Swedish Workers Are Uniting Against Tesla (wired.co.uk) 197
New submitter doc1623 shares a report from Wired: Swedish workers are uniting against Tesla. [Starting Friday], cleaners will stop cleaning Tesla showrooms, electricians won't fix the company's charging points, and dockworkers will refuse to unload Tesla cargo at all Swedish ports. What started as a strike by Tesla mechanics is spreading, in something Swedish unions describe as an existential battle between Elon Musk's carmaker and the conventions they say make the country's labor market fair and efficient. The standoff in Sweden is the biggest union action the company has faced anywhere in the world. Sweden doesn't have laws that set working conditions, such as a minimum wage. Instead these rules are dictated by collective agreements, a type of contract that defines the benefits employees are entitled to, such as wages and working hours. For five years, industrial workers' union IF Metall, which represents Tesla mechanics, has been trying to persuade the company to sign a collective agreement. When Tesla refused, the mechanics decided to strike at the end of October. Then they asked fellow Swedish unions to join them.
Some unions that joined the blockade are expanding their actions in an effort to be more effective. Since November 7, union members working at four Swedish ports have been refusing to unload Tesla cargo. Tomorrow, the blockade will be extended to all ports in Sweden. "We don't want to unload any Tesla cars," says Jimmy Asberg, who is president of the dockworkers' branch of Sweden's transport union and works at Gavle port. "We are going to allow every other car [to dock], but the Tesla cars, they will stay on the ship." He hopes Tesla will understand how important this issue is for workers in the country. "Not just dockworkers but for all workers in Sweden."
The Swedish Building Maintenance Workers' Union will also join the Tesla blockade on Friday at 12 pm local time, "simply because the [IF] Metall Workers Trade Union asked us to," says ombudsman Torbjorn Jonsson, adding that the union has around 50 members who clean Tesla locations. Four showrooms and service centers will be affected -- three around Stockholm and one in the city of Umea. "Their workshops and showrooms will not be cleaned." Three days later, on November 20, the Seko union, which represents postal workers, will stop delivering letters, spare parts, and pallets to all of Tesla's addresses in Sweden. "Tesla is trying to gain competitive advantages by giving the workers worse wages and conditions than they would have with a collective agreement," said Seko's union president, Gabriella Lavecchia, in a statement. "It is of course completely unacceptable."
Some unions that joined the blockade are expanding their actions in an effort to be more effective. Since November 7, union members working at four Swedish ports have been refusing to unload Tesla cargo. Tomorrow, the blockade will be extended to all ports in Sweden. "We don't want to unload any Tesla cars," says Jimmy Asberg, who is president of the dockworkers' branch of Sweden's transport union and works at Gavle port. "We are going to allow every other car [to dock], but the Tesla cars, they will stay on the ship." He hopes Tesla will understand how important this issue is for workers in the country. "Not just dockworkers but for all workers in Sweden."
The Swedish Building Maintenance Workers' Union will also join the Tesla blockade on Friday at 12 pm local time, "simply because the [IF] Metall Workers Trade Union asked us to," says ombudsman Torbjorn Jonsson, adding that the union has around 50 members who clean Tesla locations. Four showrooms and service centers will be affected -- three around Stockholm and one in the city of Umea. "Their workshops and showrooms will not be cleaned." Three days later, on November 20, the Seko union, which represents postal workers, will stop delivering letters, spare parts, and pallets to all of Tesla's addresses in Sweden. "Tesla is trying to gain competitive advantages by giving the workers worse wages and conditions than they would have with a collective agreement," said Seko's union president, Gabriella Lavecchia, in a statement. "It is of course completely unacceptable."
*gets popcorn ready* (Score:2, Troll)
Has Musk started ranting about this strike situation on X yet? I'm sure it will be a quite a hoot.
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He’ll just blame it on the jews.
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Yeah all those unionized Swedish Jews... or something.
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Came to /. then saw others made some of the same mental connections as myself (the mind is a creative thing), and are happily writing about it. Well, if I might add to the list of possible Elon actions an element in the huge set of somewhat predictable yet completely unpredictable potential responses; he could go on a rant about unionized Swedish pedos, and then (as usual) get away with it [bbc.com].
Re:*gets popcorn ready* (Score:5, Informative)
Has Musk started ranting about this strike situation on X yet? I'm sure it will be a quite a hoot.
