The full phrase is "the right to work in just and favourable conditions". Which concerns his workers too.

Though suggesting that Musk's "human rights" are being violated through closure of his car factory in the middle of a pandemic is making a complete joke out of both his argument and out of the concept of human rights.

Howard Roarke might disagree.

Yes I read the link before I posted it, I just didn't think the full phrase added anything to my response to the OP. :)

Anyway, I would think that being unable to open your own factory while your competitors are allowed to be open when you have done nothing wrong, would be quite "unjust and unfavorable". I mean it isn't like he can conduct this type of business from home instead.

Edit:

Here is the full sentence according to Article 23 from the Universal Declaration of Human rights:

1. Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. [1]

[1] https://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Documents/UDHR_Translations/en...

You are being completely disingenuous.

"Right to work" has a completely different meaning than "Right to work in just and favourable conditions".

The latter refers to the fact that IF you are working then it should be in a safe environment not that you have the right to work at all.

I am not being disingenuous in the least. I believe you are mis-interpreting the phrase.

Here it is in full form under Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

1. Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. [1]

[1] https://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Documents/UDHR_Translations/en...

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Paraphrasing here, but I very much read that as "Every human has the right to work in just and favourable conditions", not "Every corporation has a right to operate under equal economic treatment."

if your factory is closed while your competitors are allowed to be open that would definitely be unfair if all other relevant conditions about the factories were the same, in this case if they were in proximity to each other.

And just in case you're going to ask what proximity has to do with the matter of justice, it is because as his competitor's factories are located elsewhere than Alameda they fall under different jurisdiction, do his competitors ever have any regulation based on where they are located that they can then refuse to obey because Tesla's Alameda factory doesn't have to do it that way?

If there is unfairness here it is of the same sort of unfairness engendered by the world being a large globe with different climates, countries, governments, currencies, and cultures and where you choose to place your factory means your natural greatness of being must be hampered by the base restrictions of existence.

The irony of bringing up the right to work in a discussion about a US corporation wanting to reopen their plant. So is Tesla going to offer everyone who wants to work a job, because it's a human right? Exactly, that's not what the right to work is, neither does it mean that corporations can just be restart plants without care about regulations.

> Well, the UN definition of "Human Rights" includes the "right to work"[1]. So one could argue that this is, in fact, a Human Rights issue. Just because this guy is a billionaire does not mean that these rights do not apply to him

This nicely illustrates the folly of trying to reason about a situation from a pithy statement of some cherry-picked "right." Are we violating the "right to work"[1] of young children when we forbid them from quitting school getting a a factory job? Maybe, but it's pretty obvious that overriding factors are more important in that case. It's the same when we consider an employer who wants to "to work" employing his employees in conditions that some may consider unsafe.

No, because children don't have a right to work.

> No, because children don't have a right to work.

I'm not sure what point that's meant to make, but it supports what I was saying. You'd never be able to derive that exception from:

>>> Well, the UN definition of "Human Rights" includes the "right to work"[1].

There's loads of different competing rights, exceptions to those rights, and other social practices that need to be weighed to make a judgement a situation like this. Focusing too closely on reasoning about this one "right to work" ignores all that, and thus leads to less than enlightening conclusions.

Just as Freedom of Speech doesn't give one free license to spout hate speech or shout "fire" in a crowded theatre, one persons right to work isn't more important than another's right to life (or safety from a deadly pandemic).

I'm always amused to see people use the "fire in a crowded theater" analogy. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. coined the phrase in Schenck v. United States.[1] In that case, he sent a man to prison for the crime of leafleting against the draft in World War I.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States#The_C...

Minor nitpick: he didn’t send Schenck to prison. He was already in prison. The Supreme Court just kept him there.

The court case that gave us the "fire in a crowded theater" example was partially overturned by brandenburg vs ohio. It's not entirely clear which direction the court would come down right now.

Your first example is also impacted by this. General advocacy of violence was upheld as constitutionally protected speech, it's very unlikely that hate speech could ever meet the brandenburg test.

That's not to say that your point about one person's right to work vs another person's right to live is wrong. In fact, I think the court would likely agree with you on that matter. I just think your first couple of examples are flawed.