I’d say Amazon and then FedEx, but I’m cool with unionizing Tesla
Tesla is the best target because of optics and (more so) the presence of an already-existing very strong union in the space. UPS has its union and they could reasonably easily move into FedEx shops, but it’s not the scale or power of the UAW. And, nothing similar exists at all in Amazon’s industry. The best case for both of those comes from a policy and statutory push to implement sectorial bargaining. This also solves the even bigger issue of nonunionized retail and hospitality workers.
UPS’s union is the Teamsters, and they represent twice as many employees at UPS as UAW does at the big three. The Teamsters union is an incredibly powerful union because they represent transportation and don’t cross picket lines so they can really gum up the works if they so decide.
This isn’t entirely correct. It’s a division of the Teamsters. And no, the UAW has more lobbying and financial power than The Teamsters do. The UAW and the collective teachers unions are the kingmakers in this area.
I’m not sure what you’re taking issue with. UPS has twice as many union members as the big three combined. The Teamsters as a whole represent 3 times as many members as the UAW does in total. Perhaps the UAW has a larger war chest, I’m sure the NEA spends more lobbying, but no union in the country has a bigger hammer than the Teamsters. Longshoremen are probably close and rail workers would if they were allowed to strike. Also to say nothing similar exists in Amazon’s industry is to ignore the core of Teamsters membership, transportation and warehousing. I’m not trying to be combative, I hope the UAW gets to piss in Elon’s Cheerios on the daily.
FedEx is being deliberately destroyed by Amazon. I would love to see it unionize, but it’s arguably not going to exist in another few years as a major player.
Unionization of Amazon delivery systems would have much more ongoing impact. Over-the-road and last-mile have to happen in the US; they can’t be off-shored.
FedEx is used a ton by businesses. We use it constantly. FedEx Next Day Air is really useful.
As I understand it, it’s a niche provider compared to where it was 10 years ago. When was the last time you got a FedEx package from a major retailer? I order shit constantly and can’t remember getting one in maybe a year.
And, if you visit one of their distro centers, they are pale shades of what they were a decade ago, with a fraction of the employees and the vibe of a dying enterprise. Last time I had to hit our local distro center, there were two employees in the entire back area and a giant pile of undeliverable/lost packages in the waiting area.
Maybe it varies by location? I get FedEx all the time. Chewy always uses FedEx for my shipments. I love them because they’ll actually deliver to my porch instead of leaving it on the front steps (looking at you, UPS).
You’d be surprised at how anti-union many Amazon corp workers are, which is hilarious given how fucking shit it can be.
He’s gonna try to fire his entire workforce.
I’m sure the NLRB will have something to say.
Let him fire the whole workforce, that will set back Tesla years, they may never recover. I wish the workers the best.
Didn’t he already try that at twitter and had to backpedal? They weren’t even trying to unionize in that case.
This is the way. I wish software engineers would do the same.
Sounds good! 👍
Wow, what an interesting technology this is!
The Guardian opinion page is, in fact, the most authoritative source for technology news in the world
Old tech
Not sorry, Elon is poes.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The current strike, the first in UAW history to target all of the big three simultaneously, is to a large degree an attempt to ensure that “shared prosperity” persists as a genuine thing in the profitable auto industry.
The fact that unionized workers have higher job satisfaction, lower turnover and a better quality of life doesn’t mean much to the balance sheet-obsessed corporate executives who sit at the bargaining table.
Tesla already pays its workers significantly less than the big three, and as long as Musk has no union to answer to, he will sit back and savor a UAW win against his competitors that widens that gap.
This is exactly what auto companies are trying to do every time they move a factory into a poor, anti-union southern state, where they can run it without any pesky interference from anyone trying to empower the people working the line.
What we cannot have, in the long term, is a situation in which the world’s richest conspiracy-addled Twitter addict uses the UAW’s gains at the Big Three as a chance to increase his market share by sticking it to his own underpaid non-union workforce.
The public, the politicians and every Tesla owner who would prefer not to be complicit in Gilded Age-style plutocratic inequality all need to lean on the big billionaire baby who can’t imagine having to share.
The original article contains 943 words, the summary contains 228 words. Saved 76%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I believe this may be one of the few times other car manufacturers would lobby the government in favor of unions, since they see Tesla as having an unfair advantage that hurts their bottom line.
My experience says that they’d point at non union competition as an excuse to say no to union demands in negotiations.
Are they forming a technology union? Otherwise I think this should be in news.
Maybe he’ll take his ball and go home.
I don’t think he will go home before he finds those marbles thst he lost
I predict Elon pulling an illegal stunt & getting busted in reaction to this.
I predict him pulling an illegal stunt and getting off scot-free because he’s wealthy and has aligned himself with the christofascist party that doesn’t support the rule being used against its own.
Reality shows that Tesla gets hit with fines & judgments all the time.
Yeah all those fine really hurt one of the richest men in the world.
Ok, so what you want is for union busting to be a criminal offense instead of a civil one.
I can get behind that.
