November 19, 2021

"Internal disputes rarely come to light, employees allege, and lawsuits are uncommon because Tesla requires many workers to sign mandatory arbitration agreements..."

"... which mandate that disputes are settled outside court. Barraza’s attorneys say the agreement is 'illegal and unenforceable.' Barraza said this workplace culture is bred at the top of the company, citing a joking tweet by CEO Elon Musk referencing a university he planned to start: Texas Institute of Technology & Science. (He left readers to interpret the acronym: TITS.) 'That doesn’t set a good example for the factory — it almost gives it like an … "he’s tweeting about it, it has to be OK,"' she said. 'It’s not fair to myself, to my family to other women who are working there.'"

34 comments:

Sebastian said...

"It’s not fair to myself"

Hence the reason for the policy.

Question for HR: how can you keep from hiring the it's-not-fair crowd in the first place?

tim maguire said...

All arbitration agreements should be unenforceable. In addition to one party nearly always being coerced into agreeing, they exist because judges have (incorrectly) held that arbitration is an equivalent form of justice to the court system.

Achilles said...

Gold diggers gotta gold dig.

Achilles said...

Terms of employment: No hiring lawyers to split extortion payments with.

Lawyers: >:(

Anonymous said...

random thoughts
- deep pockets
- Musk is off the progressive reservation
- outragous CA jury awards
- sexism in an auto assembly line? I'm shocked

rhhardin said...

I remember a co-worker asking what would be a good name for the network terminal parameter file. NTPARMS I suggested.

Hours later he said "You bastard."

The central unit login CU was added automatically to the front of the filename.

It's a good guy joke. If women can't handle it, go back to the kitchen.

Anonymous said...

plus
arbitration? not unusual. but she doesn't like the payout opportunity. she wants $137M as well

rhhardin said...

Don't hire women. They used to work out okay but not anymore.

Wince said...

Instead of "WaPo" you should have put Bezos.

Big Mike said...

An allegation is not proof. My sense is that somehow, perhaps by being so successful in different areas of technology, Elon Musk has pissed off the Left and they will lie whenever and however necessary just to harass him. I don’t imagine that his one-fingered farewell to Gavin Newsom and the insane state of California is likely to make the hatred abate.

The other context in which I have seen Musk’s name recently in the news was the assertion that his very existence justifies the proposed wealth tax.

Note to feminists, if the “Texas Institute of Technology & Science” offends you then do the world a favor and kill yourselves. Thanks. We appreciate.

mccullough said...

These arbitration agreements aren’t illegal and are enforceable.

Her lawyers are lying.

Gahrie said...

First we need to find the person who put a gun to her head and forced her to sign a contract with arbitration requirements.

gilbar said...

does anyone else get the feeling,
that rhhardin was considered to be as clueless and out of it back in the day; as he is now?
i feel kinda sad for someone with so little self awareness

Eric said...

The president of Wesleyan University would tell these Tesla employees to grow a pair.

Big Mike said...

Question for HR: how can you keep from hiring the it's-not-fair crowd in the first place?

@Sebastian, you aren’t aware that modern HR departments themselves consist almost entirely of the “it’s-not-fair crowd”? One of the things they think is absolutely not fair is that engineers make so much more money than they do with their grievance studies degree. Doesn’t the company know that they worked just as hard for their degree as any engineering grad?

Or so they believe.

Leland said...

"almost gives it"

And fortunately for her, the reasonable doubt provided is not enough to protect Musk from a civil lawsuit seeking damages.

Bob Boyd said...

Just lie back and think of the Climate.

mccullough said...

I’m glad there are people like Hardin. Everyone is a bit different. He might be on the spectrum as they say.

But he’s not a hypocrite. That’s a big part of his difference.

Most people are hypocrites to a degree. Some egregiously hypocritical.

Musk is a bit different. So was Steve Jobs. The word asshole doesn’t cover it.

