Elon Musk

By Alex N Press - Jacobin, November 14, 2023

In speaking about the details of the tentative agreements now secured with the Big Three automakers, United Auto Workers (UAW) president Shawn Fain said, “One of our biggest goals coming out of this contract victory is to organize like we’ve never organized before.”

“When we return to the bargaining table in 2028, it won’t just be the Big Three, but with the Big Five or Big Six,” he concluded.

Those weren’t empty words. The same day that the union announced that it had reached a tentative agreement with General Motors (GM), the final company of the Big Three to reach a deal, news broke that the UAW was already on the move. Bloomberg reported that workers have formed an organizing committee with the UAW at Tesla’s flagship Fremont, California, plant.

Before Tesla purchased the plant in 2010, it was a UAW shop, an unusual joint venture between Toyota and GM. The two companies operated the facility for twenty-five years; GM pulled out during its 2009 bankruptcy proceedings, and Toyota shut the factory down the following year. When Tesla took over, the union was not part of the agreement.

Today the 5.3 million square-foot Fremont plant employs some twenty thousand workers, and while there have been efforts to unionize it with the UAW in recent years, those attempts failed, thanks in part to Elon Musk’s unwavering opposition to unions. When Jose Moran, then a production worker at the Fremont plant, led the charge to organize in 2017, the tech CEO called the effort “morally outrageous” and went after Moran publicly, claiming that he was on the UAW’s payroll and didn’t actually work for Tesla. (Moran is no longer employed at the plant, and Musk has appealed the National Labor Relations Board rulings that declared his actions illegal.) None of that history seems to be stopping the UAW.

“We can beat anybody,” Fain told Bloomberg of taking on Tesla. “I believe it’s doable.”

By Jake Johnson - Common Dreams, October 31, 2023

The United Auto Workers has reportedly offered to provide organizers with all the resources they need to unionize Tesla's electric car factory in Fremont, California, an effort that would pit an invigorated UAW against a company run by Elon Musk—the world's richest man and an aggressive union-buster.

Following news Monday that the UAW reached a tentative contract agreement with General Motors—the final Big Three holdout—after six weeks on strike, Bloombergreported that "Tesla's roughly 20,000-worker plant in Fremont, California currently has a UAW organizing committee whose members are talking to coworkers about the advantages of collective bargaining."

"The UAW has committed to providing whatever resources are necessary for the campaign," Bloomberg added, citing an unnamed person familiar with the nascent organizing push.

By Sydney Ghazarian, Nima Shirazi, and Adam Johnson - Citations Needed, September 22, 2023

By Kenny Stancil - Common Dreams, May 1, 2023

A new analysis catalogs alarming facts about the destructive private jet industry, which is emblematic of runaway economic and carbon inequality.

Research published Monday details how the working class is paying the price, in more ways than one, for the "jet-owning oligarchy" to hop around the globe in their personal luxury planes.

It's well-established that private jet travel by the super-rich is worsening the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis. Adding insult to injury, this conspicuously carbon-intensive consumption is being subsidized by ordinary taxpayers, as the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and Patriotic Millionaires make clear in their new analysis.

Entitled High Flyers 2023: How Ultra-Rich Private Jet Travel Costs the Rest of Us and Burns Up Our Planet, the report catalogs alarming facts about the private jet industry and makes recommendations about how to rein in this potent symbol and manifestation of escalating inequality.

To begin with, "private jets emit at least 10 times more pollutants than commercial planes per passenger," the report notes. "Unsurprisingly, approximately 1% of people are believed to be responsible for about half of all aviation carbon emissions."

Amid a surge in wealth inequality since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, "private jet use has increased by about a fifth, and private jet emissions have increased more than 23%," the report points out. "The private jet sector set industry records with regards to transaction and dollar volume in 2021 and 2022."

While a coronavirus-era boom is evident, the industry has been growing steadily alongside wealth inequality since the turn of the century. As the report states: "The size of the global fleet has increased 133% in the last two decades from 9,895 in 2000 to 23,133 in mid-2022. This bonanza was accompanied by an unprecedented number of business jet operations, 5.3 million in 2022."

By staff - More Perfect Union, March 15, 2023

By Arian Berek - More Perfect Union, March 3, 2023

By Union Jake and Adam - Valley Labor Report, February 23, 2023

By Sharon Zhang - Truthout, February 16, 2023

The union has filed a complaint saying that the firings were retaliation for unionizing.

Dozens of Tesla workers in Buffalo, New York, were fired the day after workers announced their unionization campaign, a move that the union says amounts to illegal union busting.

According to Tesla Workers United, over 30 workers at the Buffalo “Gigafactory” were fired on Wednesday after workers went public with their union effort the day before, sending a letter to right-wing billionaire CEO Elon Musk asking him not to interfere with the union effort. At least one of the workers who was fired is a member of the union’s organizing committee.

Workers United, under which workers are unionizing, has filed a complaint over the firings, per Bloomberg. The union says that workers were fired “in retaliation for union activity and to discourage union activity,” and is seeking a federal injunction to stop the firings. It is illegal for companies to fire workers in retaliation for pro-union views or activities.

“These firings are unacceptable. The expectations required of us are unfair, unattainable, ambiguous and ever changing,” the union wrote in a statement. “For our CEO, Elon Musk, to fire 30 workers and announce his $2 billion charity donation on the same day is despicable. We stand as one.” (Musk announced on Wednesday that he donated $2 billion in Tesla shares to an undisclosed charity last year. When he made a similar donation in 2021, it went to his own foundation.)

Organizing committee member Arian Berek, who was fired, said that the decision left them dumbstruck. “I got COVID and was out of the office, then I had to take a bereavement leave. I returned to work, was told I was exceeding expectations and then Wednesday came along,” Berek said in a statement.

By Sharon Zhang - Truthout, February 14, 2023

Tesla workers in Buffalo, New York, are seeking to form the company’s first union, the workers announced on Tuesday, with help from leaders of the Starbucks union effort that has seen prodigious success over the past two years.

“We want Tesla to be the company we know it can be. Our union will further Tesla’s principles and objectives, including by helping to serve as the conscience of the organization and by ensuring and deepening our culture of trust and respect,” the union wrote in a statement urging the company to commit to not interfering with the union effort.

The workers are unionizing with Workers United, an affiliate of Service Employees International Union (SEIU). They sent an email to Musk on Tuesday announcing their intent to unionize, and are planning to hand out Valentine’s Day cards at work on Tuesday that read “Roses are red / violets are blue / forming a union starts with you,” with a link to a website where workers can sign union cards, per Bloomberg.

Buffalo really is a union town. Proud to stand with Tesla workers organizing for a voice on the job. pic.twitter.com/M0GRXesqZ6

— Richard Bensinger (@RichBensinger1) February 14, 2023

By David Griscom and Matt Lech - Left Reckoning, November, 17, 2022