They are designing and building the satellites for SpaceX here in my neck of the woods. The engineers are on 7 day work weeks. If they can survive until vesting, it is a pretty good payday.
Many industries pay partially in equity that vests over time. Especially higher paid professions. It just doesn’t mesh well with unions bc they don’t know how to work with or against it. Usually bc it is paid above and beyond the comp/benefits that other similar jobs pay.
Unions also brought the auto industry the never ending series of strikes that crippled their workers lives in the 1970s when the auto plants simply left the union states. Thanks UAW…but no thanks. Lived that story already.
PS: equity is good. I have enough equity in my vesting account to pay a year’s tuition. It will all best in time (and be replaced yearly by more). It’s only a bad thing if you get significantly less in cash wages than similar jobs.
Wait–did you just say with a straight face that most employers in most industries take good care of their employees? In a labor ecosystem with scarcity of good jobs–especially good full-time jobs with benefits–and in which unionization has been systematically eroded and dismantled since at least 1980, it strikes me as more than a bit naive to think that employees have the kind of power that would make “most employers in most industries” feel the need to “take good care” of them.
Equity is cheaper for the employers. That means that by replacing some monetary salary with equity, the employers are taking an even larger share of their workers’ productivity than they already do–and they already take the lion’s share. As productivity skyrockets (which it has done!), inequality widens in the US, which means workers are being ever more exploited.
Obviously some of you/us have jobs we’re satisfied with–that’s great! Very fortunate!–but labor power is what keeps our factories from looking like the ones in China, Cambodia, and Vietnam (where most of our stuff is made) and there’s no amount of frozen yogurt that can spackle over that truth.
^as i said, if your cash wage still competes with other similar jobs, equity is a great thing. We don’t know that their cash wages are lower.
No one cares about the frozen yogurt.
No, I wrote that most employers in most industries that do take good care of their employees are motivated by avoiding causing enough dissatisfaction to cause employee turnover or union organizing. (Pay attention to the last three words in the sentence you quoted.)
Obviously, many do not (or do not for some types of jobs), due to what they perceive as plentiful supply of labor that is not costly to replace.
Phew–thanks for the clarification and sorry for the misunderstanding.
Yeah, that’s fair–if equity is a genuine perk (which it’s not at Tesla manufacturing), then it’s a great thing. ANY increased compensation for the workers who produce the goods and services that enrich the investors is great!
It appears Elon Musk does (and thinks others do too). I hope you’re right that he’s mistaken.
But if you take their free coffee…heaven help you!!! (I never got over losing that!)
"Organized labor is also the folks who brought you lazy, arrogant, unmotivated, uncompetitive, and unproductive workers. " And the proof of that is where???
Yeah, and I’m afraid it’s because I was vague. Let me do a better job this time:
Say there are abuses going on at a workplace. Maybe an [older male manager gropes a younger female one/url. Maybe there are OSHA violations. Who knows–there are tons of things that can happen that are bad. Say the company wants to cover it up ([url=Uber’s sex harassment scandal deepens]Uber[/url], anyone?).
If the woman who was groped or the employee injured due to unsafe work conditions (or whatever) is compensated signficantly in equity–that is, to the company’s share price–then he or she is strongly disincentivized from whistleblowing or going public. When equity is considered part of base pay (and as an excuse for lower monetary compensation) then it has the employer-friendly side effect (in addition to being much cheaper) of enforcing employee silence on matters that may merit exposure. Imagine if [url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/hundreds-allege-sex-harassment-discrimination-at-kay-and-jared-jewelry-company/2017/02/27/8dcc9574-f6b7-11e6-bf01-d47f8cf9b643_story.html?utm_term=.d5434de65711]Kay Jewellers](Misogyny In Action - Parent Cafe - College Confidential Forums)’ employees felt too constrained to come forward!
So what I’m saying (and equity for salary is just one instance of this growing pattern) is that employers increasingly aren’t just looking to “incentivize collective hard work” but to put workers in a position of complete dependency with no real negotiating power. The single best way to do that is to prevent unionization.
Since those things are now either widespread or enshrined into law, doesn’t that mean unions are less critical than they used to be?
@hebegebe - Good question, but nothing’s ever enshrined, everything can be repealed, and things like OSHA require constant vigilance, especially since employers have great motivation to circumvent or weaken them. And unless you think employment is all hunky dory with no room for improvement, then I don’t think you’d want a work ecosystem without unions.
Well, I certainly want workers to be able to form a union, but am not in favor of strong unions that can cripple a company.
Yeah, there’s a tough balance in unionization. Unions are powerless unless they can strike. They can’t strike unless they have big bucks. And if they have big bucks, well, who’s managing that money? There’s clearly plenty of room for union kleptocracy, and many unions have indeed been corrupt (as are many corporations–it cuts both ways).
Reasonable people may disagree, but my position is that the existence of strong unions is so incredibly crucial that we must tolerate these abuses (and of course fight to ameliorate or eliminate them).
No:
-As technology marches on and the kinds of work that workers do in factories and other places changes, workplace safety laws will need to be updated. Think, for example, about some of the safety techniques that had to be developed in the 1950s through the 1980s and beyond when people started developing nuclear weapons and tools that used nuclear/atomic power.
-The minimum wage needs to at least keep pace with inflation, but there will always be factions who want it to not, so unions are good for fighting for that.
-There are still lots of things that many American workers don’t have, like paid sick days or family leave.
-Organized labor isn’t just about making laws but also enforcing them. So if you get hurt at the job and file a workman’s comp claim, for example, if you don’t have a union backing you your employer may try to squash it or force you into arbitration. A union is there to help represent your interests and make sure that companies abide by labor laws.
-Similarly, organized labor unions help negotiate contracts and benefits for workers as a whole, often negotiating on the workers’ behalf and doing the kind of comparison and industry salary research the worker may not have time or resources to do.