He's too busy propping up white supremacists [businessinsider.com] to be bothered with something so trivial as his cars not being unloaded.
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My fav is when he claims "I wasn't talking about all Jews, just the Anti Defamation League" . You keep digging that hole Elon!
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Re:*gets popcorn ready* (Score:5, Informative)
Musk's comment was that ADL has a de facto mafia style racket
No... I know this, because I read the article that the parent posted. Musk did not say anything like that. I also know this because he posted these comments to Twitter, which is only good for quippy little tidbits and insults like, "Jewish communities have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them." and does not allow for anything like the three paragraphs of commentary that you have posted here.
Maybe if you could condense that down to a single-sentence soundbite, then you could perhaps attribute it to Musk.
Re:*gets popcorn ready* (Score:4, Interesting)
And the crazy thing, it's the exact same antisemitic conspiracy theory that led Musk's grandfather to move to South Africa - the belief that Jews are trying to replace "white people" with minorities, but ironically those minorities hate the Jews, so antisemitism is their own fault.
I honestly really doubt Musk got it from his grandfather, even indirectly - he died too young, and nothing of this sort has ever (at least publicly) come out from his mother; also, Elon's anti-Jewish rants are very much a new thing. Honestly, if anything seems to have been the first source in this direction, it's, weirdly, Kanye West (who has been at least openly antisemitic well longer than Musk). Musk and Kanye have been friends for quite a while, and Musk was upset about Kanye facing consequences for his anti-semitic comments.
Musk is extremely gullible and prone to conspiracy theories, with logic trains often following the "To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize” quote (often attributed to great thinkers, actually from American neo-Nazi Kevin Alfred Strom) (I guess we're ruled over by babies with AIDS). Kanye facing consequences for antisemitism, to that sort of person, must inherently mean "Kanye is right, and is being censored to hide the truth!"
Re:*gets popcorn ready* (Score:5, Insightful)
You're even doubling down on ADL as ...
No, what I'm trying to do is stay on topic. You clearly want turn this conversation about Musk into a rant about the ADL, and you're attributing the substance of your rant to Musk. But that is not what Musk said.
You can rant about the ADL all you like, it's at least tangentially related to the story, just don't claim that Musk said things that he didn't say.
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Yep, he's basically gaslighting us. I *saw* the thread where Musk's anti-semitic rant started. It not only had nothing to do with the ADL, it was a person claiming that all the people being edgy by writing "Hitler Was Right!" online to try saying those things to his face. Someone then responded with the above Nazi conspiracy theory, that Jews are trying to replace white people with minorities but the minorities are antisemitic so antisemitism is Jews' fault. To which Musk didn't merely like' it, 'but
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You're not a naive person who got taken advantage of, you're a malicious troll who's here's to gaslight people into believing something that isn't true
Projection.
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Here in the US, Jews have historically been attracted to the left by the perception that anti-Semitism is a feature of the ultra-right. They were totally unprepared by this sudden eruption of explicit anti-Semitism, not just "Free Palestine," on the woke left. Musk is just one of a number of people who have commented on this phenomenon.
I'm glad to see that university alumni donors are finally aware of the seizure of academic culture by psychotic wackjobs. This may accomplish what Barry Goldwater could not
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Hey Google, show me the origin of that phrase [google.com]....
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That makes it even more sad how far ADL has fallen. But quite on point considering how they smeared Jews protesting the celebrations of 10/7 attacks as white supremacists.
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Oh! Well if Tucker Carlson's best friend, Glenn "Ukrainian Biolabs" Greenwald says it, then it must be true!
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He's also got his "thermonuclear" lawsuit to unleash, now that advertisers are fleeing X faster than ever.
They've been more than patient (Score:5, Informative)
For five years, industrial workers' union IF Metall, which represents Tesla mechanics, has been trying to persuade the company to sign a collective agreement.
It's hard to imagine any other union anywhere working without a collective agreement for even two years, never mind five.
I imagine Musk is afraid that caving on this will multiply the pressure that unions in other companies are putting on him. Personally, I'm not in the least unhappy about that.
Even if he doesn't concede, he's still stuck with the precedent Sweden is setting; and it's a precedent that might lead to similar action in other countries. And again, I say "Good!".
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Um... even in Sweden a company doesn't have to negotiate with a union. When things started, reports were that of the 130 employees in question fewer than half wanted to be represented by the union... and this included actual IG Metall union members.
