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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

#201

Post by renewiltord »

actionfromafar wrote: post #155
renewiltord wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One does not hire a crime lord. The crime lord is your boss. Like in the US, where labour unions were notoriously controlled by violent criminals who used them successfully to extract surplus value that people could create.

Yeah, in the US the employers hired the Pinkertons, so that evens out maybe?

Does it? It seems like a world without violent worker repression and criminal organized labour is mostly possible. Many things have a use lifetime. I'm sure once upon a time, I would have needed a personal firearm to protect myself out on the Wild West but today I have lived more than a decade in the US unarmed and no bandits have accosted me yet.

No doubt organized labour had value once and perhaps even the crime lords who controlled them provided societal utility but smashing the criminal element within has been good for America. It still exists but cut down quite a bit.

Only old broken soldiers still fight won wars.

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

#202

Post by JumpCrisscross »

robertlagrant wrote: post #150
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unionization shouldn't be there to disrupt another company. It should be there so you can bargain against your employer. That's what Tesla's employees are doing. The point of a sympathetic strike is so that a small country's workforce can stand up to the likes of Tesla. Tesla can always withdraw from the Nordic market if they don't like the rules (which never changed). They don't want to do that because there is so…

But it's not a sympathetic strike. They're refusing to deliver Tesla's mail. They aren't striking against their employer.

> it's not a sympathetic strike...They aren't striking against their employer.

You're defining a sympathetic strike.

I don't have a view on whether this is justified. What I'll contest is that it was unforeseeable. It was obvious a refusal to negotiate would infuriate--it's happened dozens of times, almost always with American companies, and it's close to an element of national and regional pride at this point. It wasn't a certainty, but there was a definite risk of it escalating across Sweden. And from there it was and is a virtual certainty that it would spread across Scandinavia, and from there will across the Nordic countries and eventually Northern Europe.

This is a stupid molehill to die on for Tesla. They should bite the bullet and devolve Swedish operations to a local franchise who can enter into a collective-bargaing agreement .

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

#203

Post by lucaspm98 »

messe wrote: post #133
gottorf wrote: 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.

That's simply another pedantic distinction to justify state-owned and state-mandated organizations not providing core government services.

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

#204

Post by carlosjobim »

sampo wrote: post #92
legitster wrote: post #31

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…

> If union membership is really the way of life in Sweden, is there anything preventing the government from a legislative solution? Nordic countries actually have relatively weak labour laws. What might be handled in legislation in US (e.g. minimum wage), is handled in collective bargaining agreements, that are negotiated between trade unions and employers' associations. And the trade unions and the employers' associ…

It's a very sweet deal for the unions and for large employers. The unions make sure to collectively "bargain" each year for extremely low pay raises and even for nominal pay cuts for their members. In exchange the large employers force every employee to sign up for union membership. Sometimes the company itself signs the employee to the union, without any consent from the individual.

In exchange the unions get to collect their fees on the salaries of their members, which is used for political influence and funneled to political parties.

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

#205

Post by londons_explore »

elteto wrote: post #135
actionfromafar wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wouldn't have the right to do that by Swedish law. You only have the right to strike.

And then you can strike by selectively refusing to deliver mail for _one_ entity? I mean, call it whatever you want, but it is a selective strike and a government agency shouldn’t have the right to do that. You either don’t deliver _any_ mail, or you deliver it all. Btw I can totally empathize with the reason of the autoworkers strike, yet not agree with this.

A key element of a strike is that you don't get paid.

However, it appears the striking mail workers are being paid, even though they are not delivering mail to Tesla.

That in turn gives them a lot of power, because they can keep this strike going for as long as they like with no cost to themselves.

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

#206

Post by wharvle »

throwawa14223 wrote: post #180
wharvle wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The party’s not unrelated.

Yes, in both cases.

Are boards of directors unrelated parties you’re forced to associate with if you don’t want to severely limit your employment options?

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

#207

Post by ajmurmann »

mxsjoberg wrote: post #175
s0l1dsnak3123 wrote: post #121

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…

> Maybe Tesla is the problem here. No, this is an issue for other smaller companies too (with less media coverage) > Maybe the rest of the world needs to catch up to the societal norms of Sweden when it comes to worker's rights. I hope not. I kind of want a flying car ASAP. Not never.

No worries, the work will just get done elsewhere

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

#208

Post by toomuchtodo »

carlosjobim wrote: post #126
ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Allowing the government owned post office to pick and choose who gets mail just seems like a step too far. But even then the court wasn't forcing them to deliver mail, just allowing that mail to be picked up. And now that's blocked? I just don't understand how one entity can have this much power, in this case they essentially are the government they could demand whatever the hell they wanted. Your choice is to leave…

> I just don't understand how one entity can have this much power, in this case they essentially are the government In Sweden the unions own the government. Nordic countries can not be compared to modern republics such as the USA. There is little separation of powers.

Another way to say this is that people own the government.

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

#209

Post by ako »

capitalism22 wrote: post #97
InCityDreams wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There's all the evidence in the world that it's the best way to make everyone wealthy and improve standard of living, Link to evidence?

Do you also need a link to evidence stating the sky is blue? Do your own homework.

There's plenty evidence that uncontrolled capitalism creates a few very wealthy individuals and lots of others barely scraping by, often holding multiple jobs. The US is not a great example that everyone benefits from capitalism, too many people don't.

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

#210

Post by diego_sandoval »

eddtries wrote: post #129
s0l1dsnak3123 wrote: post #121

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…

They will have to give in or close shop. Simply two options available. Musk is pretty irrational when it comes to backing down so I suspect the latter. I was just about to buy a new Tesla when this kicked off and don’t fancy the risk of having a car I can’t service, so shopped around and discovered other EVs can be just as good with better build quality nowadays! So that’s a nice outcome for me.

> Musk is pretty irrational when it comes to backing down

What from the outside looks "irrational", from the inside may look like "not compromising on principles".

Money is not the main variable that Musk is trying to maximize at this point.

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