
Tesla employee writes of low wages, poor morale; company denies claims - sosuke
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/02/tesla-employee-writes-of-low-wages-poor-morale-company-denies-claims/
======
gdulli
> Speaking to Gizmodo through Twitter Direct Messages, Elon Musk said, “Our
> understanding is that this guy was paid by the UAW to join Tesla and agitate
> for a union,”

I guess he got this tactic from Trump, claiming that any dissent comes from
paid protesters. While offering no evidence that it's actually the case.

> Update 10/2/17 9:20am EST: In a statement this morning UAW categorically
> denied that Moran had ever been paid by their organization.

[https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-responds-to-claims-of-low-
pay-...](https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-responds-to-claims-of-low-pay-injuries-
and-a-1792190512)

~~~
1_2__3
Ugh, this is just a terrible conflation. And it ignores very real and well-
understood union tactics like this. You can be pro- or anti- union all you
want but if you don't think unions seek out individuals to use as essentially
"seeds" for a union - including paying them - you're woefully naive.

~~~
gdulli
If you don't think we've entered an era where "facts" are invented from thin
air without fear of repercussion because the media portrays opposite sides of
a demonstrable fact the way it portrays differences in opinion, you're
woefully naive.

Recent events may have had a side effect of making honest people need to work
harder to prove their claims. But that's not necessarily a bad thing, we could
have used more discipline and scrutiny there before the era of fake news
anyway.

~~~
ConfuciusSay02
Facts have been invented in order to push agendas since the dawn of time.
Nothing has changed.

The day the printing press was invented is the day it was subverted to push
propaganda.

The "era of fake news" is fake. It has always been this way.

~~~
e40
I think something has changed:

 _I want to start with Trump 's lies. It's now a commonplace that Trump and
his underlings tell whoppers. Fact-checkers have never had it so good. But all
politicians lie. Bill Clinton could barely go a day without some shading or
parsing of the truth. Richard Nixon was famously tricky. But all the
traditional political fibbers nonetheless paid some deference to the truth —
even as they were dodging it. They acknowledged a shared reality and bowed to
it. They acknowledged the need for a common set of facts in order for a
liberal democracy to function at all. Trump's lies are different. They are
direct refutations of reality — and their propagation and repetition is about
enforcing his power rather than wriggling out of a political conundrum. They
are attacks on the very possibility of a reasoned discourse, the kind of bald-
faced lies that authoritarians issue as a way to test loyalty and force their
subjects into submission. That first press conference when Sean Spicer was
sent out to lie and fulminate to the press about the inauguration crowd
reminded me of some Soviet apparatchik having his loyalty tested to see if he
could repeat in public what he knew to be false. It was comical, but also
faintly chilling._

From Andrew Sullivan, a conservative blogger, here:

[http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/02/andrew-
sullivan...](http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/02/andrew-sullivan-the-
madness-of-king-donald.html)

~~~
ConfuciusSay02
So you're trying to convince me something has materially changed by posting a
quote that compares the current scenario to what the Soviets used to do?

Either things have changed, or the Soviets were doing it in the past. Only one
of these statements can be true.

------
iopuy
Wow this article looks like it was written using Gizmodo as the only source.
Not only that, it is almost a verbatim copy. Generally Ars has great coverage
but this is horrible. Also fun fact the title had to be updated due to being
misleading.

    
    
        Update: This story went up with two headlines. One of them, "Tesla employee calls for unionization, Musk says that’s 'morally outrageous,'" could have been construed as Musk claiming that unionization itself is morally outrageous, which was not the case. We have replaced that headline with the other.

~~~
M_Grey
Ars hasn't been anything approaching "Great" for years.

~~~
geerlingguy
It's really more the individual reporters. Eric Berger, for example, puts out
a lot of great and balanced space-related articles.

~~~
M_Grey
I'd agree with that, but I think when we're down to naming individuals and
their merits, my point about the organization as a whole not being good is
supported.

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rb808
> employee writes of low wages, poor morale; company denies claims

Lol this could be any organization in the world. :)

~~~
throwaway7767
If that's your image of working, you should consider working for different
companies. This would not describe my workplace, or most of the ones I've
worked for.

~~~
tdb7893
I think you can find at least one employee complaining anywhere, though.

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sosuke
Just a note I really appreciate how ARS documented the title changes at the
bottom of the article explaining their reasoning.

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st3v3r
This isn't anything new; apparently SpaceX is the same way. It's why I don't
want to go work for an Elon Musk company. I have respect for myself, and it
seems like you have to be willing to undercut yourself to work there.

~~~
caconym_
I was looking at SpaceX software engineering jobs and the listings said that
the position would be expected to work overtime and weekends "as needed".
Yeah, no thanks. I guess at least they're up front about it.

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ashmud
How does this compare to Nissan (US), also non-union?

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supergeek133
Usually whenever I see one of these "expose" posts on Gizmodo, it's usually an
employee that was a miscreant/unhappy person.

The other theme that doesn't get exposed, is that the employee in question has
the same attitude no matter where they work.

I was working at Best Buy/Geek Squad when they had their big "unhappy
employee" expose, and my last point was very true.

There are plenty of happy employees at all these companies, people (especially
Giz) loves the bad story.

~~~
nitrogen
It takes unreasonable people to change the world.

~~~
supergeek133
Yes but one "unreasonable" person complaining on Gizmodo about a company
doesn't mean there is some systemic problem at the company or the culture.

It's a confirmation bias problem. If Gizmodo posted a bunch of stories about
"People at company X say things are awesome!!!" it would probably be
deadpanned.

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simplehuman
That Tesla pays poor wages is well known. But this is expected since they are
more a startup and do not have that much cash to go by. I guess the sad part
is they don't hand out much shares either

~~~
maxxxxx
Tesla is not a startup. It's a big company with real products. Their startup
days are long gone.

~~~
EthanHeilman
Being a startup in the automotive manufacturing business is not the same as
being a startup in the software business. A software company with 1000
employees is huge, an automotive manufacturing company with 1000 employees is
tiny.

~~~
Xixi
Out of curiosity I checked the number of employees of a small car manufacturer
no too far from my hometown: Bugatti. 91 employees for an output of about 40
cars a year. I'm actually surprised that is possible at all to be so small in
the automotive industry (though to be fair they belong to Volkswagen Group).
Of course not trying to compare that to Tesla, the goal/scope/market is just
too different.

~~~
maxxxxx
Gumpert produces a super sports car with around 50 employees.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Automobil](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Automobil)

It really doesn't take many people to produce a car.

