Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1500026
"SNL" post workers with their Contract Now shirts. 18 C I N E M O N T A G E G E T T I N G O R G A N I Z E D United Auto Workers (UAW) filed charges with the NLRB. An investigation followed, and it took a few months — until August 23, 2018 — for the Regional Director of the NL- RB's Region 32 to issue a formal complaint, effectively a decision to prosecute Tesla for threatening workers. Another year passed before an administrative law judge ruled that the tweet was indeed unlawful. But then it took an additional two years — until March 25, 2021 — for the NLRB to definitively issue a ruling on Tesla's appeal, reaffirming the illegality of the tweet and ordering it deleted. I t wo u l d b e a b s u rd e n o u g h fo r o n e late-night tweet to precipitate a three-year legal battle, but it didn't end there. Tesla appealed the NLRB's decision, and it wasn't for yet another two years — that is, until March 31, 2023 — that the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the NLRB's ruling that Musk and Tesla broke the law. Nearly five years after the offending threat, the Court of Appeals reaffirmed the order that Musk delete the tweet. A s a c o m p u l s i v e T w i t te r u s e r w h o frequently faces blowback for his online trolling, Elon Musk has deleted a lot of tweets over the course of his microblogging career. But the 2018 tweet threatening Tesla workers still remains undeleted to this day, notwithstanding multiple orders to retract it. After five years of litigation, with wins at every step along the way, the UAW and all of its lawyers have yet to undo 248 keystrokes. Slow justice is no justice. When those who abuse their power are able to perpetu- ally postpone any repercussions, there are effectively no checks upon their power. I'm writing about this particular case because it has been again in the news, ow- ing to the 5th Circuit's recent decision and owing, of course, to Musk's celebrity. But make no mistake, the matter of that Tesla tweet isn't especially remarkable: there are many such cases that languish for years and years in unresolved litigation, and they are usually about matters more material than just bad tweets. Indeed, the Tesla case, although it generated headlines chiefly for Musk's threat on Twitter, was consolidated with a number of other, arguably weightier charges against Tesla for related violations of labor law at its Fremont, Calif., plant, including the retaliatory firing of a union activist. The NLRB regularly handles such cases of coercive or otherwise illegal behav- ior, including cases in which workers suffer real damages. And those cases often drag on for months or years; when workers see any remedy, it is often too little and far too late to undo the harm done. The delay and consequent denial of justice at the NLRB extends as well to representation cases — i.e., cases in which workers seek recognition of their chosen union. In July of 2021, hair and makeup ar tists working for the Atlanta O pera unanimously voted to be represented by our sister local, IATSE Local 798; the Labor Board has still yet to rule on the employer's claim that these artists are independent contractors without the right to organize. Similarly, in October of last year, music supervisors on Netflix productions went to the NLRB to seek IATSE representation, and the employer has delayed their getting a chance to vote by alleging that they, too, are independent contractors rather than em- ployees. Workplace democracy is gravely undermined when employers' lawyers can delay union elections or prevent the results of workers' votes from going into effect. Elections for public offices matter, but the problem of plodding justice in the area of labor law isn't one that can be solved simply by voting different politicians into power. President Biden is arguably the most pro-union president this country has had. Jennifer Abruzzo, whom Biden a p p o i n te d a s G e n e ra l C o u n s e l fo r t h e NLRB, is a pro-worker progressive who has demonstrated a willingness to ambitiously reinterpret labor law in order to restore the National Labor Relations Act's express purpose to promote collective bargaining. The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pension (HELP) Committee, under the chairmanship of Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, has publicly named and shamed u n i o n - b u s te r s, i n c l u d i n g S ta r b u c k s 's f o r m e r C E O H o w a r d S c h u l t z ( w h o m then-candidate Clinton had eyed to serve as her Secretary of Labor only seven years ago). But even with relatively sympathetic figures operating the levers of power, the machinery simply doesn't work for workers