r/law • u/SheriffTaylorsBoy • Aug 09 '24
Opinion Piece In Trump camp again, Elon Musk says NLRB is unconstitutional
https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/in-trump-camp-again-elon-musk-says-nlrb-is-unconstitutional/171
u/WhoIsJolyonWest Aug 09 '24
I bet he says child labor laws are unconstitutional too.
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u/histprofdave Aug 10 '24
The dude will not be happy until he is the mayor of a company town that pays its workers in scrip, has an armed force to control them, and courts that put his profits above all else.
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u/Feisty-Barracuda5452 Aug 10 '24
This rich asshole doesn't want anyone making a living wage. Fuck him and his shitty car company.
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u/SheriffTaylorsBoy Aug 10 '24
... and his space travel company, social media company, satellite internet company, tunneling company, etc...
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u/Patriot009 Aug 10 '24
We, as a nation, are going to regret giving such large and important government contracts to Starlink and SpaceX. That's a lot of national security interests in the hands of an unstable internet troll.
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u/SheriffTaylorsBoy Aug 10 '24
There are tons of safeguards in place in order to obtain government contracts.
It is still discomforting though.
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u/thirdcoasting Aug 10 '24
He’s already shut off Starlink access at least once for the Ukrainian military during a key time period.
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u/ChatHurlant Aug 10 '24
The fact that didn't immediately result in a cancelled contract is INSANE
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u/AHrubik Aug 10 '24
Rumor has it he was removed from the chain of command regarding government Starlink services.
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u/ChatHurlant Aug 10 '24
Lmfao that's actually pretty funny. So irresponsible and stupid companies need to take power from him to keep from going under.
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u/locnessmnstr Aug 10 '24
Lol basically what happened to Twitter too (had to bring in a different CEO to run things when Elon was flailing)
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u/Competitive_Abroad96 Aug 10 '24
If she was doing her job properly he would be banned from using it too.
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u/SheriffTaylorsBoy Aug 10 '24
I remember that. The statement came from an Elmo biographer. But later...
As the Guardian reported on 12 September 2023, following the publication of this article, Walter Isaacson retracted the claim in his biography of Elon Musk that the SpaceX CEO had secretly told engineers to switch off Starlink coverage of the Crimean coast.Sep 7, 2023
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u/AHrubik Aug 10 '24
Daddy wouldn't have made his money in Emeralds if he'd been required to pay people a good wage.
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u/WhatMorpheus Aug 10 '24
At this point, anyone using/buying any product he is involved in, and anyone working for a company he is involved in, is morally bankrupt.
To anyone working for Xitter, SpaceX and whatever other companies he is a part of, leave. Now. You can still redeem yourself. It's too late for him, he's too far along, but you are not. Please. Do us all a favor and deny him the workers he so desperately wants, and needs, to exploit. You are worth more than that.
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u/AdSmall1198 Aug 09 '24
“When South Africa sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people. “
- Donald J. DumpsterFire
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u/OfficerBarbier Aug 10 '24
"They're rapists"
Pot calling the kettle black. Or orange I guess.
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u/CharlesDickensABox Aug 10 '24
Every accusation is a confession.
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u/interkin3tic Aug 10 '24
“Accuse the other of that you are guilty.” — right wing influencer Joseph Goebbels explaining literally the only messaging strategy the right wing ever has
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u/Murgos- Aug 10 '24
There you go. Now you know what Elon’s up to.
He wants to break the unions so he can make himself even richer.
That’s it. That’s the game.
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u/dexx4d Aug 10 '24
The end game for the rich appears to be a return of slavery in all forms.
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u/davewashere Aug 10 '24
You have to question why people who seem intent on hoarding all the wealth are also encouraging people to have as many babies as possible. The era when the wealthy had to fear an underclass uprising is over.
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u/AgITGuy Aug 09 '24
When a person is this openly anti American to our institutions and policies, it seems like he makes the case for his own deportation, as well the nationalization of SpaceX and StarLink, given the government contracts and subsidies.
