Starship Manufacturing Facility in San Pedro (Los Angeles)

[RedLineTrain]

I guess this is the backstory to the union opposition to the California state training funds.  I was surprised to see the electrical union come out against the state training funds.  But now all is clear -- the construction that they were counting on is not going forward.

Could you elaborate further for those of us uninformed about CA state training funds and what that has to do with port of LA?

The California state training funds (~$700k) were in part to retrain ~700 current employees and train ~300 new employees.  Those watching assumed that the 300 new employees would be for Starship at San Pedro and the 700 retrained employees would be for Starlink.

But in May, Bloomberg reported that the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers came out against the $700k in funding.  The stated reason was that Musk threatened to move Tesla from California, but the IBEW was definitely for a new Starship factory in San Pedro.  They would have been the ones to construct it, depending on the configuration that SpaceX chose.   So at the time, I was puzzled.

This makes it all understandable.  In May, the IBEW knew they weren't going to get to construct a factory.  They were twice-jilted in San Pedro and a bit ticked off.

[SoCal_Eyeball]

I guess this is the backstory to the union opposition to the California state training funds.  I was surprised to see the electrical union come out against the state training funds.  But now all is clear -- the construction that they were counting on is not going forward.

Could you elaborate further for those of us uninformed about CA state training funds and what that has to do with port of LA?

It was discussed several weeks back on another thread here on NSF.  Here are two news articles:

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-05-15/spacex-asked-california-for-job-funding-the-answer-no

https://spacenews.com/tesla-dispute-costs-spacex-state-grant/

[SoCal_Eyeball]

The California state training funds (~$700k) were in part to retrain ~700 current employees and train ~300 new employees.  Those watching assumed that the 300 new employees would be for Starship at San Pedro and the 700 retrained employees would be for Starlink.

But in May, Bloomberg reported that the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers came out against the $700k in funding.  The stated reason was that Musk threatened to move Tesla from California, but the IBEW was definitely for a new Starship factory in San Pedro.  They would have been the ones to construct it, depending on the configuration that SpaceX chose.   So at the time, I was puzzled.

This makes it all understandable.  In May, the IBEW knew they weren't going to get to construct a factory.  They were twice-jilted in San Pedro and a bit ticked off.

>  In May, the IBEW knew they weren't going to get to construct a factory

Here's what has me stumped - if they knew about the March 27th letter of cancellation, why didn't the IBEW or the union reps on the Employment Training Panel point this out when they voted "No" on May 15th?  They had no problem mentioning Musk's threats to move Tesla out of state and they would have had no concerns in leaking Bret Johnsen's letter to make Elon look bad.

I don't think they did know.  Nor did we until just this week.  Why was this news kept under wraps for over two months until uncovered by Samantha Masunaga of the L.A. Times?  Was the Harbor Commission executive director Gene Seroka asked by someone at SpaceX to hold off making it public because they thought the contract could be salvaged?  There is more to this story that we will undoubtedly learn about in due time.

[Coastal Ron]

As the design guy for new products I always spent time on the factory floor during new product introduction.

Usually our manufacturing engineers would have taken over by that time, and engineering would have been well into working on their next project. But it may vary based on the products being designed and built.

Once production was underway the only time I'd be there other than a hello visit was when I wrote an ECO with unanticipated consequences, some new flaw in my design arose or somebody made a stealth unauthorized component change.

About the same.

Boca seems to have a 12 hour work shift for N days with M days off that allows flights to/from Hawthorne design engineering.

I was the scheduling manager for a 24/7 factory that used the same shift schedule, and "white collar" workers kept a normal workweek schedule, though some skills, like purchasing, might have to be on call 24/7.

I really don't see too much need for flights to/from Hawthorne and BC, because anything that needs to be viewed in BC can be done by 360^o 4K video, and changes transmitted instantaneously. Remember SpaceX has traditionally been very frugal, and I don't think they need to change that yet.

Some modest concern here that Elon really screwed over local politicians that supported his Port of LA re-introduction.  Pols elsewhere may look at this and be wary of his Boring Company commitments as a result.

Elon Musk would not be the first business person to do a bait and switch, if that is what it is. And he is already dangling a Cybertruck factory in front of Texas politicians, so we may only know part of the story behind all of this...