Tesla Probed by California Regulator on Workplace Conditions - Sensationalist Headlines

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-18/california-opens-investigation-into-tesla-workplace-conditions?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&cmpid=socialflow-facebook-business&utm_source=facebook&utm_content=business California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health has opened an investigation into Tesla Inc. following a report about worker protections at the company’s lone auto plant in Fremont, California. The state agency “takes seriously reports of workplace hazards and allegations of employers’ underreporting recordable work-related injuries and illnesses” and “currently has an open inspection at Tesla,” said Erika Monterroza, a spokeswoman for the state’s industrial relations department. California requires employers to maintain what are called Log 300 records of injuries and illnesses. Monterroza said that while the state doesn’t disclose details of open inspections, they typically include a review of employers’ Log 300 records and checks to ensure that serious injuries are reported within eight hours as required by law. A story this week by the Center for Investigative Reporting’s Reveal alleged that Tesla failed to report serious injuries on legally mandated reports, making its numbers appear better than they actually were. The website cited former members of Tesla’s environment, health and safety team saying Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk’s personal preferences were often invoked as reason not to address potential hazards. Tesla’s Pushback Tesla pushed back against the story in a lengthy blog post on Monday, calling it “an ideologically motivated attack by an extremist organization working directly with union supporters to create a calculated disinformation campaign against Tesla.” The United Auto Workers union has been trying to organize Fremont workers for more than a year.

is it just me or does this sound a bit over-defensive

If you think that’s overly-defensive, you should have seen Tesla literally victim blame a deceased person several weeks ago when their autopilot technology failed, leading to a fatal crash.

You mean the autopilot tech that is clearly stated as "unfinished" and that the "driver must never remove their hands from the wheel" but then some guy did and ended up dying as a result? Literally the only thing I can blame tesla for there is naming their (currently enabled) glorified cruise control "autopilot" because that name is a bit misleading. That aside though, I am curious what the working conditions at tesla are. I find that most jabs at tesla end up being taken out of context, malicious, and occasionally outright wrong, but the claims of poor working conditions are one of the few things with tesla I can't outright disprove.

Many modern day unions are little more than organized gangs that serve to squeeze money out of businesses This is why longshoremen can make $100-$300 thousand dollars a year while doing menial labor. And why each container has a longshoreman tax because they demanded they get paid due the threat of containers losing longshoreman jobs. When they want more money they order their members to protest and grind industry to a halt till they get their ransom. The UAW has been trying to get into Tesla for years so they can squeeze money out of a company that has 30,000 workers (paychecks)

I have no idea how accurate it is, but the general feeling of the engineers I know who worked at Spacex is that they work you extremely hard. Most of those people only worked there for a year or two before burning out and changing employment. If that culture has followed over to Tesla, then I'm sure it isn't a great place to work either.

That's a widely reported claim that seems to be accurate. The saying goes "The hours at SpaceX are very flexible! You can work any 80 hours you want!"

corporations are always eager to devalue unions.

Wasn't there actually some rich guy that put together an organization with the sole purpose of slandering Musk right before all the barrage of workplace accusations came out? I've always been skeptical about it due to the timing of those two things. Hopefully the regulators can set things straight.

https://youtu.be/6QCF8tVqM3I I'm critical of Tesla and I agree that it's usually consumer fault that leads to issues like this, but the system is clearly flawed if it can lead to a near-miss like this, especially considering this person was anticipating this and prepared to stop the car, and still stopped with inches to spare. Anyone driving normally would be utterly thrown off-guard and might not be able to retain such control. Don't act like the autopilot/cruise control/whatever you wanna salad-dress it as isn't flawed to the point of risking fatalities. Tesla should have put their hands up and accepted mea culpa, but instead they had to tar the dead driver and claim that it wasn't a fault with his vehicle and instead was his fault for not having the knowledge to stop the car or perform a controlled crash (something almost no civilian driver knows how to do.) The failure of highway patrol to replace the soft-barriers infront of the hard divider only exacerbated this. There were three points of fault in that fatality, and the largest onus is on Tesla and California Highway Maintenance. The driver is partly at fault, but when you pit a civilian driver who intrinsically trusts a corporation with tens of thousands of people working for it in every single department to make their cars safe against him, I'm going to blame Tesla first and foremost. Corporations are not just one entity. It is not just Elon Musk that controls Tesla. There are tens of thousands of people paid to test this sort of thing and ensure this sort of thing cannot even happen. Caveat Emptor is not an excuse for flaws that can get people killed. Yes. People are stupid. Yes. People trust things too much. Does that mean they deserve to die for a moment's honest mistake, or over-assuming safety? Fuck no. That's the sort of thing a sociopath would claim. "Survival of the Fittest" is not an excuse for a failure of modern technology to operate in a safe manner. Worst part is, had Cali's highway maintenance team replaced the soft barriers it would have been a surviveable crash and the driver would still be alive today. The inability of the car to determine where a fucking static barrier is cannot be excused, especially when this is meant to be a precursor to automated vehicles.

Look if you get a chainsaw and it says "Do not touch front end during operation" and you do it, it's not the chainsaw's fault, it's not Black and Decker's fault. You did the exact thing it told you not to do, how is that anyone's fault but your own. If the car tells you "This isn't a self-driving mode, pay attention and retain control of the car." then how is it anyone else's fault but you're own if you decide to relax and let it drive itself? Not even that imo, because: An autopilot is a system used to control the trajectory of an aircraft without constant 'hands-on' control by a human operator being required. Autopilots do not replace human operators, but instead they assist them in controlling the aircraft. Autopilot just keeps you level and on track, like Tesla's keeps you on the road. It won't stop you from crashing into a mountain, Tesla's won't always avoid unexpected obstacles. In neither case is it meant to replace the human operator, just supplement them.