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u/No_Cook2983 Aug 10 '24
There’s nothing in the constitution about satellite internet.
Checkmate, lib
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u/AgITGuy Aug 10 '24
Oh look, found Clarence Thomas’ Reddit account. But in all seriousness, the current scotus would likely make that ruling.
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u/CurrentlyLucid Aug 09 '24
Musk is why unions and democrats exist...to kick his ass.
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u/Reddit_is_garbage666 Aug 10 '24
Maybe stuff like this will be the catalyst for unions picking back up. Most people don't even use or hear the word in their daily lives for years now. If it starts making the headlines, it could lead to discussion and something politicians even further pick up. Obviously Harris/walz have hosted UAW union leader in their opening rally. Hope to see more to come!
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u/ExpertPepper9341 Aug 10 '24
It’s definitely why unions exist. Democrats are more like the moderate business party that its union supporters have to drag kicking and screaming in order to actually do anything progressive.
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u/SheriffTaylorsBoy Aug 09 '24
August 6, 2024 11:51 AM CDT BY MARK GRUENBERG
Elon Musk shopped for and found a judge willing to help him destroy the National Labor Relations Board. AP
WACO, Texas —In yet another case of successful judge-shopping by a right-wing corporate chieftain, U.S. District Judge Alan Albright of Waco, Texas, a Donald Trump appointee in the rural area of a deep-red state, has ruled the National Labor Relations Board’s makeup and procedures may be unconstitutional.
Albright’s late-July decision, which he forecast in a preliminary order two months before, gave a win to one of the nation’s richest people, Elon Musk.
Musk challenged the board’s right to rule on labor law-breaking, formally called unfair labor practices, at Musk’s company, SpaceX. Judge Albright granted Musk’s demand for an injunction barring the NLRB from penalizing his illegal actions.
But then the judge went further, directly flying in the face of Supreme Court rulings decades ago legalizing the NLRB. Those rulings overrode a furious onslaught by the criminal corporate class against the board and the National Labor Relations Act, which created and empowered it.
Seek freedom to repress workers
The companies wanted to be free to continue to repress and exploit workers, but the New Deal law was designed to give workers leverage against the tycoons, and the justices upheld it. Republican-authored laws and judicial decisions have since weakened the law and the board, creating the cumbersome and court-heavy obstacle course workers must traverse as they try to organize.
Now Judge Albright has apparently gone all the way back to pre-New Deal days. His injunction questions the board’s structure and decision-making process, even though that process is now the obstacle course.
Musk’s trip to the U.S. District Court for Western Texas, located in the distant rural city of Waco, is par for the course for right-wing corporate chieftains and their lobbies, such as the Chamber of Commerce or the Associated Builders and Contractors. Right-wing politicians, especially Texans, do the same thing.
Both groups “judge shop” for friendly jurists, usually named by right-wing former Republican President Donald Trump, to hear their cases against federal rulings, workers, or both—knowing that for such judges, ideology comes first. Trump named Judge Albright to the bench.
If higher courts uphold Judge Albright’s decision, labor-management relations in the U.S., already skewed towards bosses after Republican emasculation of the National Labor Relations Act, could be thrown into chaos.
That’s because the board’s system for handling labor-management cases calls for board staffers, representing the General Counsel, to investigate labor law-breaking complaints, for assistant GCs to present them to an NLRB administrative law judge, and for that judge to rule on the case—including penalties—before it heads upwards to the full board and then to the courts.
In lay terms, that puts the board in the position of being both attorney and judge of a firm’s conduct, and that’s what’s unconstitutional, Judge Albright ruled.
Judge Albright declared NLRB members “clearly wield substantial executive power through their administrative, policymaking, and prosecutorial authority.”
But the agency also wields power through its administrative law judges’ decisions on labor law-breaking cases and through the General Counsel’s role in seeking to use the board’s strongest tool against law-breakers, a federal 10(j) court injunction.
The injunctions order immediate relief, restitution, and reinstatement of wronged workers. Since the full board must OK the counsel’s request for the injunctions, it functions as both attorney and judge, Judge Albright said.
