일론 머스크, 세상을 바꾸려면 주 80시간은 일해야 Elon Musk Tweets Critically About The 40-Hour Work Week, Is Wrong About Labor Rights
Elon Musk Tweets Critically About The 40-Hour Work Week, Is Wrong About Labor Rights
Steve Rousseau Nov 27 2018
It's Tuesday. Most likely, you're just settling back into the work week after a few much-needed days off spent with friends and family to celebrate Thanksgiving, a federal holiday. Coincidentally, on Monday evening, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk went on Twitter to publicly pat himself on the back for this Wall Street Journal story about how some young engineers want to work at Tesla despite the long hours and high stress.
일론 머스크, 세상을 바꾸려면 주 80시간은 일해야 쉽게 일할 수 있는 곳이 많지만, 누구도 1주일에 40시간 일해서는 아무것도 못 바꿔 테슬라의 최고경영자(CEO) 일론 머스크가 세상을 바꾸고 싶다면 일주일에 80시간 일해야 한다고 말했다.
27일(현지시간) 블룸버그 통신에 따르면 머스크는 이날 트위터에 “테크놀로지의 짜릿하고 새로운 세상을 창조하는 데 함께하자. 일이 중요하게 진행되는 곳을 원한다면 스페이스X, 테슬라, 보링컴퍼니, 뉴럴링크가 그곳이다”라고 글을 올렸다. 이어 “쉽게 일할 수 있는 곳이 많지만, 누구도 1주일에 40시간 일해서는 세상을 바꿀 수 없다”고 했다. 보링컴퍼니는 지하 터널 기반의 교통 시스템 기업이고, 뉴럴링크는 바이오 인공지능(AI) 기업이다. 둘 다 머스크가 운영 중이다.
이에 트위터 사용자가 “세상을 바꾸려면 1주일에 몇 시간 일하면 되느냐”고 물었고 머스크는 “사람에 따라 다르지만 80시간이면 지속 가능하고, 최대 100시간”이라고 답했다. 다만 그는 “(1주일에) 80시간이 넘어가면 고통이 기하급수적으로 커진다”는 경고를 덧붙였다. 머스크의 이런 발언은 지난 25일 미국 다큐멘터리 뉴스 ‘악시오스 온 HBO’와의 인터뷰 직후 나왔다.
인터뷰에서 그는 “연초 테슬라가 모델3 대량생산에 미친 듯이 돈을 쏟아붓다 보니 수 주 안에 망할 위기에 몰렸었다”며 “해결하기 매우 힘들었다”고 털어놨다.
일론 머스크의 트위터 [트위터 캡처] edited by kcontents 또 자신이 일을 얼마나 많이 하고 있는지 강조하면서 주 7일을 22시간씩 일하고 있다고도 했다. 공장 바닥에서 잠을 자기도 했다고 밝혔다. 그는 “과로는 나의 뇌와 심장에 엄청난 무리를 주고 있고 누구에게도 이렇게 일하라고 추천하지 않는다”며 “그러나 내가 일하지 않으면 테슬라는 바로 망할 것”이라고 했다.
그는 지난 3일 IT 전문매체 리코드와의 인터뷰에서도 “CEO인 나뿐 아니라 테슬라의 모든 직원은 모델3의 생산량을 맞추기 위해 주당 평균 100시간씩 일을 했다”고 말한 바 있다.
테슬라는 올해 3분기 실적발표에서 모델 3을 5만3239대 생산했다고 발표했다. 월가의 우려를 불식시킬 수준에는 도달한 생산량이다. 홍주희 기자 honghong@joongang.co.kr [중앙일보] |
edited by kcontents
Here, Musk makes two claims. First is that Tesla, an electric car manufacturer, is changing the world. And second, that it is impossible to change the world working 8 hours a day. He concluded with that familiar management bromide about "passion" everyone knows and loves.
He then followed up his self-congratulatory tweet with another.
The verdict is still out on whether or not getting everyone to buy a brand new electric car from Tesla is going to actually mitigate the impending climate disaster the UN predicts we have just 12 years to avoid, and 13 US federal agencies report that we are already seeing and feeling the impacts of today.
But the 40-hour work week incapable of changing the world? This should give you pause. Musk's tweet assumes that the 40-hour work week has always been the default. On the seventh day, God rested, and then said everyone will now work Monday through Friday from 9 AM to 5 PM with a one hour lunch break. Of course not. On the grand scale of human labor, working eight hours a day with two days off is a relatively new concept. Call Musk whatever you want, a "maestro", a union-buster — but here he seems just ignorant of labor history.
Here in the US, the fight for better hours basically started since the country's earliest days, with Philadelphia carpenters becoming the first to start the proud American tradition of walking off the job in the fight for reducing the workday from 12-14 hours to just 10. In 1886, labor rights protesters died fighting for the 8-hour workday in the infamous Haymarket Affair — which served as the inciting event for May Day protests that continue to this day. It was not until 1938 that Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards act, enshrining what most of us now take for granted: 44-hour work weeks1, the weekend, overtime, minimum wage and child labor bans.
One would assume that, at the very least, Musk, who founded and owns a car company, would know that in 1914 Henry Ford instituted an 8-hour day for his factory workers and also doubled their pay.2 But maybe the Ford Motor Company doesn't really pass his definition of world-changing.
Still, let us assume that despite all this, the millions of folks here in the US who fought for shorter hours and better pay, at best, did not change the world at their hard-won 9-to-5, and at worst, are lazy and entitled. You could still argue that better wages and more time away from work gave them the leisure time and the disposable income to, say, log onto the internet and visit a website that allows them to buy and sell various things. Or watch a private space launch on their lunch break. Or buy an electric car and use it to drive wherever they need to go that isn't their job.
You could argue that Elon Musk's "world-changing" companies were built on the back of those who only work 8 hours a day. All of those Tesla Model 3s aren't going to change the world on their own. They, of course, need working stiffs to drive them.
http://digg.com/2018/elon-musk-40-hour-work-week
kcontents