The amplification effect, where people that aren't related to either the company or the union in question strike before the employees actually declare a strike seems a little off. Kind of in the blackmail realm. It is another thing altogether if the employees
Re:They've been more than patient (Score:4, Informative)
Um... even in Sweden a company doesn't have to negotiate with a union.
This is false (MBL 10)
Re:They've been more than patient (Score:5, Insightful)
Sweden has standard freedom of association clauses in their legislation. No party is required to negotiate with another party they do not wish to associate with outside criminal law and a handful of similar exceptions.
The issue isn't that it's mandatory to negotiate. The issue is difference in culture. Nordic societies are consensus cultures, where it's generally accepted that you attempt to negotiate a reasonable settlement when there's a conflict, rather than just ignore each other and do your thing anyway until there's a massive clash that is common in Anglo cultures. This is simply a cultural clash between Anglo company wanting to do it's own thing and doing it's own negotiations with workers directly vs consensus culture of Sweden telling them that they should negotiate with main stake holders such as relevant worker's Union to establish understanding on things like salaries, conflict resolution at workplace and so on that is in line with general consensus of society at large.
It's not even a mere Union vs company issue. It's a massive cultural clash in how things are done. This isn't a first time I've observed this either. I know of a fairly recent case where a Japanese conglomerate decided to try to make a certain daughter company function under general international rules which would cost local daughter company small amount of additional funds they skimmed off the top for worker parties a few times a year. Workers ended up all resigning and forming their own company the same day, with pre-arranged contracts from all their old contacts performing all the same functions with the same clients, leaving the main company out to dry on no workers to do the contracts they were still bound by. They fucked parent company over in an incredible fashion, in a fight over a fairly small sum of money that just wasn't negotiated for purposefully because Japanese saw that "nail that sticks out gets hammered down" in accordance to their culture.
And ended up getting the Nordic battleaxe to the face instead.
Again, consensus society at every level. Find a consensus, do not attempt to force the resolution without out just because you have "rules, guidelines, international precedent" etc. Otherwise, things will often break in a very spectacular fashion, and Nordic peoples tend to be very industrious so they'll often figure out a way to fuck with you in a dramatic fashion if you leave them no other choice.
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Sweden has standard freedom of association clauses in their legislation. No party is required to negotiate with another party they do not wish to associate with outside criminal law and a handful of similar exceptions.
You're just plain wrong on the requirement to negotiate and I gave a reference that should be recognizable as https://lagen.nu/1976:580#R3 [lagen.nu] (in Swedish)
For the Swedish freedom of association clause refer to https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] (in Swedish).
The issue isn't that it's mandatory to negotiate. The issue is difference in culture. Nordic societies are consensus cultures, where it's generally accepted that you attempt to negotiate a reasonable settlement when there's a conflict, rather than just ignore each other and do your thing anyway until there's a massive clash that is common in Anglo cultures. This is simply a cultural clash between Anglo company wanting to do it's own thing and doing it's own negotiations with workers directly vs consensus culture of Sweden telling them that they should negotiate with main stake holders such as relevant worker's Union to establish understanding on things like salaries, conflict resolution at workplace and so on that is in line with general consensus of society at large.
It's not even a mere Union vs company issue. It's a massive cultural clash in how things are done.
I could argue details, but I think this is a fairly accurate description.
Re:They've been more than patient (Score:5, Informative)
I will readily admit that my Swedish is rusty since I didn't really use it since passing the mandatory tests after 20 years, but isn't this part of the law talking about binding agreements that were signed between employer and the union? My reasoning after reading through entirety of the law (and poking parts with google translate to my native Finnish where I was hitting the language barrier, since Swedish Finnish is much more functional than Swedish English in my experience).
Tesla didn't actually sign up to the collective agreement. Which generally is a way around the law, and the intended remedy to my understanding is to just fight it out via strikes until agreement is reached. I.e. yes, there's a law requiring to come to negotiate a deal. There's no law stating that deal must be reached (freedom of association violation if there was). Instead, the remedy is protections for strikers and such as they are expected to strike.