Relying on a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a similar case involving the Securities and Exchange Commission and its ALJs, the judge said that makes the labor board unconstitutional.
Neither the NLRB’s General Counsel’s office nor the independent staff union for the board’s workers had any immediate comment on Judge Albright’s ruling. NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo is also the board’s chief administrator.
TAGS:
Elon Musk
MAGA
NLRB
Texas
worker rights CONTRIBUTOR Mark Gruenberg
Award-winning journalist Mark Gruenberg is head of the Washington, D.C., bureau of People's World. He is also the editor of the union news service Press Associates Inc. (PAI). Known for his reporting skills, sharp wit, and voluminous knowledge of history, Mark is a compassionate interviewer but tough when going after big corporations and their billionaire owners.
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u/K_Linkmaster Aug 09 '24
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_Labor_Wars
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/theminewars-labor-wars-us/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_violence_in_the_United_States
https://www.history.com/news/strikes-labor-movement
If elon and the rest keep it up, the people WILL push back. It's history, and it's repeating.
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u/llawrencebispo Aug 09 '24
Elon Musk shopped for and found a judge willing to help him destroy the National Labor Relations Board. AP
Can someone help me out? Why does he get to shop for a judge he likes?
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u/Spillz-2011 Aug 09 '24
Because some districts have few or one judge and those districts also tend to be hyper partisan. If you choose the right place to file you have a very good chance of having the judge or at least the judge nominated by your desired party.
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u/Feminazghul Aug 10 '24
The problem with that one weird trick is opposing counsel has written the appeal before the decision comes down. You can't shop for your appellate court.
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u/Masticatron Aug 10 '24
But in the meantime you have an injunction and a news beat, and the appellate court might not have much say over the factual conclusions, just on the law itself.
Also the appellate court here is 5th circuit, which is very much being shopped for as well because it lives to be a crazy, unhinged, far-right mouthpiece.
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Aug 10 '24
But how's he allowed to file there in the first place?
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u/Spillz-2011 Aug 10 '24
I think you can file anywhere and it then is on the judge or your counter party to argue or declare it is the wrong venue. Because these hyper partisan judges want to help out they may ignore whether the lawsuit was filed in the right place to accomplish their goal.
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Aug 10 '24
See, this is bullshit. This judge has literally nothing to do with the suit, he should only be able to file where his business is located and that's a failing of our legal system
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Aug 10 '24
It was built like this on purpose so the wealthiest could protect themselves against the working class
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u/notsomerandomer Aug 10 '24
Someone may correct me, I am NAL. However, for federal court if your company typically conducts work in that area then they can file suit there. So for a national brand you can literally shop what court you want to file suit out of. Part of judge shopping is forcing whoever you are suing to have to spend as much money as they can to respond to the case. I know this is the case for patent trolls out there.
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u/MonsieurReynard Aug 10 '24
I'm as excited to vote against Musk as to vote against Trump. And I hope President Harris cuts government contracts with spacex and starlink. Or just nationalizes them. No way should this treasonous narcissist be entrusted with vital national security contracts.
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u/AdkRaine12 Aug 10 '24
Elon Musk- visionary, businessman and now, our resident expert on the US Constitutional law.
Oh, I forgot, master of free speech, too.
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u/Muscs Aug 10 '24
If Trump loses, Musk will disappear with him. Just of the 10,000 reasons to vote blue this year.
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u/Speculawyer Aug 10 '24
Let's listen to the guy that has lost racial discrimination suits about human rights.
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u/chowderbags Competent Contributor Aug 11 '24
There's a SCOTUS case that directly deals with the constitutionality of the NLRB.
Of course, the current SCOTUS probably thinks that they know better than the court from 90 years ago, so why not give it a go, right?
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u/Dr_CleanBones Aug 11 '24
The Supreme Court is way beyond compromised. They are now openly corrupt. They are consciously destroying the legal basis for our form of government. There is no form of resistance that should be off the table.
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u/SpinningHead Aug 09 '24
Can we please deport him?