{"id":1213778,"date":"2023-09-15T15:32:52","date_gmt":"2023-09-15T15:32:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/?p=444904"},"modified":"2023-09-15T15:32:52","modified_gmt":"2023-09-15T15:32:52","slug":"automaker-ceo-elon-musk-strips-uaw-twitter-verification-as-union-strikes-against-big-three","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/09\/15\/automaker-ceo-elon-musk-strips-uaw-twitter-verification-as-union-strikes-against-big-three\/","title":{"rendered":"Automaker CEO Elon Musk Strips UAW Twitter Verification as Union Strikes Against Big Three"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After members of<\/u> the United Auto Workers walked off the job at midnight, Twitter stripped the union of its account verification without notice, according to a UAW official. The account, as of publication time, lacked verification.<\/a> The move by Elon Musk, owner of the microblogging platform he is attempting to rechristen from Twitter to X, followed the union\u2019s decision to strike the Big Three automakers on Thursday night after the car companies refused to ink a new contract with their unionized workers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Class solidarity among the nation\u2019s elite has long been a feature of the American political economy, and the move by Musk, the richest man on the planet, is in line with that sense of allegiance, even as he promotes himself as a populist friend of the working man. Musk is also the owner of a non-union automaker, Tesla. Wage increases won by union workers often trickle down, so to speak, to non-union workers, requiring even bosses like Musk to pay workers more from his share of profits. That gives Musk a direct financial incentive to help break the strike, even beyond whatever ideological affinity he may have with the capitalist class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

A UAW official told The Intercept that the union\u2019s account, which they paid for, was verified until Friday morning, when suddenly it wasn\u2019t. The most recent entry<\/a> for the UAW Twitter account in the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, from September 9, confirms that the union was blue check verified. A request for comment from Twitter earned the auto-reply, \u201cBusy now, please check back later.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some 13,000 UAW workers are participating in what they\u2019re calling their Stand Up Strike, which will roll out in phases if the so-called Big Three auto manufacturers \u2014 Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis (formerly Chrysler) \u2014 continue to resist workers\u2019 demands. Like Tesla, many of the Big Three\u2019s electric vehicle manufacturers are also non-union, a key sticking point in negotiations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Following the 2007 and 2008 financial crisis, autoworkers agreed to radical concessions on everything from pensions to wages to health care in order to help Detroit emerge successfully from bankruptcy. The companies have since returned to extraordinary levels of profitability, with CEO pay and company profits climbing by 30 to 40 percent in recent years. UAW workers have demanded similar increases over the next four years, demands the companies have rejected even as they continue stock buybacks intended to pump up the share price and corresponding executive compensation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

General Motors CEO Mary Barra was expressly asked about the pay disparity in an interview<\/a> on CNN on Friday morning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve seen a 34 percent pay increase in your salary, you make almost $30 million; why should your workers not get the same type of pay increases that you\u2019re getting leading the company?\u201d asked CNN reporter Vanessa Yurkevich. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barra responded to the unusually pointed line of questioning with typical platitudes: \u201cWhen the company does well, everyone does well.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musk, the Big Three automakers, and the UAW are all focused closely on the role organized labor will play in the production of electric vehicles and the batteries needed to power them. West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, as a price for his support of Joe Biden\u2019s climate agenda, insisted on stripping a provision<\/a> that would have tilted the EV production playing field in favor of unions. <\/a>Musk spoke out against the measure as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tesla pays significantly lower wages<\/a> than the Big Three, averaging $45 to $50 per hour versus $64 to $67 per hour, respectively. The company has led a slash-and-burn union-busting campaign in recent months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In February, Tesla fired<\/a> at least 18 software employees at a plant in Buffalo, New York, after they announced plans to unionize. Then, in March, a federal appeals court found that<\/a> Musk violated federal labor law when he tweeted a threat to employees\u2019 stock options should they decide to unionize and that Tesla also broke the law when it fired a worker engaged in union organizing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNothing stopping Tesla team at our car plant from voting union,\u201d Musk tweeted<\/a> in 2018. \u201cCould do so tmrw if they wanted. But why pay union dues & give up stock options for nothing?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In April, Tesla suffered another loss, this time in front of the National Labor Relations Board. The agency ruled<\/a> that the company violated federal labor law when it forbade employees from discussing wages and working conditions.<\/p>\n

The post Automaker CEO Elon Musk Strips UAW Twitter Verification as Union Strikes Against Big Three<\/a> appeared first on The Intercept<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on The Intercept<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A UAW official said the union\u2019s paid Twitter account was verified until Friday morning, hours after the strike began. <\/p>\n

The post Automaker CEO Elon Musk Strips UAW Twitter Verification as Union Strikes Against Big Three<\/a> appeared first on The Intercept<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":93,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213778"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/93"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1213778"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1213939,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213778\/revisions\/1213939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1213778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1213778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1213778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}