There's the note on the subject on the right side about it that opens to the following text:
"Arbetsgivarens primära förhandlingsskyldighet går längre än dennes allmänna förhandlingsskyldighet i 10 MBL och är framför allt aktuell i de fall som rör företags- och arbetsledningen , d.v.s. då arbetsgivaren har ensam beslutanderätt. Syftet med den primära förhandlingsskyldigheten är att parterna ska kunna enas men om detta inte är möjligt har arbetsgivaren rätt att fatta det beslut denne anser vara riktigt i enlighet med arbetsgivarprerogativet."
And if you click through the references, it clearly states that employer has a right to continue managing the workplace and issuing orders to employers without the agreement:
"Arbetsdomstolen förklarade i början av 1930-talet att arbetsgivarens arbetsledningsrätt utgör en allmän rättsgrundsats som gäller även utan stöd i kollektivavtal. Det brukar sägas att den utgör en dold klausul i kollektivavtalet."
Because to mandate a deal would indeed violate freedom of association. Notably and hilariously, this law (as far as my Swedish skills go) even mentions the protections of freedom of association, but in relation to potential attempt by one of the parties to prevent belonging to the other (such as employer trying to punish workers if they belong to a Union, paragraphs 7-9).
I.e. yes, there's a requirement to negotiate. Tesla refuses, because it sees no common ground to negotiate over. It pays its workers better than Union mandates, so workers at Tesla are much less organised in a Union than the rest of the industry. Hence the "pay + 30%-ish if you stay as a Union member while at Tesla and strike" as well as "strikes against Tesla in other industries" to motivate existence of "Union members in conflict with the employer" that as I understand it is the legal requirement to make supporting strikes legal.
Essentially this is the remedy intended in the law for this situation. Mass strikes around the company.
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Small correction to the text above: "And if you click through the references, it clearly states that employer has a right to continue managing the workplace and issuing orders to employers without the agreement"
Employer has a right to issue orders to the employees, not employers obviously. Brainfart on my part.
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Lots of text and sorry about the "tvångssvenska". 10 is the requirement for negotiations without collective agreement (11 with) 15 is the form (only the first paragraph applies here) 16 is the time limits, 64 right to damages for failure to comply with the law. Yes there is no stipulation of a certain outcome and yes there is no legal requirement to sign a or comply with a collective agreement unless signed (which AFAIK is different in Finland where adherence to collective agreements for certain group
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Our concept of strike to my understanding is similar, in that it doesn't actually mean just "strike". We have "collective worker action" of sorts which can vary in militancy significantly and be anything from slowing work down and walkouts for limited amount of time on pre-announced dates to total blockage of all work and actual striking including "sympathy strikes", where workers in other companies and fields strike to show solidarity with the cause.
There are generally protections in law for most of these
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The union doesn't need strikers at Tesla, they need at least one union member, and a fixed set of demands (not including back pay) and pre-announced within limits (that last part goes for sympathy strikes as well)(from memory I need a nap soon).
In Sweden slowing down work is actually Illegal (although it happens), being a stickler for procedures is not so that how it's usually done. But pretty much the imagination sets the limits notusingthespacebaroncomputerscouldbeoneformofstrike.
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I didn't mean to imply that all of the meaasures on my list are legal, hence "There are generally protections in law for most of these actions." Word "most" was used specifically to denote that some of the actions on my list are illegal.
But the main point is that "sympathy strikes" where completely unrelated workers in completely unrelated companies in completely unrelated fields may engage in collective worker action in support of the other workers are indeed possible and legal. This tends to be surprising
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Talk about union representation on corporate boards and European workers council for instant jaw drops.
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I had those moments back in uni when I was helping exchange students. Explaining local engineering union and ways it worked in tight coordination with employers to help students get into jobs always resulted in "wait, weren't you talking about unions?!" a few times. Yes, unions and employers cooperate on most issues, because their interests align on most issues. Productive workforce that performs well is in interest of both unions who don't have to work hard organizing labor action, and employers who prefer
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Organisationsfrihet = The right to organize.
