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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

#261

Post by ClumsyPilot »

vinay427 wrote: post #232
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this comment disturbing - you are suggesting that 3 nations combined, some of the richest cointries on earth, lack either power or authority to reign in what a foreign corporstion does on their soil? How do you reconsile that such belief with democracy? Because that set of beliefs is only compatiable with belief in some kind of trans-national oligarchy. Or maybe some sort of America-centeic-colonialism, i am s…

I’m not entirely sure what the GP commenter is trying to say, but I’m also not sure how they imply Sweden, Germany, and China are working together, as I think is implied in your comment in that their power or authority is combined. Could you maybe rephrase what you mean, or how you interpreted their comment?

i mean authority of Sweden, Norway and Denmark since their unions are striking

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

#262

Post by occz »

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?

Spotify found some success with their anti-union campaign, and managed to mostly silently terminate the negotiation. With the layoffs happening this week, I imagine the appetite for picking up these talks again could return.

Klarna tried to basically 1:1 copy the anti-union campaign of Spotify, but it failed that time on account of the unions having learned to cope with that type of propaganda. Klarna is now under a union contract.

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

#263

Post by SwedishExpat »

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?

Sweden has a small government approach to labour, the idea is that Unions are more agile and closer to the market so they are given the power to negotiate. The legislation is basically "there are no laws, speak to the Unions and sign the agreement". So yes you're correct they aren't breaking any laws, but neither are the Unions for not working for companies without a collective bargaining agreement.

This system has worked well for a hundred years with Sweden ranking highly across most metrics for work satisfaction, happiness, etc... however every now and then an American company comes over and tries to challenge it. These companies get sympathy striked into the ground, sign a collective agreement, and live happily ever after.

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

#265

Post by martin_a »

randall wrote: post #212
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The way our unions are being portrayed by Americans is ridiculous. Americans policymakers believe in freedom of association only when it suits them. Its cool for Google or banks to close all your accounts without any reason, and make your life impossible. Its wrong for all unions/workers to refuse to work with Google and make their business impossible.

This feels very disingenuous, and pretty unfair. I don’t think most Americans think it’s ok for google or banks to act that way, and I also feel very uncomfortable about a sort of “mob rule” system… where informal agreements dictate which businesses are allowed to operate. They both feel weird for roughly the same reasons: arbitrary decisions instead of laws dictate which behavior is tolerated for which group of peop…

> arbitrary decisions instead of laws

You're free to go to a court and fight against a strike organized by a union. If the court decides the strike is unlawful, the union will have to pay and stop striking.

Strikes and unions are not as arbitrary as it might seem.

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

#266

Post by spinningslate »

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?

> Anti Elon, anti American sentiment?

I don't think so. It's a cultural thing: Sweden, and the Nordic countries more generally, have a strong cultural heritage of unions representing the interests of workers. There are elements of protection not included in law - for example minimum wage - that are instead covered by union protection.

Tesla has taken a position that it will not sign up to collective bargaining globally - and so won't engage with the unions on it. That creates a fissure: a difference in policy.

So it's not anti-American. It's a refusal to accept the terms on which a corporation wants to engage. A similar situation happened with Klarna and Spotify as others have pointed out.

It might verge on anti-Musk, but only because this kind of thing is in "red rag to a bull" territory for him. He is utterly recalcitrant generally: backing down isn't in his nature. It would seem that has only stiffened the resolve of the Nordic workers and unions.

But even then it's equally valid to see Musk as "Anti-Sweden": unwilling to respect cultural norms in a country he wants his company to operate in.

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

#267

Post by ClumsyPilot »

randall wrote: post #212
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The way our unions are being portrayed by Americans is ridiculous. Americans policymakers believe in freedom of association only when it suits them. Its cool for Google or banks to close all your accounts without any reason, and make your life impossible. Its wrong for all unions/workers to refuse to work with Google and make their business impossible.

This feels very disingenuous, and pretty unfair. I don’t think most Americans think it’s ok for google or banks to act that way, and I also feel very uncomfortable about a sort of “mob rule” system… where informal agreements dictate which businesses are allowed to operate. They both feel weird for roughly the same reasons: arbitrary decisions instead of laws dictate which behavior is tolerated for which group of peop…

It's written in jest, it's more of an observation of what seems to be taking place rather than how individuals feel.

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

#268

Post by Ma8ee »

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?

What apparently a lot of commenters don’t know is that in Sweden a lot of things that in other countries are regulated by laws are regulate by agreements between the unions and corresponding organisations for the employers. This an order that both parties prefer, instead of legislations that none of them might be happy with.

It has been like this in Sweden since 1938 (if I remember correctly), and it is unlikely that any American company will be allowed to come in and change that order. I think the last one that tried and failed was Amazon, and before that Toys R Us.

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

#269

Post by dromtrund »

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?

In the US, wages, vacation, healthcare, pension plans and care for the elderly are private arrangements set up by everyone individually (technically). The Nordic model is a collective arrangement, where safety nets are provided by the government, benefits are governed by law and compensation is governed by collective agreements between unions and employers.

Most families would provide for their own if it was required, but it's not a scenario most people ever need to consider, even as a backup, as bad luck alone can't put you in that situation, you'd need to actively seek it out.

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

#270

Post by marcosdumay »

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…

> We say "voters" when we mean their representatives too

Not to say that this kind of decision tends to be non-biding and decided by vote. So all the influences the representatives have is deciding what vote to call; it's the workers casting the votes and deciding to follow them.

Saying the workers are doing it is more than fair.

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