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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

#371

Post by xorcist »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #99
VoxPelli wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of the Swedish model is to avoid micro management from the state and instead of mandating work regulations through law businesses and unions can negotiate sector specific agreements that suits the very people and companies that it affects. Businesses and unions are better at knowing the needs of companies and people than what any government is. Not everything has to be achieved through laws. In Sweden we ge…

It's not micro management, it's a major point. Again, it looks like the consensus is that Tesla must accept a collective agreement (content to be left to the parties to negotiate). So why is that not mandated? IMHO, you can't be outraged that Tesla is refusing, or at least trying not to have one, when the law effectively says that they don't have to. The level of reactions against Tesla does not make the system look…

No one is outraged, just confused.

It's simple. Above a certain size, you either get an agreement or no one will do business with you.

Put this way, it should tickle every libertarian mind. Free actors operating in an open market.

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

#372

Post by xorcist »

mongol wrote: post #75
drakonka wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't just IF Metall vs Tesla in practice. The result of this whole thing will impact Swedish labor standards as a whole by setting a critical precedent for both companies and unions. I'm not part of IF Metall, but also not naive enough to think this power struggle won't affect me or people I care about working in Sweden in the future.

It will affect you either way. It is difficult to tell exactly how but a union win will embolden the unions in Sweden general, and it is not certain that is an all out win. I realize that embolden is not a neutral word, but what is on the other side of the balance scale is investments in new jobs in Sweden vs elsewhere. Perhaps the balance will still be a net benefit to Sweden but we will see. I would have an easier…

Absolutely not. It will not embolden unions in Sweden at all. They fully expect to win. Contract law is the fundamental issue here.

The only realistic alternative is Tesla leaving Sweden. Prospective owners would have to import their cars from other countries. It's not hard to imagine that situation.

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

#373

Post by xorcist »

mongol wrote: post #79
eddtries wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would be true if there were not repercussions for the wider Swedish model, but since there are repercussions of rolling over it is Sweden vs Tesla

You can be certain that there are plenty of Swedes that see it differently, they are just less vocal

I'm sure there are. To be frank, that matters little. All large employers are part of an employer's union. They don't see things differently. They all need this particular contract law intact.

Vocal or not, no one will not be able to affect this semi-voluntary system unless they control bascially the entire economy. This is unlikely to ever be the case, until maybe some supranational EU agreement changes the rules entirely.

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

#374

Post by xorcist »

aeyes wrote: post #360
fl7305 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is about mass layoffs, not terminating individual employees for "personal reasons". I am not an expert, but I think the union claims that this is one thing that is now worse for the Spotify employees who are laid off? Meaning, sure, there is a degree of basic legal protection, but during layoffs, having a collective bargaining agreement will give you better conditions than that?

This law also covers layoffs, even to the point where it dictates in what order employees can be laid off. In general the IF Metall collective agreements don't have any additional worker protections for the case of mass layoffs or individual terminations, they usually only cover temporary lay offs. I haven't seen what they are actually asking for in the case of Tesla Sweden. In Germany the discussion is mostly relate…

This is a massive simplification to the point of being misleading. Those laws are largely superseded by contract law, which is exactly why collective agreements are made, and the order in which layoffs are made are usually among the first to be negotiated. There are lawyers that base their entire careers on such matters.

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

#375

Post by xorcist »

gruez wrote: post #343
SwedishExpat wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In those cases it would be strange to characterize the dissenters as not being "forced" into anything, even if it was a collective decision. Okay, I see, but then you could also leave your Union for zero cost. You could leave your US citizenship too, I guess, by moving. But my point is I think forcing is far too strong a word for the union meanings here. Why wouldn't you support this if you benefit from the Swedish…

>Okay, I see, but then you could also leave your Union for zero cost. Clearly it's not as simple or cheap as "zero cost", otherwise Tesla would have bribed some workers $1000 (or whatever) to defect, rather than hiring a bunch of expensive lawyers. >But my point is I think forcing is far too strong a word for the union meanings here. Why wouldn't you support this if you benefit from the Swedish model? Whether you ben…

> otherwise Tesla would have bribed some workers $1000 (or whatever) to defect,

Tesla is doing exactly this. It was the first thing they did. (The exact amount however is not public.)

It's called "breaking the strike" and has been used for over a century. It's par for the game and every union trains to expects it.

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

#376

Post by xorcist »

gruez wrote: post #320
piva00 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? I really do not understand the analogy, would be good to expand on how it relates to the current situation.

If you support taxes (or striking) and the government (or the union) forces you to pay taxes (or strike), you're not being "forced". So far so good. But what if you don't support taxes (or striking)? You might think taxes are a good thing and are necessary for a functioning society, but it's still pretty clear that for someone that doesn't want to pay taxes, they're forced to pay taxes.

If you don't want to strike, then don't strike. What is the issue here?

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

#377

Post by xorcist »

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?

They are.

Then again, so are the unions.

Tesla just chose the most expensive way possible to solve the matter. That's well within their rights, of course.

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

#378

Post by xorcist »

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…

The French system is not at all like the Nordic system. It is much closer to the American system, only with stronger unions.

The Swedish almost never go on strikes, with very few exceptions.

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

#379

Post by xorcist »

ajross wrote: post #358
pydry wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://archive.is/gXGSn

There is nothing remotely like "union busting" alleged in that article (which is quite good, and largely supports my belief that this is an unreasonable escalation by Swedish labor; so much so that I maybe question if you actually read it?).

Unreasonable may be in the eye of the beholder. It is however completely expected. If anything, they waited much longer than usual.

This is pretty much a school book example how labor conflicts go.

The next steps of the conflict are also expected and known well in advance. The only problem is that nobody seems to be willing to inform their higher ups at Tesla what is happening.

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

#380

Post by xorcist »

SCM-Enthusiast wrote: post #295
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?

This is certainly not about pay, as no one has suggested Tesla pays worse than anyone else. It is about upholding a free labor market by contract law.

If you don't want to negotiate that contract, the majority of the market will come together and refuse doing business with you until you do.

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