Law text from the wiki "Var och en är gentemot det allmänna tillförsäkrad [...] föreningsfrihet: frihet att sammansluta sig med andra för allmänna eller enskilda syften"
Best effort translation on my part:
Each and everyone is against the government ensured [...] the right to organize: freedom do associate with others for public or private causes"
The first link is to quote the first sentence (scroll up) "1 Denna lag äger till
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I know of a fairly recent case where a Japanese conglomerate decided to try to make a certain daughter company function under general international rules which would cost local daughter company small amount of additional funds they skimmed off the top for worker parties a few times a year. Workers ended up all resigning and forming their own company the same day, with pre-arranged contracts from all their old contacts performing all the same functions with the same clients, leaving the main company out to dry on no workers to do the contracts they were still bound by. They fucked parent company over in an incredible fashion, in a fight over a fairly small sum of money that just wasn't negotiated for purposefully because Japanese saw that "nail that sticks out gets hammered down" in accordance to their culture.
And ended up getting the Nordic battleaxe to the face instead.
Again, consensus society at every level. Find a consensus, do not attempt to force the resolution without out just because you have "rules, guidelines, international precedent" etc. Otherwise, things will often break in a very spectacular fashion, and Nordic peoples tend to be very industrious so they'll often figure out a way to fuck with you in a dramatic fashion if you leave them no other choice.
Another cultural clash anecdote: When Swedish H&M was about to open their first physical store in the US they reach out to the store workers union because they wanted to sign a collective agreement and have good working relations as is customary in Sweden . The H&M people was invited over to the union office and left waiting for several hours and then told to go, only to find that the union had released a press statement bashing them. Confused doesn't cover the reaction of the H&M delegation as
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That's some malicious reading and a half there. I never said it's not practiced elsewhere. I merely noted in a story about a Nordic country that this is how Nordic countries do it.
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>It's irrelevant. This is a Sweden story, not a "Nordic countries" one.
Americans and geography. Truly, paper and scissors for life.
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Look in a mirror.
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Please, please, PLEASE try to open a business in Europe. I want to be there for the negotiations.
With a webcam. This has to go on the internet.
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Technically, there may be no law to do so, but in a lot of countries it's kinda impossible to avoid it.
Since a lot of countries have minimum wage laws (or something to the effect of it), and those minimum wages are negotiated between representatives of employers and employees, if you're not part of either, you're not part of a negotiation the outcome of which will affect you. If that's what you want, well, more power to you...
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Strikes are something most companies want to avoid, for good reasons. Until a strike of the average manufacturer filters down to the consumer, the strike has been over for a long time, so the end consumers don't really get affected in any way, so there's no blowback to the workers from your customers. They only notice the lack of products long afterwards, which they'll then blame on you instead and get pissed with your company for not delivering.
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No, it is not false.
There is no law in Europe that forces you to negotiate with someone you do not want to negotiate with.
There is see my other comments: https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org] and first paragraph https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
There is however no requirement to reach an agreement on the issues.
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From point of view of a union, what Tesla does is a slippery slope. Workers in general certainly don't want this refusal to negotiate to spread through their industry, and want to demonstrate their willingness to take it to a strike. The blackmail here is not against Tesla workers, because we have seen that Tesla workers are powerless to compel their company to play by the rules. The message (the blackmail, if you want) is for the other big bosses to have a call with Tesla and letting them know how displeas
Are unions better? (Score:2)
For five years, industrial workers' union IF Metall, which represents Tesla mechanics, has been trying to persuade the company to sign a collective agreement.
It's hard to imagine any other union anywhere working without a collective agreement for even two years, never mind five.
I imagine Musk is afraid that caving on this will multiply the pressure that unions in other companies are putting on him. Personally, I'm not in the least unhappy about that.
Even if he doesn't concede, he's still stuck with the precedent Sweden is setting; and it's a precedent that might lead to similar action in other countries. And again, I say "Good!".
I'm honestly unclear about the benefit of unions (and I was once a member of UAW and ICWUC).
I can see how the power of collective bargaining can oppose predatory employers and raise working conditions, including safety and such.
On the other hand, it seems like collective bargaining is is a ratchet mechanism (note: "ratchet", not "racket") for getting ever more benefits from employers. Every time a new contract is negotiated it starts from the previous contract and adds more benefits to workers. I see lots o
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Can you not be a member of the union and still work at the company?
Yes.
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Umnh... Last I checked it depended on which state you were in and what the agreement with the union was. Laws aren't the same everywhere. (I couldn't decide which way they *should* read. There are valid arguments both ways. But while valid, the arguments aren't conclusive.)
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I'm sorry but I only skimmed thru OP's post and thought the question applied to Sweden. I don't know about the US and can only refer you to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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In a country where about 20% of the workers is a union member, with numbers reaching 50% for skilled labor? Hell yeah, discriminating against union workers is suicide.
