SACRAMENTO, CALIF. (AP) Sept 16, 2017
Plan to spend $1.5B in climate money includes union boost
California lawmakers gave a boost to a union looking to organize Tesla workers Friday as they approved a plan to spend $1.5 billion on environmental initiatives using money from the state’s recently renewed program that charges polluters to emit greenhouse gases.
The spending is outlined in two bills now heading to Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk after they were approved on the last day of the legislative year, which wrapped up about 2:15 a.m. Saturday.
Much of the environmental money will go toward pay for incentives and rebates to promote a cleaner vehicle fleet, including passenger cars, commercial trucks and port equipment.
Up to $140 million is earmarked for rebates for people who buy clean vehicles, but that money comes with a catch. Under a provision requested by a labor union, state officials will have to certify that participating automakers are “fair and responsible in the treatment of their workers.”
The provision comes as the United Auto Workers pursues an increasingly acrimonious drive to unionize thousands of workers who assemble high-end Tesla electric vehicles at a plant in Fremont. It directs the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency to come up with criteria for certifying that an automaker treats its employees fairly and responsibly.
full story here
More pork barrel politics. Plus ca change …
What is the definition of racketeering???
But if it is conducted by the state, can that be racketeering????
Politeering!
Politicians are very careful to make sure that when they do it, it’s legal. They are lawyers for the most part.
“fair and responsible treatment” of human beings. Whatever next?
Surely if anything if employers treated their employees fairly then they would be less likely to unionise.
I have worked in union shops and non-union shops. I always got treated better in the non-union shop. There is no such thing as a merit raise in a union shop.
SR
The problem with union shops is the higher skilled more productive workers get paid the same rate as the unskilled lazy arsed drop kicks.you dont pull them up you get dragged down.
I’ve been hourly and salaried in non-union and union shops.
Non-Union shops are happier places to work.
The same is true for Teachers in most every Public School System.
Yep. It’s strictly seniority. No motivation whatsoever to do a better job than the next guy. Just serve out your time. The end result? People getting $50 per hour to put hubcaps on a car that will retail for $40,000.
Trebla, I know what you’re saying, but if I pay $40,000 for a car it better have alloy wheels, not hubcaps!
I have worked both union and non union jobs.
Non union
…Pay-Minimum wage to start up to $20 per hour
…Benefits-Employment
…Health Care-not provided
…Sick leave-1 week per year
…Vacation-1 week per year
Union
…Pay-$23 to start up to current $52 per hour with 3.5% annual increase
…Sick leave-2weeks to start up to 6 weeks per year (plus accumulation up to 6 moths
…Vacation-2 weeks to start with up to 6 weeks plus 6 weeks accumulated(up to 12 weeks available)
…Health care-Paid by company ($20 copay, $300 out of pocket annual)
…Benefits-401-K with company matching, pension ($95,000 per year at 65 with 35 years)
Union is almost always better
If fact, doing a better job is likely to get you punished, as you are making everyone else look bad.
BryanA, only up to the time when the company goes out of business because customers get tired of paying more for lower quality goods.
Bryan A
Union
– includes the privilege of having union dues deducted from your paycheck and used to promote candidates and caused that you may oppose.
– includes periodic lost wages during strikes and walkouts while union officials continue to draw full salaries.
– promotes labor force downsizing, factory automation and relocation as company strives to stay in business.
Yes, no and maybe.
Yes, most Unions are socialist organizations seeking to live off the work of others.
I never received grief or harassment from coworkers at nonunion shops. While “slow down”, “take a break”, “you’re making the rest of us look bad” was very common at union employed sites.
On the other hand, there are decided benefits to employment under rational strong union sites.
I never received decent healthcare options at nonunion work places.
Nor are employees’ treated fairly in regards to salary, promotions, work hours, weekends, etc.
Non-union jobs rarely offer decent retirement packages.
