United States: The United Auto Workers Union filed charges against the National Labour Relations Board against Trump and Tesla (TSLA. O) CEO Elon Musk, accusing him of trying to intimidate workers, as reported by Reuters.
The action was sparked by a two-hour long conversation between Musk and Trump on social media platform X that occurred on Monday night where the two were discussing workers stomping off the job in order to strike.
“You’re the greatest cutter,” Trump said during the conversation. “I mean, I look at what you do. You walk in, you just say: ‘You want to quit?’ They go on strike – I won’t mention the name of the company – but they go on strike. And you say: ‘That’s okay, you’re all gone.'”
NLRB’s Limited Powers and Broader Implications
Nevertheless, Musk only chuckled and did not engage further with Trump’s remarks, thus reducing the chances that the NLRB will pin him on engaging in illegal threats to the workers at his companies, stated Wilma Liebman, chair of the National Labour Relations Board under the former President of the United States, Barack Obama.
As per federal laws, workers cannot be dismissed for striking, and even the threat of a strike is unlawful according to the National Labor Relations Act, the UAW claimed.
Whether the NLRB would do something about Trump’s comments is uncertain, but the UAW seized on the remark as it remains firmly in the Democratic column and used Harris’s campaign materials to urge the nearly 400,000 autoworkers to vote for her against Trump in the six biggest states that could determine who wins the White House in November.
The UAW threw its support to Harris at the end of July.
Fain and Trump have been known to engage themselves in some form of banter; particularly the UAW President, Shawn Fain.
“Both Trump and Musk want working-class people to sit down and shut up, and they laugh about it openly. It’s disgusting, illegal, and totally predictable from these two clowns,” Fain said in a statement on Tuesday.
Campaigns of both Harris and Trump did not answer the request for their comments. Musk also did not respond to any of this.
Trump has urged the union leader to be sacked, claiming that he is among those who have weakened the U.S. auto manufacturing industry.
UAW members are more inclined to Democrat-dominated Michigan, yet those supporting Trump have staged their rallies in recent weeks.
Last year, 62% of the households in Michigan with a member in a union supported the current occupant of the White House, Biden, during the 2020 presidential elections, as observed by Edison Research. On the other hand, the union households were 53% to 40% for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, in which she only lost the state and the entire presidential election.
SENDING A MESSAGE
The NLRB has rather circumscribed authority to sanction unlawful conduct in grey occupations. In the circumstances of threats amounting to illegality, the board can restrain and compel the employer from engaging in prohibited conduct and require them to display information in the workplace on the rights of the employees. Another way unions can use the NLRB is to leverage favorable rulings to speak with workers who are being targeted for organizing efforts.
“It’s trying to expose more than anything politically what Donald Trump is about in terms of workers, and Musk as well,” former NLRB head Liebman said, referring to the UAW’s action on Tuesday. “Everyone knows the NLRB remedies are toothless to start with, but it’s not so much for the remedy as for sending both a political message and an organizing message.”
Fain has filed two different complaints against Musk and Trump with the NLRB, stating that the two have made proposals that they would fire employees who were involved in strikes.
Last autumn, the UAW organized an extraordinary six-week strike against Detroit’s Big Three automakers before getting record contracts.
Musk’s Ongoing Legal Issues
Musk, who has supported Trump for the presidency, has been in several conflicts with the labor board. His rocket company, SpaceX, is currently suing parts of the agency in two ongoing litigations. Those cases arose from NLRB complaints for unlawful discharge of engineers who criticised Musk and requiring employees to sign severance agreement with unlawful provisions.
In March, a U. S. appeals court supported an NLRB decision that stated that Musk had violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by tweeting in May 2018: “Nothing stopping Tesla team at our car plant from voting union … But why pay union dues & give up stock options for nothing?”
Tesla is also accused by the board of having violated labor laws pertaining to unionization at its plant in Buffalo, New York. Earlier this year an appeals court overturned a labor board ruling that accused Tesla of violating the law by prohibiting factory employees from wearing UAW T-shirts, as reported by Reuters.
At the labor board, the claims made by the union will be looked into and the lawyers will make a determination as to whether to file charges against Tesla and the Trump campaign. Those cases would be heard by administrative judges, and the decisions were subject to review by the five-member labor board and federal appeals courts. The process of completing it usually takes years.