involved in this legal approach, it absolutely reeks of Musk. What corporation, other than an Elon corporation, would make a labor rights case about the constitutionality of a century-old labor rights department?

fuzzylightbulb• 3 years ago

“Elon’s behavior in the public sphere is a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment for us, particularly in recent weeks,” the employees wrote. The letter, which welcomed other employees’ signatures, called for SpaceX to distance itself from Musk’s controversial online comments.

JaceLightning2• 3 years ago

Title is misleading. Has nothing to do with union protections.

Sounds like a strong case. Why should companies be forced to employ people who actively work to harm the reputation of said company?

standardUser6• 3 years ago

Some people think it's ok for employers to be mini-dictators. Most people, for example those who need to work for a living, do not.

But however you slice it, is is absolutely one-hundred percent a labor rights issue.

kibwen2• 3 years ago

Why should companies be forced to employ people who actively work to harm the reputation of said company?

The irony being that the content of the letter is in regards to Elon Musk's work to actively harm the reputation of said company. By this token, why should employees be forced to work under petulant, capricious, myopic executives who undermine the efforts of the people with boots on the ground who do all the actual work?

bradyd• 3 years ago

Nobody forced them to work there.

JaceLightning2• 3 years ago

Oh that's easy. *They aren't*

An employee has one job: to help their employer make money. That's it.

If they aren't doing their job (by harming the reputation of their employer), then they shouldn't be employed.

polygamous_bat• 3 years ago

Because unlike what “Fountainhead” by Ayn Rand says, checks and balances on positions of power is usually a socially good thing.

yuliyp• 3 years ago

Has nothing to do with union protections.

Preventing employer retaliation for discussing the conditions of employment are a pretty significant part of the protections around unions. An open letter discussing the conduct of the CEO falls under discussion of the conditions of employment.

There are limits to what companies can do to try and prevent unions from forming. SpaceX is claiming that those restrictions and the way in which they're enforced by the NLRB are unconstitutional. Seems pretty fair to characterize that as something which would bust up some federal union protections.

pdabbadabba• 3 years ago

You're right about the outcome SpaceX is seeking. But the critical thing you're missing is the argument they are making against NLRB. The legal arguments aren't really about the specific facts of the case but, rather, about constitutional issues that go to the heart of how NLRB adjudicates labor disputes. From the article:

It claims the NLRB’s proceedings, which involve a hearing in front of an NLRB administrative law judge (ALJ), violate SpaceX’s “constitutional right to trial by jury.” The company also accuses NLRB of violating the Constitution’s rules on the separation of powers, stating the agency’s structure “is miles away from the traditional understanding” of the concept.

flerchin3• 3 years ago

It's not clear to me why the open letter authors are protected under the NRLB at all. They seemed to be criticizing the boss, which is not illegal, but not really a labor action either?

kevingadd3• 3 years ago

How is collectively criticizing your boss and requesting a better work environment not a labor action?

flerchin3• 3 years ago

Calling your boss an asshole is not a labor action. Asking for a better work environment might be, but that wasn't the title of the letter.

legitster7• 3 years ago

There was a list of demands of the executives. But yeah, there was no call for a labor action. If anything, they were demanding the company take more drastic steps to start removing employees for bad behavior.

standardUser6• 3 years ago

NLRB doesn't just deal with unions, a fundamental part of its purpose is to ensure that conditions are allowed to exist for the creation of unions.

Here is their own page on "Jurisdictional Standards"...

https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/ju...

legitster7• 3 years ago

It claims the NLRB’s proceedings, which involve a hearing in front of an NLRB administrative law judge (ALJ), violate SpaceX’s “constitutional right to trial by jury.” The company also accuses NLRB of violating the Constitution’s rules on the separation of powers, stating the agency’s structure “is miles away from the traditional understanding” of the concept.

This is the same argument going against the FTC, SEC, and several other regulatory agencies. If you get charged of a crime by a public prosecutor, you get the ability to argue the facts in front of a court of law. If you get charged of a crime by a regulatory agency - you don't even get to argue the facts.

I... might kinda side with SpaceX on this one? I am not trying to die on a corporate rights hill, and not that I think SpaceX is innocent of the charges, but it does seem like they should at least be able to argue the factualness of the crime they are being charged with? This does seem like something that should be done by the justice department.

Still, it's almost surely going to get thrown out. They are trying to turn a NLRB infraction into a Constitutional law case in a hail-Mary attempt that it would get escalated to the Supreme Court.

kevingadd3• 3 years ago

Feels like it's really just an attempt to drag out the proceedings further so that any labor law dispute turns into 8 years worth of trials and appeals and is ineffective at remedying problems

legitster7• 3 years ago

In a way, this is definitely them lashing out. "We don't get a court case? We'll make one!"