Union employment is strictly maintained along “Equal Opportunity” lines. Older or disabled people are not only hired; they are not fired for shoveling their expected daily workload.
Even working at aggressive “equal merit” union positions, good solid dependable productivity always served me well with promotions.
Positions in management at unionized work sites is significantly improved over nonunion sites. Dense Scrooge like managers quickly realize that treating management much worse than hourly employees makes it very difficult to retain quality managers and supervisors.
While accepting management roles at nonunion sites is often pledging absolute fidelity to the employers at the cost of personal social life, respect, family, hobbies, etc. All must be placed upon the owner/tyrant’s “must do immediately” altar.
Strip union’s ability to dictate productivity injurious terms removes a substantial portion of union negative employment burden.
Oops, fumble fingers.
Should read: “Union employment is strictly maintained along “Equal Opportunity” lines. Older or disabled people are not only hired; they are not fired for shoveling less than their expected daily workload”
Dam1953
My union fees $760 per year are vastly offset by my union bargained:
Salary $52 per hour $108,000 per year
Health Care $22,000 paid annually by the company I work for ($20 copay & $300 out of pocket max annual)
401K plan up to 20% of my befor tax paycheck with dollar for dollar match for first 8%
Been employed for 33 years without a strike and averaged annual wage increases of just over 3% every year.
Unions don’t generally promote items that remove their represented people. Companies promote downsizing and automation to eliminate jobs not unions.
The downsizing and automation are brought about by VP’s and Executives striving to pay themselves more by eliminating Union represented jobs.
Prior to my Union Job, Nov 5, 1983, I was making $7.50 per hour (no health care benefits, 1 week vacation and 1 week sick leave)
The next week, Nov 13, 1983, after getting my union job I was making $23.58 per hour with 401K options, health care coverage 2 weeks paid sick leave and 2 weeks paid vacation.
I consider the $24 monthly ($288 annually) that was being deducted for union fees then money well spent
as I do the $63 per month deducted today.
Trebla
A union worker making cars in Ontario costs the company >$150 per hour in salary, benefits and pension.
So braggith did: Bryan A – September 18, 2017 at 10:14 am
Bryan A, at the very minimum, your employment is costing the company that employs you a direct “out-of-pocket” expense of $138,307.68 per year ……. plus an incurred 10% to 15% “overhead” cost for providing you materials, location, etc. for conducting said work.
The BIG question is, …… is the wholesale/retail value of the work you perform …….. worth what you are being paid to perform it?
I mean like, iffen an employer is forced to pay a “service” employee $15.00/hour for frying hamburgers …… and forced to pay a 2nd “service” employee $15.00/hour for serving hamburgers to customers, ……… just how many hamburgers does the employer have to sell ever hour of an 8 hour “shift” in order to pay the aforesaid $30/hour labor cost?
And just how many ADDITIONAL hamburgers does the employer have to sell ever hour of an 8 hour “shift” in order to pay for the ground beef, buns, cudiments, taxes, utilities, rents, etc.?
And by the way, in 1964, I think it was, I purchased a brand new, off the showroom floor, Model 1500 VW “bug” or “beetle” ……. and it cost me $1,500.00 cash money.
Some bicycles cost more than that now days, ….. thanks to the ever increasing “demands” for higher salaries and greater entitlements.
I’ve always worked in non-union shops and I’ve always had good benefits packages and at least a decent retirement plan.
Downsizing and automation are only cost effective because unions have made manual labor too expensive.
Blaming management for finding the most cost effective way around the problems caused by unions is nothing more than another way to feel good about yourself while you whine about the jobs you used to have.
Sam,
That Beetle costs far more than that today as well (if original and in like new condition or fully restored)
My point was that union dues are several magnitudes less than the benefit an employee received from working in a union shop. So far better to pay dues of <1% of your base salary to ensure a living wage, decent health care and perhaps the opportunity to not have to work after retirement. To be able to afford a house payment and a replacement car every 8-10 years, and not have to worry about being able to afford to get sick.