Howard Hughes was probably the strangest Titan of Industry. A category of 1. Same with Musk and Jobs.

All three are preferable to Bill Gates.

Interested Bystander said...

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. - Sigmund Freud

Joe Smith said...

Hire only ugly women.

He could have named the university the 'South Harmon Institute of Technology.'

Jersey Fled said...

I worked for several very large corporations over the course of my career and, as I recall, they all had arbitration clauses in their employment agreement.

This is not specific to Tesla.

Drago said...

Elon has become too critical of typical moronic democratical and left wing political policies and #LogicFails.

The only thing keeping Elon above a complete DOJ/FBI/SEC/IRS/EPA establishment state attack is that without Spacex and its ability to deliver real "stuff" and real results with limited budgets, the US will fall even farther behind the ChiCom's in the race to develop space given the utter and complete failure of the establishment Space Industrial Complex to move the US forward.

The Space Industrial Complex is nothing more than a "belly up to the trough" time killing, Cost-plus contract exploitation, money wasting and no accountability jobs program and cash flow funnel for directing lobbying dollars to the preferred politically connected crew.

Bob Boyd said...

@gilbar

I find rhhardin's comments are often smart, perceptive, clever, funny, eccentric and original.
And I don't think he lacks self-awareness. He just doesn't give a shit if other people don't like what he has to say...which is admirable.

I generally enjoy reading your comments too. Pretty good stuff for the most part.

doctrev said...

A lot of CEOs would just bend the knee and accept a judgment as the cost of doing business.

The fedgov isn't actually including Tesla's non-union staff in BBB, so Musk is increasingly comfortable flipping them off. Could he actually pull all Tesla industry out of California? It's not just possible, but probable!

MikeR said...

The quote about Musk's joke is amazingly clueless. How to convince others that you are hypersensitive, nay, touchy.

daskol said...

When does Elon buy a newspaper and which one? I’d much rather my kids attend TITS than Wesleyan.

Critter said...

In sexual harassment training (mandatory under California statute for employees above a certain level) they taught us that a comment or action can be sexual harassment even if 99 people see no issue but one person does. It’s all in the eye of the beholder. So companies quietly settle cases to avoid publicity and reputational harm, regardless if they believe the claim is reasonable and warranted or not. It’s a scam. BTW, most claims come in response to a bad performance review or just in advance of notice of termination for poor performance. Quite the scam.

Howard said...

It's refreshing to see you people line up to defend a billionaire against the little people. It's exactly the reaction George Soros is paying for.

hombre said...

Back in the olden days a judge was making harassing remarks to and hitting on a couple of my female deputies who complained to me. I asked him to knock it off.

It was explained to me in short order by office feminists that my behavior was paternalistic and therefore sexist.

Feminism has been silly and confusing for women as well as for men, but if you ignore it somebody will sue you.

Yancey Ward said...

If we didn't have rhhardin commenting here I would have to create a sockpuppet to replace him.

gahrie said...

It's refreshing to see you people line up to defend a billionaire against the little people. It's exactly the reaction George Soros is paying for.

Who's defending Soros?

KellyM said...

@ rhhardin - speaking of kitchens..

I worked in institutional kitchens (college dining halls) while in high school, part time after school, and to keep myself in pocket money in college. Not a place where sensitive flowers were tolerated. Kitchen banter is rather salty and you'd best be prepared with an appropriate comeback when needed. If these prissy females would just dish it back things would likely be easier.

Big Mike said...

@Howard, I don’t know about the others, but I’m defending a creative entrepreneur from a nitwits harridan.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

On Mars, all non-essential categories hampering the populating of the planet will be put on hold until such time Martians (born on Mars) have secured a foothold on their planet, so that they may consider reinstituting earths roadblocks to man and women chances of cohabitating, if the chose.

Essentially, mankind is going back to living in caves for awhile ;)

Once again Musk proves to be ahead of the curb.