Swedish court rules against Tesla in dispute with postal service over deliveries • Hacker News Board

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

#221

Post by raoulkent » Fri, Dec 08, 2023, 1:34 PM UTC

randall wrote: post #202

danielovichdk wrote: post #181

Fuck these companies that think they can break the unions our former generations built for the purpose of being treated fair. Americans don't get it. We Scandinavians are not built on a cultural foundation which circles around creating our own safety nets. We are not lucky. We worked hard for it for hundreds of years. Same thing goes for Wolt or Uber etc. They are not welcome here if they can't treat workers by their…

Can you tell me more about the safety net thing? As an American I actually don’t understand that point. Are you saying culturally your family wouldn’t feel obligated to be a safety net if another family member was struggling? And that the unions defacto provide that sort of guarantee?

Generally, you take part of a union as a member. This includes that the union will deal with some negotiations with employers, will help you with legal issues regarding work and will help you with financial aid if you are let go.

In Sweden we have no laws for minimum wages and many worker rights are instead regulated through union-employer agreements.

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

#222

Post by emptysongglass » Fri, Dec 08, 2023, 1:34 PM UTC

andsoitis wrote: post #213

emptysongglass wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. This is about our entire model under threat. And it will be Tesla's Afghanistan. Membership in unions is the norm in Sweden. People want to be in unions. I want to be in my union. We feel good about them and employers (who respect our model) feel good about it too because it is cooperative. For many reasons, the US has a model which is not cooperative but built on bitter enmity. This is repeated throughout t…

>> don't go down well in Europe. > Exactly. This is about our entire model under threat. And it will be Tesla's Afghanistan. Membership in unions is the norm in Sweden. Unionization rates differ significantly across European countries. While the unionization rate in the Sweden is quite high at 65.2% (as of 2019), it is much lower in Germany at 16.3% and even lower in France at 8.9%. https://www.statista.com/statistic…

I was specifically speaking about the Nordic Model of which I am a member and a citizen. I could have been more clear but by "my" I meant as a citizen of a country participating in the Nordic Model. What the rest of Europe does is up to them. Unions are foundational to our (Scandinavia's) way of life. This fight ends with Tesla either agreeing to our model or losing our entire market.

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

#223

Post by VoxPelli » Fri, Dec 08, 2023, 1:35 PM UTC

suoduandao3 wrote: post #141

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.

A lot of what Musk says and does sounds ridiculous. That doesn't make it wise to dismiss out of hand. I actually agree that a lot of unions reinforce an us-vs-them mentality that might be necessary in local disputes but certainly isn't as good as having everyone's incentives aligned. What I think Musk might be missing in this context is that European unions have a deep history in the guild system and are related not…

Unions in Sweden works closely with the industry to find good deals that makes both companies and workers prosper.

Unions here know that if the companies doesn’t prosper, so won’t the people employed by it.

So the industry and the unions negotiate agreements that ensures we have the strongest companies with the healthiest workers.

Sure, one side represents the company leadership and the other the workers, but they have a shared goal and collaborate on that, knowing that government legislation would be worse for everyone and not be agile and adaptable to the needs of different industries.

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

#224

Post by bdhcuidbebe » Fri, Dec 08, 2023, 1:35 PM UTC

VoxPelli wrote: post #196

piva00 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

But sympathy strikes goes further and now affects superchargers, offices and even Swedish suppliers to the gigafactory. Lucky for Musk that he picked a Finnish supplier for the Cybertruck steel…

> Lucky for Musk that he picked a Finnish supplier

https://efe.com/en/economy/2023-12-07/finnish-union-will-be-...

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

#225

Post by ceejayoz » Fri, Dec 08, 2023, 1:35 PM UTC

AYBABTME wrote: post #188

rsynnott wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

… I’m not even sure what he’s getting at. Are multinational corporations the exploited proletariat in this analogy?

It creates two castes in the company, management and unionized workers. Aristocrats and the peasant workers.

In contrast to a non-union shop, where there's... management and ununionized workers? With every individual worker in their own powerless little caste of one?

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

#226

Post by andsoitis » Fri, Dec 08, 2023, 1:35 PM UTC

sofixa wrote: post #183

andsoitis wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> disseminating best practices and standards What is a good example?

Historically, artisans such as jewellery makers, butchers, etc. were part of a guild, which also provided training and apprenticeships.

> Historically, artisans such as jewellery makers, butchers,

the claim was that unions, today, disseminate best practices that make up for lack of companies training their employees to be able to do their jobs well, which I'm skeptical about.

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

#227

Post by sjsdaiuasgdia » Fri, Dec 08, 2023, 1:36 PM UTC

AYBABTME wrote: post #188

rsynnott wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

… I’m not even sure what he’s getting at. Are multinational corporations the exploited proletariat in this analogy?

It creates two castes in the company, management and unionized workers. Aristocrats and the peasant workers.

Without unions you already have the management and worker castes. Source: I've worked in non-union jobs for 20+ years.

What unions do is provide an opportunity for the workers to collectively apply power.

Of course, there's a lot of nuance in the implementations, and of course people can be corrupt as hell.

But in no way, shape, or form did unions create the management/worker caste split. Holy hell that requires some twisted logic.

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

#228

Post by VoxPelli » Fri, Dec 08, 2023, 1:37 PM UTC

AYBABTME wrote: post #188

rsynnott wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

… I’m not even sure what he’s getting at. Are multinational corporations the exploited proletariat in this analogy?

It creates two castes in the company, management and unionized workers. Aristocrats and the peasant workers.

Not really, unions provides the workers with representatives in the management which essentially bridges management and workers and lessens the divide

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

#229

Post by capableweb » Fri, Dec 08, 2023, 1:37 PM UTC

VoxPelli wrote: post #211

onethought wrote: post #173

Spotify also had a breakdown with unions and its workforce. With no where near the fall out that Tesla is getting. Surely that is a bigger deal than Tesla service centres!? Anti Elon, anti American sentiment?

Klarna also had a breakdown with unions but ultimately signed an agreement in the last minute before strikes started to happen. What makes Tesla different from Klarna and Spotify is that Tesla has a global policy to never sign. So Tesla’s Swedish company is prohibited by Tesla to do any kind of negotiation, and that escalates things drastically.

> What makes Tesla different from Klarna and Spotify

The "heritage" between the three is also different. Klarna and Spotify are/was Swedish, they know what going up against a union means, and it often involves going against multiple unions as they all help each other.

Tesla clearly have no idea what they were going against, as what is happening now is such an obvious fallout from not understanding the country they're operating in.

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

#230

Post by piva00 » Fri, Dec 08, 2023, 1:37 PM UTC

ajross wrote: post #167

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…

> a sympathy strike involves a union deciding to take industrial action against an organisation to support another unions industrial action Interestingly that's not quite what's happening either. The workers in question are not in a union. IF Metall is the union being supported, and merely wants to represent them (more correctly, they don't want a non-union shop operating in their market). Everyone is just nuts here.…

Tesla brought that unto themselves when they brought in scabs. That's the most egregious act against labour in the Nordics, from that moment they destroyed any chance to be seen as coming into negotiations on a equal footing. You don't do that here, period.

> but at the same time this kind of escalation, with all this economic disruption

What is the economic disruption? There's no "economic disruption" because of Tesla in Sweden, it's negligible for the overall Swedish economy, stop that...

Tesla fucked around, now it's finding out.