I often wonder how well the dangerous workers are protected from firing and what if any effect that would have on morale.
Have seen this right here where I live! Had a fuming sulphuric acid leak in a plant here, due to the negligence of a single employee, union employee. That was the final ruling from NTSB and OSHA AND the plant’s insurance company. That employee was not only not fired, he was promoted, twice, and has since retired. I know the man, know several people who have worked with him. He had a history of causing accidents which resulted in injuries and damage, no one in the plant wanted to work with him or around him. His union shop head saw to it he always kept his job.
The fact that workers have to be threatened in order to get them to join a union, indicates that they already are being treated fairly.
The only people who are made rich by unions are those who run them.
For workers, unions are, and have always been, disasters.
For workers, unions are, and have always been, disasters.
Only if you define “workers” as those who actually work. For the featherbedders, unions have been great.
Don’t go too far. Unions are like lawyers. They can shoot your in the foot and when everyone’s playing fair, they make everything worse. However, when people are trying to take advantage of others, they are necessary to prevent worse things from happening.
Let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
“However, when people are trying to take advantage of others” Yes, that is what lawyers do, [Learn to write without profanity. You may find it improves your writing ~ctm]
There is nothing a union provides that the workers can’t get on their own.
Unions are nothing but dead weight. Always have been, always will be.
Don’t try to claim that unions were responsible for such wonders as the 40 hour week, child labor laws, worker safety or any of those other things often credited to them.
Work hours had been dropping for several generations prior to the advent of unions. Increases in productivity allowed workers to earn the same amount of money with less work, and they were choosing to spend more time with their families.
Worker safety has been increasing since they started keeping records, many, many years before the first union. For a simple reason, a trained worker is expensive. Having to replace a worker who is hurt or killed on the job is expensive. It also demoralizes the remaining workers. Finally, despite the myths put out by labor leaders, managers are humans and nobody wants to be responsible for someone else being hurt or killed.
Once again it was increased productivity that provided the wealth, some of which was spent on better equipment to keep workers safer.
Child labor was virtually gone by the time the government got around to outlawing it. The only places it wasn’t outlawed, farms and family owned stores, is also the only places it still existed.
Unions have a serious role – even for professional staff.
I have needed to bring my union [a seafarers’ union] into play three times in ten years.
No strike -but personal benefits.
Do consider having a union – for the rough days.
Auto
It must be remembered that La-CA-Land’s definition of “fair and responsible treatment of human beings” likely differs greatly from most human beings.
Fat fingers.
(like to blame them than yet another “TYPO” 😎
Gee what a surprise a subsidized industry lines up $billions in tax payer subsidies so most of that the money can get redirected into unions and senior management till the company flames out . Who couldn’t run a business when you get free money from tax payers who don’t even know they are a cash cow ?
Funny how the other electric car manufactures seem to find the resources on their own . How long does Tesla last after the tax payer money stops ?
5 minutes – the time it takes Musk to call his lawyer
One more reason for profitable companies to get out of CA while the government still permits it.
Climate is/was always about pro-socialism but about 1/2 of skeptics can’t accept the simplicity of that reality.
That remains the core debate problem. “About science” is mythology in this culture. “About socialism” has to become the core debate focus.
+1 It’s never been about the “science” or the debate would have ended decades ago. Money and ideology have been the driving forces all along.
I foresee the day when the teacher’s unions build Teslas.
I don’t see why Tesla plants should be any less unionised than other car manufacturers.
For 6 hours a day 38 weeks of the year.
Less unionized means not unionized, which workers have chosen at a number of US auto plants.
“which workers have chosen at a number of US auto plants.” Which is why this stolen tax money is being funneled to union operatives to up the pressure on Tesla workers who have so far refused to join UAW.
The Dems want to force unionism on folks who’d rather not, just to get the political contributions expected from the unions.
