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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

#291

Post by pgeorgi »

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…

There are enough other social norms that US companies can bloody their nose on in other European countries.

As for strikes in particular: France doesn't require a union vote to engage in a strike to do so with far-reaching protections (2 employees fighting for an employment-related change seem to suffice from my cursory reading), so the French can strike without needing to be unionized. And boy, do they strike...

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

#292

Post by SwedishExpat »

gruez wrote: post #273
piva00 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The union doesn't force anyone, it's a collective action, the workers are the union, they've decided to not deliver to Tesla because Tesla is infringing on the most fundamental labour right in Sweden. Stop thinking about Nordic unions as a boogeyman, a mafia, or whatever other "oppressive" figure you want to make them out to be, the way unions work here is different than what you are probably used to. It's a cornerst…

>The union doesn't force anyone, it's a collective action, the workers are the union, they've decided to not deliver to Tesla because Tesla is infringing on the most fundamental labour right in Sweden. That's a strange way of putting it. Is the us federal government notification not "forcing" anyone to pay taxes, or not smoke weed, because the us is a democracy and therefore it's "collective action"?

Can you realistically have a vote to stop paying taxes or to smoke weed?

Because Seko could have a vote to deliver to Tesla if they wanted, but ultimately the Unions are on the employees side so we're okay with their decisions.

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

#294

Post by SwedishExpat »

fallingknife wrote: post #205
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.

Yeah I think that's correct. The unions here are not acting as representatives of Tesla workers to negotiate with Tesla, but rather as cartels trying to prevent two willing parties (Tesla and its employees) from doing business without cutting in the union. I had no idea that unions could operate like this. I thought unions were tools to gain workers leverage against their employers, which I obviously support. I find…

> The unions here are not acting as representatives of Tesla workers to negotiate with Tesla, but rather as cartels trying to prevent two willing parties (Tesla and its employees) from doing business without cutting in the union.

Out of interest, how are the unions trying to cut in? And what exactly are they "cutting in"?

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

#295

Post by SCM-Enthusiast »

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…

Yeah... As an American, i don't get it. Why is the Swedish union forcing the workers at Tesla to sign an arb agreement when they get paid much more than the average union worker in the country?

Does strong union actually result in better pay? If you compare the average software salary from the US to Sweden, it seems like it's doing the opposite, no?

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

#296

Post by occz »

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.

I'm sure the shareholders will agree that spending so much money on something so obviously unprofitable is a good idea.

Spending 0 dollars on just fucking signing the contract like literally everyone else in the country, or several billions trying to construct a parallel society in Sweden. This parallel society would of course have just as much right to strike as the current one, given that the right to strike is constitutionally protected in Sweden.

I guess it would be an effective way of dethroning Elon from Tesla, so I agree - let's go ahead and do it.

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

#297

Post by ilovetux »

hnbad wrote: post #138
cbeach wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Which book?

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

#298

Post by tacticalturtle »

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…

I think there’s just a cultural difference between Sweden and the US into how the postal service is viewed.

In the US, the postal service is the OG government service - the power of Congress to create post offices is explicitly called out in the Constitution when it was signed.

Further, the US postal service has a mandate to provide mail access to every residential address - even if’s some remote island in Alaska.

I think the idea that the government can just throw up its hands when faced with a private labor strike, and say “Nothing we can do” is just baffling to us in the US.

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

#299

Post by geon »

that_guy_iain wrote: post #210
SwedishExpat wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doesn't the union have a vote to decide these things This was decided by Seko's union board, the union that covers most PostNord and other delivery companies employees > PostNord says it can't force it's workers to do something It is illegal to prevent a strike, yes > So if it's not the workers decision it's PostNord's decision and that is very different It's the unions decision https://www-seko-se.translate.goog/p…

So what you're saying is the union is forcing them to not deliver to Tesla?

The whole point as that no one is forced. Just like strike breakers worked for tesla, they could work for postnord.

Of course, postnord is free to not accept strike breakers.

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

#300

Post by petesergeant »

that_guy_iain wrote: post #142
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…

Doesn't the union have a vote to decide these things. So it is "workers decision" and that's actually very important as far as I can tell for the legal dispute. PostNord says it can't force it's workers to do something. So if it's not the workers decision it's PostNord's decision and that is very different.

I don’t know why you’re being downvoted, that sounds absolutely right to me. This isn’t a decision by PostNord.
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