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Swedish dockworkers are refusing to unload Teslas at ports in broad boycott move

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Re: Swedish dockworkers are refusing to unload Teslas at ports in broad boycott move

#221

Post by lutorm »

natch wrote: post #199
lutorm wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it tax Teslas more than other vehicles? I sure seem to be seeing a lot of Teslas around...

I’m told that Sweden charges 25% VAT on not only the total price, but also on the total of freight charges, insurance, handling costs, and the 10% customs duty. That’s bonkers. So maybe not more than other imported cars but still crazy high. And also I could have outdated info but I understand they took away EV tax incentives in 2022. If you’re seeing a lot of them it’s probably people who got a chance to try driving…

Oh yes, having a car in Sweden is very expensive. And yes, the current government did remove the EV incentives. My point is just that that's not a positive or negative against Tesla compared to other brands.

Re: Swedish dockworkers are refusing to unload Teslas at ports in broad boycott move

#222

Post by piva00 »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #216
piva00 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Especially for low-skilled immigrants whose main way to compete is willingness to work for low wages. A race to the bottom, exploitative labour market is not what we want here in Sweden. Preying on someone's desperation to work for lower wages than what collectively we think is fair is pure exploitation. The labour market in Sweden is quite free and mostly deregulated, the main pillar of the foundation for it being…

Imagine a man who is crossing a desert and is dying of thirst. I'm short on water, but I offer him just a cup of mine anyway. You say: "Put your water away. That's not right. That man should have as much water to drink as he wants. By offering him a cup of water, you are supporting his death by dehydration." That's the position that you are taking with respect to migrants from developing countries. An "exploitative"…

> That's the position that you are taking with respect to migrants from developing countries. An "exploitative" job in the Swedish economy would be a big upgrade from their options back home, yet you still deny it to them out of a high-minded sense of "altruism".

I am an immigrant from a developing country, living in Sweden, gladly I've been here long enough to also be a citizen. I'm extremely glad there are provisions which did not allow employers to exploit me when I was hired, I'm glad I was paid in line with what natives/locals were.

There's no altruism in allowing exploitation of immigrants, it seems you are not considering that allowing it also creates a counterpoint that depresses salaries of locals since there's a pool of labour willing (and allowed to) to be paid less for the same skillset and competence, your prerogative is, ultimately, mostly beneficial to employers while leaving breadcrumbs to immigrants, and depressing local salaries.

Re: Swedish dockworkers are refusing to unload Teslas at ports in broad boycott move

#223

Post by piva00 »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #215
Snild wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's a reaction to the employer trying to circumvent the strike. It's an attempt to ensure that the strike is effective, and wouldn't normally happen. (also, the sympathy strikers object to the hiring of other people _to do the strikers' tasks _, not hiring in general.) > Force the price of labor to be high and unemployment will increase. If you don't, there will be a race to the bottom and people won't have a…

>No, that's a reaction to the employer trying to circumvent the strike. It's an attempt to ensure that the strike is effective, and wouldn't normally happen. >(also, the sympathy strikers object to the hiring of other people _to do the strikers' tasks _, not hiring in general.) A mafioso could tell you "We broke his legs to ensure that people stay quiet. It wouldn't normally happen. It's fine for him to talk to the c…

> The US economy has fewer unions than the Swedish economy, yet its median income is around 30% higher: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-median-income?tab=t...

This is a non-sequitur and non-argument, there are many, many other differences between the labour market in Sweden, and the EU compared to the US to rely solely on that fact as a reason for higher median income.

> People in this thread are comparing Norway to Sweden. One way of interpreting the median income data I linked is, if Sweden adopted the sort of capitalist approach you see in the US or Switzerland, the increased economic dynamism would be the equivalent of discovering $1.5 trillion in oil wealth, from the perspective of the median worker.

There's nothing in what you shared that support this, at all. Sweden also ranks higher in economic freedom than the US [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_Economic_Freedom

Re: Swedish dockworkers are refusing to unload Teslas at ports in broad boycott move

#224

Post by soco »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #220
ponector wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some workers had. Don't forget there are millions people on visa, in wait-list for green card. They always have been screwed.

Indeed. If the government got out of the way and allowed them to work, things would be better.

All Swedish comments here from both immigrants and locals shows them apparently enjoying the unions' work and the backpressure put on the companies. Which is the point of any agreement: I give you my work under my conditions, you pay me under your conditions, and both sides must meet somewhere in the middle. And lo it's even done without government involvement - we talk about negotiations between unions and the company. So although your intention was to be against the union, you're basically making their same point.

Re: Swedish dockworkers are refusing to unload Teslas at ports in broad boycott move

#225

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

piva00 wrote: post #222
0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine a man who is crossing a desert and is dying of thirst. I'm short on water, but I offer him just a cup of mine anyway. You say: "Put your water away. That's not right. That man should have as much water to drink as he wants. By offering him a cup of water, you are supporting his death by dehydration." That's the position that you are taking with respect to migrants from developing countries. An "exploitative"…

> That's the position that you are taking with respect to migrants from developing countries. An "exploitative" job in the Swedish economy would be a big upgrade from their options back home, yet you still deny it to them out of a high-minded sense of "altruism". I am an immigrant from a developing country, living in Sweden, gladly I've been here long enough to also be a citizen. I'm extremely glad there are provisio…

>I am an immigrant from a developing country, living in Sweden, gladly I've been here long enough to also be a citizen. I'm extremely glad there are provisions which did not allow employers to exploit me when I was hired, I'm glad I was paid in line with what natives/locals were.