Every workplace conflict I had in my career was union related. Anyone working at a unionized public institution shares my experience. There is a constant bickering about who performs what tasks and when. People who see something that needs to be done and take on the responsibility are grieved by those who claim it, but procrastinate at completing it. Power groups form in the locals and shops who are usually bullyish and strive to control the work environment.
I took a withdrawal card when I retired because if I had to go back to work, they would charge me back dues for all the time between employments. (only $5)
I have a government job. I’ve never joined the union. I still have to pay full union dues. They call it “fairshare”.
But, being “fairshare”, I can (annually) object to the portion used for political/ideological purposes.
Last that amount was over 47%.
I doubt Trump saw a dime. A few (a very few) of the Rinos might have.
PS Even though I pay a bit over 50% of the union dues, I can’t vote on our contracts. If I joined I could vote but then it would up to me, personally, to document the political expenses to which I object.
(A court case requires AFSCME to inform “fairshare” victims the percentage spent on politics but not regular members.)
I agree. After observing all the largesse he’s been getting at the State watering trough it’d be great fun to watch Elon Musk deal with a naturally adversarial group imposed on him by the same state.
You make it sound like it is yours and the governments business whether these plants are unionized or not.
Charles,
I don’t see why they “should” or “shouldn’t” be unionised. Isn’t that the choice of the workers there? Why do some think that they should be the arbiters of other people’s lives?
It’s not about whether the workers choose to be unionized or not. It’s about the state handing the union a club and saying “good luck”. The subtext in this requirement is that the only way Tesla will be able to claim that the workers are being treated “fairly and responsibly” is if they are unionized. Quelle surprise!
Most of the auto manufacturing plants in the south are NOT unionized. And, oh brother, are the unions really trying to change that. Just goes to so that the southern workers are smarter than their Detroit counter parts.
I foresee the day when California’s auto industry consists of constructing stagecoaches and covered wagons- that will be the extent of CO2-polluting technology allowed.
California politicians will be complaining that the horses pulling the wagons will be farting too much Co2.
And defecating in the streets for good measure.
Trebla, perfect for the organic gardens.
and cholera outbreaks
Yes Tom, there might be hippies fighting in the streets over who gets the horse apples.
With all due respect speaking as someone who has loved some of your other posts, you are totally wrong on this.
The requirement for ‘fair treatment of workers’ means that they are getting at least a living wage AND are not foisted off on social assistance programs.
Seems absolutely fair to me!
There are already laws dealing with wages.
Big private sector employers are the ones who get people off of social welfare.
This is not a “fair law”.
It is climate pork.
As us nearly all money spent in the name of “climate”.
Those laws are lax to be mild on the subject and no, big private sector employers are NOT the ones who get people off social assistance programs because they ALWAYS try to pay below a living wage which even in the boondocks today is 15 dollars an hour if you are working 40 hours a week, the maximum that anyone should have to work in order to support themselves and a reasonable sized family (2 children).
“The requirement for ‘fair treatment of workers’ means that they are getting at least a living wage”
Has the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency established that as the criteria for judging ‘fair treatment’ of workers?
Cali is doing this avoid the appearance that they are ‘favoring’ Tesla over unions (which they are). Cali is going to be handing Tela potentially billions with their recently passed ‘electric vehicle rebates’ designed to do nothing else but prop up Tesla (not sure how paying up to half the cost of a ‘rich man’s toy’ – a direct subsidy of the rich by the less rich via taxes) can be interpreted any other way) denying them a few million in pork barrel handouts looks very much like a “see we aren’t favoring anyone”.
Big deal. Handing Tesla ‘billions’ with ‘electric vehicle rebates’ is fine and dandy to me since for the vast majority of citizens an electric vehicle supplies all their needs. Even the bottom tier electrics today have a range of 200 miles on a single charge which is enough to get me back and forth to work for 4 days before I would need to think about charging the battery.
