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Swedish court rules against Tesla in dispute with postal service over deliveries

reuters.com

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Re: Swedish court rules against Tesla in dispute with postal service over deliveries

#131

Post by SwedishExpat »

hnbad wrote: post #124
SwedishExpat wrote: post #122

This article uses the words "workers' decision" several times which sounds like individual workers are deciding to not deliver to Tesla. The truth is that a sympathy strike involves a union deciding to take industrial action against an organisation to support another unions industrial action. So these workers are legally striking against Tesla too, it's not just an ad hoc decision made by individuals. PostNord employ…

We say "voters" when we mean their representatives too so this doesn't strike me as surprising even if you could argue that it's not really their decision if it's a representative system rather than one of delegation (where each delegate represents one or more people directly who can at any time withdraw their vote from them and vote directly or choose a different delegate). I don't know how Swedish unions are struct…

The point I wanted to clarify is that if I worked at PostNord I couldn't decide to stop sending post to a company I disagree with, or a political party I dislike, etc. This is union-led industrial action. I saw some confusion in other posts on the topic where people thought this was individual action.

Re: Swedish court rules against Tesla in dispute with postal service over deliveries

#133

Post by piva00 »

cbmuser wrote: post #132

The article does not explain the background. What relation does Tesla have to Swedish workers? Is there a Tesla Gigafactory in Sweden?

No, this is only about repair shops. Which makes it all more stupid from Tesla.

Re: Swedish court rules against Tesla in dispute with postal service over deliveries

#134

Post by aeyes »

fl7305 wrote: post #30
tuwtuwtuwtuw wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to Tesla, the agreement which employees have in Sweden is already better than the minimum bar set by union, so Teslas issues appears to more out of principle than out of actual issues with the agreement itself. Or Tesla is lying and the agreement with employees is not actually better.

Does Tesla have a binding agreement with the workers on how to handle layoffs when business is bad?

Do they need to? That's what laws are for, in the case of Sweden it's the Employment Protection Act.

The union can negotiate a better deal but it's not wild west at-will employment like in the US.

Re: Swedish court rules against Tesla in dispute with postal service over deliveries

#135

Post by hnbad »

cbeach wrote: post #46
ArchOversight wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are unwritten rules everywhere. The nice thing is that when the unions in Sweden do strike unlike in the US where maybe they will get some support, there is massive groundswell of support behind them to actually get the company to make a change. The fact that the whole country collectively agrees gives the workers far more power.

How does a country give workers more power? By creating a business-friendly environment. The more companies operate in your country, the more choice of employers. Treated badly? Go work for a competitor. That’s how you put pressure on companies to treat staff better.

Unless you propose that there should be more corporations than people, I don't see how the number of companies significantly alters the power dynamics. We literally have industries where the number of job openings vastly outnumber the available talent and instead of better working conditions or compensation or participation this only seems to result in those companies pushing for the softening of immigration laws and reducing protections. The only times we see workers gain leverage is when they are able to form unions and use collective bargaining to avoid being fired. Even for superstar individuals there are limits to what they can demand for themselves and even then it doesn't trickle down to the other employees.

There's no market incentive for companies to "treat staff better" (which is really an oversimplification when it comes to basic things like following workplace safety laws, providing paid medical leave and health insurance, not cheap window dressing like foosball machines and free energy drinks) beyond the minimum you can get away with. Payroll is one of the biggest cost factors in most businesses if not the biggest. That means companies are always incentivized to cut labor costs where possible. This is why you say mass layoffs followed by share price increases.

If you really want "the market" to fix this problem, ban individual ownership of corporations and require all businesses to act as worker cooperatives. This gives every worker equal power in whichever business they decide to join and gives the owners an incentive to treat workers better because the workers are the owners. You could also do this incrementally by offering public grants to creating cooperatives or turning existing corporations into cooperatives (e.g. by creating a subsidized program to allow workers to "buy out" a bankrupt employer).

We don't want a top-down autocratic state so why should we accept a top-down autocratic corporation ruled by a single owner or a non-working board that is only interested in the resale value of the company, not its long-term profitability or sustainability?

Re: Swedish court rules against Tesla in dispute with postal service over deliveries

#136

Post by port515 »

tallanvor wrote: post #127
throw_a_grenade wrote: post #126

> Musk said last week: “I disagree with the idea of unions. I just don’t like anything which creates a lords-and-peasants kind of thing.” This sounds ridiculous.

Of course it's ridiculous. Unions have historically been key to helping equalize the power between employers and employees. Musk knows this and it's clear that he thinks of people working for his companies as peasants that only deserve what he's willing to dole out.

[flagged]

Re: Swedish court rules against Tesla in dispute with postal service over deliveries

#138

Post by hnbad »

cbeach wrote: post #113
notaustinpowers wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, we see how that's going in America and it's a race to the bottom. 10 years experience, bachelor's degree required, starting pay of $35k/yr. A society cannot rely on a business whose sole motivation is profitability to provide power to what they view as a liability, not an asset.

America is in top three nations of the world for wages (OECD 2022). Sweden is 18th. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average...

That's not "wages", that's "average wages". I don't expect much but I at least expect a passing knowledge of statistics and intellectual honesty. If most people have nothing and one billionaire joins the group that doesn't make everyone rather wealthy even if it drastically raises the average.

Keep in mind that there was a massive rise in C-level and especially CEO compensation compared to most other wages. Arguably this can be traced back to a specific book being rather popular among wealthy investors and entrepreneurs that argued CEOs are underpaid, which many CEOs agreed with and convinced the investors to also agree with. But this does nothing for the wages of anyone outside this group because C-level compensation is orders of magnitude removed from that of anyone lower in the ladder.

Re: Swedish court rules against Tesla in dispute with postal service over deliveries

#139

Post by Hikikomori »

port515 wrote: post #136
tallanvor wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it's ridiculous. Unions have historically been key to helping equalize the power between employers and employees. Musk knows this and it's clear that he thinks of people working for his companies as peasants that only deserve what he's willing to dole out.

[flagged]

The Nordics, famously bankrupt for almost 100 years.

Re: Swedish court rules against Tesla in dispute with postal service over deliveries

#140

Post by nprateem »

tallanvor wrote: post #127
throw_a_grenade wrote: post #126

> Musk said last week: “I disagree with the idea of unions. I just don’t like anything which creates a lords-and-peasants kind of thing.” This sounds ridiculous.

Of course it's ridiculous. Unions have historically been key to helping equalize the power between employers and employees. Musk knows this and it's clear that he thinks of people working for his companies as peasants that only deserve what he's willing to dole out.

I think he meant he doesn't like when the peasants rise up against the lords.
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