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Can anyone point to scientific analysis that shows one side is better than another?
Not really, I think. Too many variables, not enough controls, and it's tied into socioeconomics, which is still basically in the "witchcraft" scale of science.
I mean, as a general thing I consider US unions to be particularly broken. It might not be so bad in Sweden. It probably isn't.
I view it as a case of unions in the USA having the wrong powers - they're weak where they should be strong, and strong where they should be weak.
For example, closed shops are a thing in the USA, where you MUST be part of t
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Thanks for mentioning closed shops. As far as I'm concerned that ought not to be allowed. I understand the reasoning, and I guess that goes to your observation that unions are strong where they ought to be weaker and vice versa.
I guess companies get the unions they deserve. It seems that in Sweden, the union model is very different [unionen.se]. From that link: "The level of trade union membership in Sweden is relatively high – about 70 % – and membership is often encouraged by employers. This gives Swedish
Re: Are unions better? (Score:2)
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So working for a company comes with a bunch of rules you just have to accept. Where do the rules come from? From some people who already worked there before you. That includes wearing a uniform. Some guy working at McDonald's decided it for
Think secondary effects. (Score:2)
Heh, I actually worked for McD's once. And the uniform requirements were pretty mild compared to my later work (I eventually joined the military).
Anyways, I think that you're looking at it too shallowly. Mind you, this gets to be a very complicated topic very quickly, and I'm trying to summarize and keep this post of reasonable size. Think of the union like an HOA (HomeOwners Association). You've heard horror stories about them, right? Same deal with unions. There are good HOAs, bad HOAs, horror show
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You fail to diminish his main point - that closed shop unions, like other employer imposed rules, are simply the lay of the land for that particular business.
You can either not get a job there, or quit if you don't like either the employer caused issues or the union caused issues. So what's the problem again?
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Closed shops have been illegal in the US since 1947: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Read you own source? (Score:2)
Did you read your own source? There's something of a distinction without difference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
but it may agree to require employees to join the union or pay the equivalent of union dues to it within a set period after starting employment.
You can certainly say no to membership in the union, but you still have to pay "the equivalent of union dues", "within a set period after starting employment".
So you don't have to join, technically, but this is just costing you your representation/vote in union leadership, because you still have to pay. You don't have to be a member of the union to be hired, but you have to join/start payi
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And finally, are unions optional? Can you not be a member of the union and still work at the company?
Imagine unions like political parties. Several unions exist that are either national, local, or sectorial (related to a topic). In each company, workers choose to belong to any or none of the unions that exist in the country.
there's a long history of corruption in union dealings, [...] for example, bribing politicians. [...] Can anyone point to scientific analysis that shows one side is better than another?
From my point of view (EU), questioning whether situation is better or worse with or without unions is odd. Workers' union are part of our democracies. They negotiate nation-wide agreements with the Employers' Federation (the equivalent of Workers Unions on the side of factory owners);
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...On the other hand, it seems like collective bargaining is is a ratchet mechanism (note: "ratchet", not "racket") for getting ever more benefits from employers. Every time a new contract is negotiated it starts from the previous contract and adds more benefits to workers. I see lots of examples where this is abused, and I strongly suspect it makes some companies go under...
The purported ratchet mechanism seems to have broken. Productivity has risen, but wages haven't kept pace.
https://assets.weforum.org/edi... [weforum.org]
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Much like employers are forever trying to boil the frog by reducing benefits, increasing productivity demands, firing workers with seniority and hiring in low wage replacements that can't carry their weight (leaving it to the rest of the employees to pick up the slack), etc.
As much as pay and benefits have slipped against inflation over the last few decades, it's going to take a few more rounds of ratcheting up from the unions just to get back to where things were (a time that was also profitable for employ
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As opposed to the angelic employers who never raid the pension fund and fund the campaigns of representatives that will support employers over employee rights?
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So the union is the one which has corruption, but not the politician?
Most past union corruption wasn't with politicians but with organized crime.
The mob took over the union leadership and looted the pension funds.
Much of the Las Vegas Strip was built using money stolen from the Teamsters pension fund.
Today, there are strong laws about how union pensions are run and the mob isn't what it used to be.