...

"on an unrelated topic"

ok_dad• 3 years ago

SpaceX is not a person, so it should not have constitutional protections. When forming a limited liability arrangement like this, you agree that the entity itself is governed by laws and regulations which may not be applicable to an individual. It’s a mistake for us to allow corporations to be treated as constitutionally protected entities.

legitster7• 3 years ago

Corporations are a complete legal fabrication that only exist because they are constitutionally protected.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juridical_person

So it's a bit of a non-sequitur to say they should not have any constitutional protections. So while I agree they should not have the same level of individual rights as people, corporations are already allowed to sign checks and enter contracts own things and be sued.

I'm just saying it makes more sense to me that we keep our constitutional powers separated. If it's a legal case it seems better for the judicial branch to do it.

biomcgary• 3 years ago

Given the current make up of the Supreme Court (particularly Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, IIRC), this hail-Mary isn't necessarily that low probability. Several justices don't like administrative courts being the law-maker, judge, jury, executioner, and tax collector.

I think one's attitude toward this case (independent of Musk / SpaceX) comes down to how much you value separation of powers as a check on government vs consolidation of government power as a check on the power of corporations.

legitster7• 3 years ago

Right, but it would take a lot of steps for it to even make it to the Supreme Court in the first case. As it is this has a huge chance of being instantly dismissed.

consolidation of government power as a check on the power of corporations

This might be a good way of putting it. But I personally grew up in an ex-soviet country so my experience is that I am way more afraid of governments than corporations. If you think greedy corporations are bad - you should see what an unchecked "government of the people" can do to their own citizens' water supply.

tw04• 3 years ago

So you’re in favor of the government being able to kill a company? For instance 3Ms PFAS debacle has resulted in enough death and sickness that any person would face life in prison or death depending on where the trial took place. If we’re giving corporations constitutional protections, we should also give them the punishment we’d give an individual for their actions.

You can’t have it both ways.

pfannkuchen• 3 years ago

Doesn’t the government generally have the power to assess a fine large enough to bankrupt a company?

legitster7• 3 years ago

So you’re in favor of the government being able to kill a company?

Courts regularly order companies to be dissolved all of the time.

But I think you are jumping to conclusions and trying to imply that I am saying something I am not. I just think legal cases should be executed by our judicial system.

bryanlarsen• 3 years ago

As I understand it, SpaceX has the right to appeal the NLRB ruling in front of a real court if the hearing goes against them. So one can argue that they haven't lost the right to a real court. It's vaguely similar to a traffic ticket, which doesn't go through a full court unless appealed.

standardUser6• 3 years ago

Meanwhile, Musk is getting shellacked by Nordic Europe due to his tome-deaf and, frankly, incompetent attempts to bust the strongest and most successful trade unions in the world...

https://www.politico.eu/article/elon-musk-x-pace-x-faces-new...

belltaco3• 3 years ago

I wouldn't say shellacked, only a few dozen mechanics out of the 130 or so are striking, while the article implies all Tesla workers are striking. So few are striking that the union refuses to reveal the number, and recently expelled members for not striking.

Tesla has found workarounds to most of the sympathy strikes and sold even more cars in Sweden in Nov to Dec 2023 compared to 2022. Not sure how that's incompetent.

standardUser6• 3 years ago

Here is a recent rundown of the labor actions against Tesla in Nordic nations: https://hrme.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/tesla-labour-...

And yes, attacking trade unions in nations whose very foundation was built upon trade unions is something only an incompetent businessperson would do. Almost as incompetent as obliterating one of the most established brands in history and replacing it with an x.

wolverine8762• 3 years ago

It fits the strategy of Republicans to undermine democratic power to regulate business.

One prong of that strategy is to undermine administrative law courts, courts that operate in the executive branch rather than in the judicial branch. Their function is to efficiently and fairly adjudicate, including providing due process, decisions that are within the executive branch's purview (permitted by the Constitution, legislated by Congress, and approved by a President). One way to think of the courts is that the Executive already has this power; the make it's admistration more fair by using a judicial process.

At least some, but possibly all administrative law courts allow appeal to the judicial branch (i.e., federal courts, article III of the Constitution).

Without administrative law courts, it's hard to imagine how to govern fairly or effectively. Either the executive branch can't carry out its duties, or I guess (not being an expert) they carry them out more arbitrarily, without due process, which permits more politicization and corruption - both outcomes are actually sought to at least some people in the conservative movement, to radically reduce the power of government and/or to empower the President.

I very much doubt there is capacity in the judiciary to take on the very many decisions in administrative law.

SpaceX is suing to bust up federal union protections

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