Elon Musk added to list of labor-law violators. Tesla Motors and owner Elon Musk, have joined the ever-lengthening list of rich corporate moguls breaking labor law. In Musk’s case, it was with a tweet, and his Twitter account had at the time of his offense 22.7 million followers.
And his net worth is between $153 billion and $180 billion.
“Nothing stopping Tesla team at our car plant from voting union,” his tweet read. “Could do so tmrw if they wanted. But why pay union dues and give up stock options for nothing?”
Tesla illegally fired Richard Ortiz, who was leading an organizing drive for the United Auto Workers at the firm’s Fremont, Calif., car plant, a former unionized Toyota-General Motors factory. In its March 25 ruling, the National Labor Relations Board ordered Tesla to take Ortiz back, with back pay.
The NLRB also ordered Tesla to post a “we broke the law and will not do it again” notice, and to stop illegally interrogating, intimidating and harassing workers about the union.
The UAW welcomed the board’s “sweeping decision” against Musk and Tesla “to cease interfering with workers seeking to organize” at Fremont.
Women unionists detail PRO Act’s benefits. From better pay to paid sick leave, from due process on the job to wider opportunities, working women, union or not, stand to reap huge benefits if Congress passes the Protect The Right To Organize (Pro) Act, a panel of woman union leaders says.
“What frustrates me is a lot of people think, ‘Oh, it’s just a bill for unions. It’s not,” said AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler. “They don’t realize it’s a civil rights act, a pillar of our democracy.”
If passed and signed by President Biden, who strongly has already supported it, the PRO Act would be the most pro-worker rewrite of the nation’s basic labor laws since the original 1935 National Labor Relations Act.
“Women are half the workforce” in the United States, Shuler added. “They should be getting half of the money”—the whole sum of wages paid to all workers.
“No working woman should have to risk her job and risk her body and risk her family to join a union,” she continued. “Call your senators. Without force coming from the ground up, nothing can be done.”
House-passes bill boosting equal pay. Overcoming corporate and Right-wing opposition to equal pay for equal work, the Democratic-run House on April 15 approved the Paycheck Fairness Act 217-210.
The legislation would strengthen the 1963 Equal Pay Act by making it tougher for firms to prove how “business necessity” lets them discriminate against woman workers, compared to men with equal credentials and experience, for equal jobs.
During debate, Rep. Lois Frankel, D-Fla., commented, “I have some important questions and simple answers. Do rent and food cost less for women than men? No. Do women work less hard than men? Absolutely not. Do children depend on the financial support of their mothers? Yes. So, should women make less money than men for doing equal work? Obviously not.”
Justices hand biz win in ban on FTC fines. One of the sleaziest sectors of the business world, payday lenders, racked up a big win at the U.S. Supreme Court. So has the rest of the corporate class, as justices stripped away a federal agency’s power to impose punitive fines.
And with consumers the losers to predators in the justices’ 9-0 ruling, Congress may have to step in to right the wrong, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (USPIRG) says.
That’s because corporations in general could benefit from the jurists’ April 22 decision in “AMG Capital Management v. FTC,” which takes away the Federal Trade Commission’s power to levy punitive fines against firms that mislead or lie to consumers.
As USPIRG put it: “This means the FTC can’t help consumers get their money back.”
The “decision was widely expected but that doesn’t make it any less disappointing – or dangerous – for U.S. consumers,” said Ed Mierzwinski of USPIRG.
“Congress must act with urgency to protect Americans by restoring the FTC’s power to get money back from unscrupulous companies,” he said.
News briefs courtesy of The Labor Paper