Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 409 posts

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

#241

Post by VoxPelli »

cornholio wrote: post #215
pard68 wrote: post #166

So a shipping company is refusing to deliver packages to a specific company? This sounds like a shakedown.

What is striking here is that the Government offices all use the services of PostNord. So Tesla has no choice over using PostNord, they are mandated by law to do so to receive their plates, yet a private interest group can arbitrarily deny them access to public services. There is a lot of verbiage about how Tesla is shooting itself in the foot for peanuts, and I guess it's a legitimate position to hold. The far large…

It’s easy to avoid actions like this:

Sign a collective bargain with a union and all unions are bound to leave you at peace for that agreements duration.

So far two international companies have refused this:

Toys R Us decades ago, eventually they had to give in.

Tesla now.

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

#242

Post by throw310822 »

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?

No, I guess it means that Europeans think that there is a minimum level of welfare that must be guaranteed to everyone, and that minimum level is way above what is granted in the US. This doesn't mean that family members won't also contribute to that "safety net", just that there is a relatively high "acceptable minimum" and the state is expected to make sure that nobody falls below that.

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

#243

Post by VoxPelli »

peterfirefly wrote: post #237
capableweb wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The important detail which most people seem to miss is that Tesla's workers aren't behind this. They don't want to unionize, because there's no reason to. > The IF Metall union is striking because they just want to get their cut. What sort of people do you think IF Metall is made up of? It's the second largest union in Sweden, the people who are a part of the union are also workers at Tesla and other companies. It'…

The point is that it's not Tesla's employees that are behind it. It is people working elsewhere -- or rather, the management of the labour unions that organize those other people.

The Tesla employees are behind it. Maybe not all. Some because they are scared of getting punished by Tesla. Something Tesla has indeed threatened with as far as I’m aware.

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

#244

Post by gorbachev »

port515 wrote: post #137

Considering all Tesla imports come from Germany or China, I feel Sweden will be on the losing end of this.

If that's how Tesla is going to "solve" this, they will very quickly find the unions handling shipping and customs join the strikes.

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

#245

Post by VoxPelli »

i67vw3 wrote: post #179

Tesla should crush pesky swedish unions, no matter what. Buy ports, buy ships, buy trucks, buy electricians, buy a brand new postal service etc. The $26 B cash on hand should be used somewhere, instead of usual executive package and share buyback. Edit:- If my comment is not as per HN guidelines, I am willing to delete it.

That’s cute Go and try that somewhere else where it might work. We don’t need any Tesla / douchemobiles here.

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

#246

Post by sakjur »

andsoitis wrote: post #201
cardy31 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that the various unions view Tesla’s actions as a threat to how labour works in Sweden. There apparently isn’t even a minimum wage in the country as everything is governed by these collective agreements. So if they let Tesla come in and not play by the rules it could open the floodgates for other large corporations to come in and do the same, slowly eroding the system.

> So if they let Tesla come in and not play by the rules Tesla complies with the country's laws, no?

And so do the unions. The law takes a hands off approach to regulating the conditions of workers, but that goes both ways. If Tesla avoids signing a collective bargaining agreement, the law won’t help the unions force them to, but it also won’t protect Tesla from the unions.

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

#247

Post by veqz »

andsoitis wrote: post #201
cardy31 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that the various unions view Tesla’s actions as a threat to how labour works in Sweden. There apparently isn’t even a minimum wage in the country as everything is governed by these collective agreements. So if they let Tesla come in and not play by the rules it could open the floodgates for other large corporations to come in and do the same, slowly eroding the system.

> So if they let Tesla come in and not play by the rules Tesla complies with the country's laws, no?

Laws upheld by the state are the worst good way to maintain order.

A much better way is to have the parties play nice with each other, build trust, and negotiate as equals. This allows for much better and more detailed agreements, for quicker reactions if market conditions changes, and for more flexibility within each economic sector. The fact that the Nordic countries operate in such a way no doubt contributes to these countries both having great standards of living, and being among the best in the world to start and run businesses in.

Tesla doesn't play nice. They don't build trust, and they don't try to negotiate as equals.

True, it is not illegal. It doesn't need to be. We have other ways to keep hostile actors from misbehaving.

Strikes are one of those ways.

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

#248

Post by soco »

capableweb wrote: post #229
VoxPelli wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

By this time we cannot say anymore they have no idea. Now it became pure stubbornness, and we can all see how stubbornness goes.

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

#249

Post by VoxPelli »

capableweb wrote: post #229
VoxPelli wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Indeed, and they are lucky that it hasn’t spread to Germany yet, as the Germany unions are even stronger than the Swedish ones and Tesla has a factory there…

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

#250

Post by FirmwareBurner »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #154
0xDEF wrote: post #146

Tesla is shooting itself in the foot by not being pragmatic. Norway, Sweden, and Denmark are combined the 3rd biggest market for Tesla. During some months we even edge out China temporarily becoming Tesla's 2nd biggest market. The way our unions are being portrayed by Americans is ridiculous. Even pro-union Americans are making our unions sound far more aggressive and subversive than they actually are. A "blockade" j…

It does seem penny wise and dollar foolish for Musk/Tesla to be playing these games.

Foolish? From the guy who spent 44 billion on Twitter to then run it into the ground? Noooo, it can't be, Musk is a business genius. /s obviously
Post reply on HN