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Swedish Tesla strike goes international as Norwegian and Danish unions join in

theregister.com

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Re: Swedish Tesla strike goes international as Norwegian and Danish unions join in

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t matter. Even when you’re fully owned by a government, unionization allows you to do this. This is what unionization is, protects the worker regardless of your employer.

Unionization shouldn't be there to disrupt another company. It should be there so you can bargain against your employer. This seems really inappropriate.

On the contrary, it's a crucial part of collective bargaining. You have to be large enough to bargain effectively.

Companies in the Nordics aren't alone either, they have employers' organizations where a whole sector of employers band together to bargain with the unions. These discussions then produce collective agreements that bind the whole sector for a given timespan.

It might sound alien to some, but it has guaranteed stable work conditions and a dedicated workforce for a century already.

Re: Swedish Tesla strike goes international as Norwegian and Danish unions join in

#162

Maybe - just maybe - Tesla should just give in instead of destroying their brand in the Nordics, which is what they are doing. The workers are in charge, and they are also the ones buying Teslas (Yes Americans, in Sweden/Denmark/Norway Teslas are affordable enough for normal people who are in unions because they are paid correctly). Maybe it's a good idea not to destroy your entire market while also destroying the me…

You keep saying “maybe”.

Tesla is the problem. It’s a good idea to not destroy your market and the means to facilitate. More workers rights are needed by the rest of the world.

Own your opinions, maybe.

Re: Swedish Tesla strike goes international as Norwegian and Danish unions join in

#163

Maybe - just maybe - Tesla should just give in instead of destroying their brand in the Nordics, which is what they are doing. The workers are in charge, and they are also the ones buying Teslas (Yes Americans, in Sweden/Denmark/Norway Teslas are affordable enough for normal people who are in unions because they are paid correctly). Maybe it's a good idea not to destroy your entire market while also destroying the me…

That's not how people like Musk think. People are just tools for them, workers strike means the tool is malfunctioning and should be replaced or "fixed".

Re: Swedish Tesla strike goes international as Norwegian and Danish unions join in

#164
post #133
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the postal service in question is private and works like a private company, though the states of Sweden and Denmark fully owns it. A "private company" that is fully owned by the government is private company in name only; hence my calling it a pseudo-government agency. Especially for a legally-privileged function that is serving postal mail.

Fully owned by the state, not the government.

These terms usually mean the same thing. Do you want to explain the difference you're trying to highlight?

Re: Swedish Tesla strike goes international as Norwegian and Danish unions join in

#166

I'm coming from a US perspective and trying to understand what is actually happening https://www.ifmetall.se/aktuellt/tesla/ Does IF Metall already represent all of Tesla's employees? Does that mean there are no active Tesla services in Sweden during the strike? If union membership is really the way of life in Sweden, is there anything preventing the government from a legislative solution? Just mandate collective agr…

> Does IF Metall already represent all of Tesla's employees?

No, but Sweden has mainly unions based on industries (like IF Metall represents workers in industrial and metal-sector, you have Transport that represents workers in transport industry, Unionen of white-collar trade workers, etc). There might even be no workers in the specific union at the specific workplace and they might still go on strike since they are the union you are supposed to negotiate with. There are requirements of negotiation but no requirements of results from that, which is the cause of the current situation at Tesla. Tesla "negotiated" but flatly refused any outcome involving the union so they fulfilled the lawful requirements. Now the Union uses the tools they have in place when the negotiations ends badly so everything is going as expected.

>Does that mean there are no active Tesla services in Sweden during the strike?

Like I wrote above, Tesla might have all services running if they have workers doing it, but chances are at least some are members of IF Metall. There is also the effect of sympthy strikes from various other unions: https://www.ifmetall.se/aktuellt/tesla/darfor-tvingas-if-met... This includes transport (loading/unloading in harbors, transport of goods, etc), Electricians (yep, you can guess it, practically everything involving electricity), Builders (maintenance and construction of buildings), service and communication (This is postal workers refusing delivery of post/goods to/from Tesla), etc. The effect goes beyond Teslas services and will extend to all kinds of infrastructure and other parts of society unless Tesla manage to get their own self-sufficient (and probably totally isolated) mini-society without any needs from other parties.

So the more Tesla refuses to find a deal, the more the unions can escalate and it will get quite tricky to find laborers who want to deal with you. Other companies might refuse to deal with you with risk having the strike extend to you to if this goes far enough.

> If union membership is really the way of life in Sweden, is there anything preventing the government from a legislative solution?

It is really complicated, but the main thing preventing government going in with a legislative solution is that no-one (neither the industry or the laborers) wants it. It has been a solution that the union(s) and industry can solve this by themself and as long as they can, the government will stay out of it. This is kind of unique relaxed solution that puts a lot of responsibility on both the industry and the unions to sort things out and has worked well so far. Playing hard-ball like Elon will probably not end well for Tesla in Sweden (possibly Europe) if this continues since the system is kinda built on being mature and able to negotiate. My way or the highway attitudes are not well regarded.

>Just mandate collective agreements?

But what collective agreement? The system in Sweden is built on negotiation between the involved parties and finding some kind of common and sensible ground. There is really no easy top-down fix for that if one party refuses to play ball. Either the other party need to fight back or the whole system collapses and we risk ending up with government moving in, which neither party wants.

Re: Swedish Tesla strike goes international as Norwegian and Danish unions join in

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strikes are to thank for that.

I don't know what you actually meant with this nonsense

I encourage you to learn more about the history of labor relations, especially since the 1700s.

Re: Swedish Tesla strike goes international as Norwegian and Danish unions join in

#168
post #23

Striking should be legal, but firing employees for striking should also be legal.

Every work condition you take for grant--8 hour days, weekends, vacations, paid leave, to name a few--is the fruit of the labor movement, labor organization and strikes. Consider the Homestead strike [1] where companies hired private mercenaries (ie the Pinkertons) to commit violence to break the strike. People died. Consider US auto makers [2]: > Tesla workers earn on average about $55 an hour in wages and benefits,…

I find it funny how in every example I have ever seen of "companies oppressing poor workers on strike" every single time the workers started it by doing illegal and wrong things, and attempting to force the company to give in by force.

Every. Single. Time.

If someone can give me one example where the poor oppressed strikers were 100% in the right and did not actually start with the violence or credible threat of violence before being set upon by the state/company I would really appreciate it, because so far after going through dozens of such events not once have I found one

Re: Swedish Tesla strike goes international as Norwegian and Danish unions join in

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope Elon gets the license plates delivered by courier, which really cannot be that expensive. Then the unions have to figure out their next steps. Get your popcorn

[flagged]

> People can and should fight for their rights

> Tesla cannot and shouldn't fight for their rights

Very logical and balanced position among other issues with your comment

Re: Swedish Tesla strike goes international as Norwegian and Danish unions join in

#170
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, and they don’t. The workers do.

Should a mail worker be able to decide who gets their mail and who don't? For example as a mail worker should I be able to opt out from delivering mail to politicians whose political statements I find deplorable?

> For example as a mail worker should I be able to opt out from delivering mail to politicians whose political statements I find deplorable?

Ironically, I think this would be illegal in Sweden but might be legal in the US under Title VII exemptions.

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