Sure, a living wage is a noble ideal, but $50 an hour to stand and watch a robot do your job?
It’s not the companies responsibility to pay a living wage. It’s the employees to make sure that his labor is worth a living wage.
Demanding that someone’s wage be more than the labor is worth just guarantees that they become unemployed.
As to “social assistance programs”, all you have done is prove that such programs are way to generous.
Paying a person more than his labor is worth, just means he never gets hired in the first place.
If he’s getting more than he believes his labor is worth, quit and find someone who will pay him what he’s worth.
lerianis,
“Fair” is a very subjective term, with everybody having their own idea what it means. Because of this, laws mandating “fair” treatment will always be, to some extent, unfair to just about everyone. Only a small minority will feel it strikes the right balance while most will feel it either does not go far enough, or that it goes too far. And because it is so subjective, it is difficult to adjudicate in court and results in a mess of conflicting decisions.
And those conflicting decisions will eventually resolve themselves into “Union representation guarantees fiar treatment of workers”. A back door way to impose unions onto manufacturers in CA. And, probably using these precedents the rest of the US.
lerianis, if California was really serious about insuring that workers had decent wages it would immediately stop being a sanctuary state so as to directly (or, for the benefit of the doubt: inadvertently) suppress wages. But, it won’t. It might also reconsider the H1B Visas which benefit, not American workers, but instead the charming Silicon Valley billionaire oligarchs and their lust for $5.00/hr hi tech labor. But, it won’t.
+1 Hypocrites when it comes to answering for consequences of their decisions. Same with housing availability and cost, water, health care costs, taxes, and quality of schooling. “Sanctuary” means taxpayers class bend over to pay for someone else’s ideology.
Those high tech workers compete with American workers whether they stay in India, or come here.
False, Tom Judd. It has been documented and proven that being a ‘sanctuary state’ does not depress wages. In fact kicking out the immigrants would just lead to jobs not being done because the vast majority of the jobs that even undocumented immigrants are doing American will not do at ANY price…. even 5 times the minimum wage as my cousin in West Virginia found out.
He finally had to turn to a recruiter to find people to do the jobs at his building business even though he was offering 30 dollars an hour for even the most menial job and guess what they were? IMMIGRANTS!
The new Kalifornia motto “Dysfunctional and Proud Of It”. A tax to allow/offset “pollution” that is distributed to supporters of the Governor Moonbeam administration? Soon another company will flee this tax hell for a saner environment. 1.5 Billion Dollers? Let`s speed up our slide into bankruptcy and time if for another Liberal Administration so they can bail us out, which they will do because it buys votes. Meanwhile the climate marches on, in cycles, as always.
Follow the money.
Tesla cars are coal powered.
Tesla – and the lemming-like rush to electric cars – reminds me of the old quote:
‘How do you define a zero-emissions vehicle in California..?
An electric car for which the electricity is generated in Nevada…’
Bit like my South Australian cousins, “what did South Australians use before candles?” A: electricity.
😎
Almost missed that.
Hunter beat me to it, follow the money. Which Democrat Party partisans’ pockets is it filling? This money will do nothing to help the “environment”, and it will damned well not be used for any type of “science”.
Musk screwed up by putting his auto assembly plant in California in the first place. Cars and aircraft were assembled there in the past but all the smart companies left years ago.
If I were he I would open a second plant east of the Rockies as quickly as possible and get the heck out of there.
I’d guess that Tesla will get some fine-print exemptions because they are “Green”.
LOL. Love to see those 1.5 million ‘zero-emission vehicles’ recharging on a windless night.
They will have exercise bicycles connected to generators and will recharge throuth direct conversion of human energy, It’s how Governor Brown will put the illegal immigrants to work.
So they’ll stay and vote in the next election.