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It's difficult to get another job if you resign. Where strike action is protected by law, that's generally a more effective solution
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Re: They've been more than patient (Score:5, Insightful)
I love it how Americans think that whole countries "don't matter".
Sure, Sweden is a small market. But it's big enough that any board member who said "let's just exit that market rather than negotiate" would be fired before the end of the meeting.
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That would severely devalue Teslas for us Norwegians. We drive a *lot* in Sweden, and expect superchargers there too. :P
Good. (Score:2)
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Unionisation is what protects workers against people like Goat Musk.
Except that it's mostly not Tesla workers that are striking. Tesla workers are actually generally satisfied with the terms. So this is not about "protecting workers from people like Goat Musk". This is about Swedish consensus society protesting against Anglo style conflict resolution tactics.
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Tesla mechanics are not employed by Tesla?
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Tell me you didn't read the OP nor followed up the story, without telling me you didn't read the OP and followed up the story.
Tesla mechanics are in large part not organised under a Union (iirc lowest organisation rate in that field or second lowest), and said Union had to terminate a lot of mechanics that were members because they disagreed with the subject of the strike and refused initial orders to strike.
Union in question did something that to my knowledge is unprecedented in its history in the wake of
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You stated this
Except that it's mostly not Tesla workers that are striking.
The article says Tesla mechanics started the strike. Are these mechanics employed by Tesla or not?
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Yes and no. The story is a bit weird if you follow it up. My understanding of it goes something like this:
Sweden has a legally mandated negotiations between Unions of workers and Unions of employers/employers themselves to figure out the terms of employment in each field generally. Tesla didn't want to set up a precedent that it's negotiating salary with Unions "because Nordic Unions are very different than Unions elsewhere and either that would be misinterpreted elsewhere" (pro Tesla interpretation) or "be
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Unionisation is what protects workers against people like Goat Musk.
Except that it's mostly not Tesla workers that are striking. Tesla workers are actually generally satisfied with the terms. So this is not about "protecting workers from people like Goat Musk". This is about Swedish consensus society protesting against Anglo style conflict resolution tactics.
I don't have any particular insight to the actual negotiations, but generally Swedish unions do want to cause as little harm to the employer while getting the most effect and once you lay down work completely there's not much left to do. There is precedence to calling for sympathy strikes from other unions before members striking and different sorts of partial strikes (blockades).
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Absolutely. I read the law you linked in another post, and that seems to be implied or even directly suggested remedy in law for such exceptional conflicts.
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Yes and no. Unions have no place in modern sane western civilised countries. Countries like the USA and Sweden on the other hand where employee protections are poor to non-existent and the disparity between negotiating power of employees and employers is massive, unions are absolutely essential.
Your goal should not be supporting unions. Your goal should be not needing to.
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Yes and no. Unions have no place in modern sane western civilised countries. Countries like the USA and Sweden on the other hand where employee protections are poor to non-existent and the disparity between negotiating power of employees and employers is massive, unions are absolutely essential.
Your goal should not be supporting unions. Your goal should be not needing to.
How? The only practical alternative I've seen is government regulation (I'd say France as an example of that).
His face red like a royal flush... (Score:2)
Well, Elon... You were nelson-mandelaed in the huskvarnas, enjoy.
It's a power balance (Score:2)
CEOs hate unions because they prevent the effective use of 'divide and conquer' to drive wages down to starvation levels.
Workers hate unions because... they've bought into the anti-union propaganda pushed by corporations.
All they really do is give the workers just as much power to shut down a company as a CEO, and make bargaining a meeting of equals at the table.
Power move. (Score:2)
Firstly, unions in Sweden hold much more power than they seem to do in other countries. The reason for this is simple: most of the unions live in a symbiotic relationship with the Social democratic party. And this party has been in power for well over half the time since the 1920's. The unions (both each individual union and the Trade Union Central) give money to the Social democratic party, and in return the unions get the l
Some obvious differences between unions in EU and (Score:5, Informative)
Unions in Europe are nothing like in the U.S.
Here a TL;DR that may help alleviate some common misunderstandings by /. members, who are predominantly U.S.-based.
* In EU, everyone is free to join a union of their liking. ...
* Often unions are linked to similar ideologies than political parties (left, right, christian,..) and are often linked to their political counterparts, too, somehow.
* Unions in EU have subdivisions per *sector* (healthcare, automotive, resale,..) but *never* to a unique company.