Easy for you to say, given that you actually got a job. That's how these labor restrictions work: they're nice if you can find a job, but they create an underclass of people who can't find one.

Re: Swedish dockworkers are refusing to unload Teslas at ports in broad boycott move

#226

Post by piva00 »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #225
piva00 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's the position that you are taking with respect to migrants from developing countries. An "exploitative" job in the Swedish economy would be a big upgrade from their options back home, yet you still deny it to them out of a high-minded sense of "altruism". I am an immigrant from a developing country, living in Sweden, gladly I've been here long enough to also be a citizen. I'm extremely glad there are provisio…

>I am an immigrant from a developing country, living in Sweden, gladly I've been here long enough to also be a citizen. I'm extremely glad there are provisions which did not allow employers to exploit me when I was hired, I'm glad I was paid in line with what natives/locals were. Easy for you to say, given that you actually got a job. That's how these labor restrictions work: they're nice if you can find a job, but t…

> Easy for you to say, given that you actually got a job. That's how these labor restrictions work: they're nice if you can find a job, but they create an underclass of people who can't find one.

No restrictions in the labour market will create lots of exploitative behaviour, it will depress wages, I simply don't understand how you do not understand this, even more since you were the one citing "microeconomics" further up in the thread.

You are advocating for labour exploitation, paying people less than what's fair due to their desperation, not based on their merits and a level playing field to all. You are actively advocating for this. Don't you see any reasons a society does not want to allow that to creep into the labour market?

Re: Swedish dockworkers are refusing to unload Teslas at ports in broad boycott move

#227

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

piva00 wrote: post #226
0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I am an immigrant from a developing country, living in Sweden, gladly I've been here long enough to also be a citizen. I'm extremely glad there are provisions which did not allow employers to exploit me when I was hired, I'm glad I was paid in line with what natives/locals were. Easy for you to say, given that you actually got a job. That's how these labor restrictions work: they're nice if you can find a job, but t…

> Easy for you to say, given that you actually got a job. That's how these labor restrictions work: they're nice if you can find a job, but they create an underclass of people who can't find one. No restrictions in the labour market will create lots of exploitative behaviour, it will depress wages, I simply don't understand how you do not understand this, even more since you were the one citing "microeconomics" furth…

If Jack only produces $8/hr worth of value through his labor, and the government says employers must pay Jack $10/hr or more, Jack won't be able to get a job.

Minimum wage laws encourage employers to trim the least productive workers from their payroll. The least productive workers are disproportionately the poorly educated, those suffering from health conditions, etc. Minimum wage laws hurt those who are least able to advocate for themselves.

"Exploitation" and "fairness" are a matter of opinion. There's no objective way to define that stuff.

Re: Swedish dockworkers are refusing to unload Teslas at ports in broad boycott move

#228

Post by uzerfcwn »

ano-ther wrote: post #78

A time honoured tactic in Scandinavian labor relations https://mattbruenig.com/2021/09/20/when-mcdonalds-came-to-de...

> One can only imagine what would happen if the Finnish government tried to ban sympathy strikes in the same way the US government has here.

Although it's not quite on the level of US bans, the new Finnish government is currently trying to restrict sympathy strikes and political strikes, so we'll see how that goes. Trade unions are already throwing jabs with 1-day strikes and uppercuts are probably coming next year.

[0] https://yle.fi/a/74-20051635

Re: Swedish dockworkers are refusing to unload Teslas at ports in broad boycott move

#229

Post by piva00 »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #227
piva00 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Easy for you to say, given that you actually got a job. That's how these labor restrictions work: they're nice if you can find a job, but they create an underclass of people who can't find one. No restrictions in the labour market will create lots of exploitative behaviour, it will depress wages, I simply don't understand how you do not understand this, even more since you were the one citing "microeconomics" furth…

If Jack only produces $8/hr worth of value through his labor, and the government says employers must pay Jack $10/hr or more, Jack won't be able to get a job. Minimum wage laws encourage employers to trim the least productive workers from their payroll. The least productive workers are disproportionately the poorly educated, those suffering from health conditions, etc. Minimum wage laws hurt those who are least able…

There's no minimum wage in Sweden determined by the government through laws. I thought you had understood that, unsure why you are bringing minimum wage laws in a discussion about the Nordic model in Sweden.

Re: Swedish dockworkers are refusing to unload Teslas at ports in broad boycott move

#230

Post by piva00 »

natch wrote: post #219
piva00 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does that have to do with unions in Sweden?

Unions -> higher costs -> challenging finances for company -> financial trouble -> sale of company.

Volvo Cars was sold to Ford in 1999 when Volvo AB decided to focus on commercial vehicles, there's no financial trouble except the one that Ford went through during the 2008 crisis...

> When the global economic crisis of 2008 threatened the US automakers, Swedish authorities became concerned about the fate of Volvo, should Ford file for bankruptcy. These concerns mounted after repeated mass-layoffs at Volvo. In December 2008, Ford announced that it was considering selling Volvo Cars. Initially, a sale price of US$6 billion was reported.

Your conjecture has no basis in reality, it was not due to unions creating higher costs, it was the mess the USA created for the world in 2008 that prompted the sale of Volvo from Ford to Geely.

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