Hi Anthony, I hope all is well with you. I came over to make sure a link I had posted to a post you did two years ago was still good – one of my visitors just hit it yesterday. thanks for being here, thanks for posting this stuff. Best to your family – Juanita
Oh yeah, guess what, my kid is going to UNR, he’s studying environmental law. Last semester he took a class that really blew my mind – hydrology! The math problems were crazy.
Tesla could build it’s next plant in South Carolina, right next to our nice Boeing plant.
But probably won’t. Musk is enjoying his relationship with the government of California. Lots of eco credits paid by the state. Chrony capitalism at its finest.
If he goes anywhere, hide your wallet it will be expensive, Tesla is a Ponzi scheme that sells laptop batteries using vehicles as a delivery device.
The State of California is run by very well meaning persons. They are, however, like doctors in the late 18th Century who would bleed and purge their patient to death, trying to balance the essential humors.
They will persist in socialist economics, as the desire to “do something’ overcomes any actual experience with the policy in practice. Who cares that the former GM plant in Fremont is the last auto plant in the state?
Combine that with self-dealing, of expecting contributions from both the UAW and Tesla to set rules, and the temptation to step in is overwhelming.
To paraphrase as Claude Rains said in Casablanca I am shocked, shocked to find there is gambling going on in here.
In the non-union world, individuals advance their careers by providing goods and services as competitively as they can
In the union world, careers are advanced by denying goods and services, through strikes.
I have been union for 33 years. Zero strikes. 3+% annual pay increases every year and have advanced my career through testing/proving competance and seniority. ZERO STRIKES
Exactly what is it you do for a living?
Back in the late 60’s, I had a summer job at a typewriter factory (yes, they used to exist IN the US!). There were about a dozen of us high school kids on one assembly line. Our goal was to disassemble, fix and reassemble several thousand mis-produced electrics. The procedure had been stop-watched timed on a real union assembly line. The goal was X machines per day. Our little group was done by 11AM every day. We were told to just sit there with a finished machine in front of us for the rest of the day…
That’s when I learned about unions. We were also paid in cash, all $2 bills.
At least they weren’t $3 bills
When I was in high school, my electronics lab instructor had arranged to employ a number of us to repair telephones over the summer (This was before the break up of AT&T).
The unions killed the program as soon as they got word of it.
Elon Musk being skewered by fellow-travelers in the union racket does have a certain symmetry to it.
Haha. That will be the end of Tesla. Unions killed America’s REAL car companies multiple times before bailouts and migration to right-to-work states allowed them to survive. Tesla is a fake car company that only exists at all because of massive government subsidy. Now the Tesla-government-union vote-and-money-swapping arrangement can all collapse in a heap together. They won’t have to seceed. We’ll kick them out.
And up goes the price of a Tesla.
Tesla can’t meet production targets now, just wait until the unions get involved.
They will just ask for larger bribes (subsidies ) from the Taxpayer, and in California they will likely get it.
MODS!
It seems that I typed “Gunag” instead of “Gunga” in my first reply.
That error was repeated (via “autofill”) in the rest of my replies.
Thanks, Mods.
(I think I’ll give you a break and take my nap now. 😎
Tesla just announced recently that their new semi trucks will enter the market on the 23rd of October. I think that Tesla has used that as a reason for pushing up their stock price 20 dollars over the last 3 trading days. Musk claims that there will be big demand for battery powered semis.
Cummins announced that they will supply electric power packs to actual truck manufacturing companies.
I know Tesla must fail, I thought it would be because people started doing some math, but the UAW may turn out to be the event that takes Tesla down.
In a nutshell:
Those companies that get charged to emit CO2 pollution pass on the cost to consumers. So consumers will be giving the union(s) a “boost.”
Now it gets better. Unions give massively to the DNC. If this union takes off, they’ll be donating chunks of their dues to the DNC. Therefore, democrat politicians are using money scammed from consumers via questionable science to enrich their party.
Which to me, sounds like a law is being broken somewhere…