* Union representatives negotiate CLA's (collective labor agreements) with both govt and sector corporate representatives: there, wages, retirement conditions, are discussed for the respective sector.
* Long as you pay the annual membership fee, you can be a member of a union that has no representation in your company or sector, and get legal support anyway. Downside is they will not have the same specialized legal experts for that sector, but they'll try to find out anyway.
* Employers in EU have no business knowing if employee x or y is unionized. That is totally a private matter of the employee.
*
Go Sweden Go! (Score:2)
Hahahaha. Oh Elmo...what a dud!
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You tricked me with that at first glance! Here's the meme: https://exceptionalindividuals... [exceptiona...iduals.com]
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Sadly, "untying" (as in, coming undone) is exactly what the outcome of this will be.
I 100% support the right of workers to coordinate and collective bargain - it's a very useful tool (though not as useful as legislation) for helping correct income inequality - but this is going nowhere. The value chain of the car is not in Sweden. Like, low to mid single-digits.
Adding inefficiencies to Tesla in Sweden, whether within - moving around workers, hiring scabs, etc - or from the outside - moving outside workers
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That is not the only reason why workers will lose this one.
Unions work by causing financial losses to both sides. But Elon Musk doesn't really care that much about money. If he would care, he would be more careful about tweets he writes and he has actually answered to this topic in an interview by quoting movie 'Offer me money. Offer me power, I don't care.". He has also said "For me it was never about money, but solving problems for the future of humanity". You can argue whether better pay for workers is b
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Yep. He's motivated primarily by ideology; money just being a means to achieve ideology.
Also, I forgot to mention above - less than 10% of Tesla's Swedish workers are taking part in the action. So... yeah.
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All Elon has to do is ban Sweden from X, and they have lost communication to the rest of civilization.
Yes, because we all know there is no other form of communication other than X.
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All Elon has to do is ban Sweden from X, and they have lost communication to the rest of civilization.
Yes, because we all know there is no other form of communication other than X.
Indeed the joke is on him as the smart kids don't use X anyway.
Re: When you can't beat them, send in the mob... (Score:2)
If it's actual kids, then that is probably tiktok, which is much worse IMO. Think fecebook is bad? Let me introduce you to the Chinese government...
Re:When you can't beat them, send in the mob... (Score:5, Informative)
All Elon has to do is ban Sweden from X, and they have lost communication to the rest of civilization.
Shit, he'd be doing Sweden a favor. Twitter was a cesspool before Musk took over, now that they've fired all their moderators i dont even know what to call it.
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> Twitter was a cesspool before Musk took over, now that they've fired all their moderators i dont even know what to call it.
This is an ex-Twitter.
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I hope he's at least paying you for riding his dick.
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No doubt that elon trolls slashdot like this all the time. sup elon! you suck now. be better!
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>Because no other car company can beat Tesla at the EV game for range, price, reliability, and fit/finish
Chinese manufacturers have been beating Tesla at price and often range, and no offense but I can tell you never owned Tesla if you think that there are many (if any) companies that lose to Tesla in fit and finish. Even cheapest Chinese EV manufacturers know how to align body panels correctly. Tesla still has problems with that.
Tesla's actual advantages are being the first mover, battery management sof
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All Elon has to do is ban Sweden from X, and they have lost communication to the rest of civilization.
Yes, it was amazing to watch how National Public Radio went completely dark when they left Twitter last year.
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The tesla workers don't want to strike. Everyone else is sort of forcing it on them.
Yes, it is the means to a collective agreement.
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Why don't you tell us?
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BTW, try not to refer to yourself in the third person unless you intend to end sentences with "my precious."
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Union busting in a country as devoted to consensus politics as Sweden is likely to result in violence. Unions aren't blackmailing anyone. Musk is. And Musk WILL lose against a united Sweden.
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You really don't understand industrial action or secondary strikes, do you?
There's absolutely nothing mafia about the tactics, they're absolutely standard tactics that have been used in most civilised countries to provide workers with equal power to management. Which is how all companies should operate.
I'm sorry if European ideals are alien to you, but this is how Europe has operated for a very long time. It's why there's health and safety, a five day working week, universal healthcare, and a culture of res
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You realize border guards in Sweden are unionized too, right? Sweden is not the United States, where brainwashed wage slaves line up to beg for the opportunity to drop to their knees and service corporate America.