Disclaimer: While I don't work at Tesla I do work as a technician at another Musk company, SpaceX, so I'm not exactly impartial.

I'm broadly supportive of private sector unions, and I think it would be great if the relationship between unions and employers in the US would more closely match what I've observed in Europe and Japan. With that being said, I think it's perfectly reasonable to be supportive of unions in general, while being critical of certain aspects of them.

My own criticism of unions comes both from my personal experience working in a union shop, as well as second hand info I get from several close friends currently working in union shops at the Port of LA/LB and various municipal and private employers in the LA/OC area. My personal criticisms stem from what I viewed as an almost total inability to hold more senior employees accountable for performance, an extremely rigid organizational structure that made it very difficult/impossible for a low level employee like myself to try and get into new positions based on work and effort rather than strict seniority, and a very lax attitude towards harassment and discrimination towards those who were not white or Hispanic, and especially towards those who weren't heterosexual. Sprinkle in a heavy dose of nepotism at the top and things got bad enough that I actually quit and went back to working a crappy retail job.

Now I realize that these things could just as well, and in fact do, occur in non-union shops, which is why I still support unions in general, but again, I don't think they are above critique.

My view of public employee unions, particularly for public safety employees like police and fire, is more philosophically opposed.

Edited for punctuation.

Thanks for the detailed reply, I appreciate it.

I am in total agreement with you - Unions are good, but nothing is above constructive criticism.

After all, the goal is constant improvement.

I'm surprised that unions would have a problem with racism and homophobia given they're usually run by pretty far-left-minded people.

It is of course important to note that my experience with unions is by no mean exhaustive, I can only describe what I experienced at one particular employer, this very well might not be an issue elsewhere. On the other hand, it's my understanding that historically, in the US at least, unions were somewhat frequently used as a way to keep minorities out of certain professions.

I would also caution against assuming that because unions, and their members, might share similar views with traditionally left wing political parties in regards to employment policies, that these views extend to being left wing or "progressive" on non-work related issues. I would probably describe myself as being well to the left of mainstream US politics when it comes to most social issues, and probably fairly to the left on economic issues, and I did not get the sense that most union coworkers shared these sentiments in the least.

Are you aware Tesla had the worst safety record in the entire auto industry and still won't release it's safety record from prior years? If Musk wanted to prevent a union, he shouldn't have gone so cheap.

1) In New York, union rules say I'm not allowed to plug anything into an outlet. I literally have to call an electrician to do that for me. Makes it a pain to work in the data center that way. So I sit there for an hour twiddling my thumbs waiting for a dude (or lady) to come plug in my rack/router/server for me. Feels like a waste of my time and his or hers, but hey, what does he care? He's hourly. Except it really is a waste of time, read inefficient, read reduced productivity. So people who might be critical of unions? People who are affected by and annoyed by inefficiency.

2) Next time you're in New Orleans read the passenger "rights" placard in a taxi. It's absurd and laughable. Protectionist rules there protect drivers behaving badly. You will be scammed every time you go there, if they don't try to get you on the way in they'll try on the way out. You get bonus points if they try both times. People who might oppose unions? People who've been burned by unions protecting bad behavior.

3) Police unions protect Police officers behaving badly. This prevents conversations about proper and improper behavior, which fosters bad behavior, which damages public trust and safety. Who supports public safety and trustworthy armed public servants? Hopefully everyone.

I'm all for workers rights but sometimes worker protections protect bad behavior which can lead to negative emotions about the process.

I'm critical of unions for a number of reasons, including artificially preventing automation and technological progress in order to prevent redundancies and pointless mandates like ensuring that only union appointed electricians can plug in a socket. If you think the only people critical of unions are your stereotypical evil capitalists then you might want to look up the arguments people make against them - one can't defend a position if they don't know the opposition's arguments.

> one can't defend a position if they don't know the opposition's arguments.

I agree, that's why I asked for other people's augments against them.

And of course you are correct, unions are not perfect and sometimes are downright stupid (your two examples). Just because something is not perfect is not a reason to not have it.

It's just a good reason to improve it.

On the whole, unions (including their sometimes stupid rules) are better that not unions, and I have never seen a compelling argument otherwise (other than the two reasons I mentioned in my original post, which are not valid)

I agree, and I never suggested that unions should be banned or otherwise prevented from existing. I think unions should have a right to exist but shouldn't necessarily be propped up by legislation that gives them the upper hand in negotiations (e.g. anti-strikebreaker legislation).

I think unions are positive or negative on a case-by-case basis. Given the value of human life, safety-critical industries almost always benefit from union presence but Hollywood for example seems to take on unions as a burgeoning cost of doing business without them providing much in the way of real value. I don't think they're universally good or bad.