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Not overly knowledgeable on Swedish law, but the idea that a public sector union can decide to block public services (in this case postal delivery of license pl
by susano 3y ago
Not overly knowledgeable on Swedish law, but the idea that a public sector union can decide to block public services (in this case postal delivery of license plates) for a single company as a sympathy strike seems pretty nuts to me.
Pretty sure Sweden would lose in European court at least (of course it would probably take a long time to percolate there).
- aaomidi 3y agoThis is actually democracy in action. Worker unions are a lot better at making the voices of workers heard and actuated on.
- david38 3y agoNot sure you know what democracy is. Tesla is required by law to use the post to get plates. This invalidates the whole premise.
- cinntaile 3y agoWhat is undemocratic about a law in a democratic country? They can pick up their plates themselves for now, the lawsuit will decide what the law says.
- okr 3y agoMaybe being able to pick any other company to make the plates? For god sake, it is just a plate. A simple piece of metal with some letters on it to make everyone happy with traceability.
- cinntaile 3y agoGovernment contracts need to fulfill very specific rules to prevent conflicts of interest. This one company one that bid and is now responsible for that. If you want it any other way, the law needs to be changed and that is again a democratic process.
- frosting1337 3y agoYou realise, of course, that if another company was able to deliver the plates, the same issue would still be occuring thanks to Swedish unions being in solidarity?
- sbuttgereit 3y agoSo gerrymandered districting exists as law in a democratic country, yet would you call that democratic?
- cinntaile 3y agoI'm not following, no voting districts are being changed here? This lawsuit is about license plates that have a contractually decided upon producer and distributor.
- skitout 3y agoNot sure you know what democracy is... Democracy is not just voting for your MP, it includes unions, strikes and collective agreement If Tesla agreed (like 99,9999% of companies) with the democratically designed collective agreement, there would be no targeted strike. Strikes are one of the main democratic bargaining tool employees and unions have... including on key point of businesses.
- letmevoteplease 3y agoIf a company is legally required to use PostNord and PostNord can legally refuse to deliver mail, it effectively gives PostNord the power to control any company that wants to continue receiving mail. Regardless of whether they are using that power for good or evil here, I don't think it's a power they should have.
- einr 3y agoPostnord as a company is not refusing anything. Some of the workers for Postnord are on strike.
- frosting1337 3y agoWhy not? They're a private company. Isn't that usually what Americans are telling people, that corporations are free to serve who they please? But, more importantly, PostNord isn't doing anything - it's a unionised group of workers refusing to deliver Tesla products. That's how strikes work, and Musk's go-to course of action is to immediately proceed to legal action rather than negotiating and meeting the union's requirements.
- nomel 3y ago> They're a private company. How does a private company get the benefits of being legally required? That seems like a benefit that only a public company should have.
- philipwhiuk 3y agoIt's not really a private company. It's wholly owned by the government of Sweden and the government of Denmark.
- philipwhiuk 3y agoIt's not really a private company. It's wholly owned by the government of Sweden and the government of Denmark.
- hayleox 3y ago
- stcredzero 3y agoWorker unions are a lot better at making the voices of workers heard and actuated on. Then why in this case are they violating consensuality and trying to impose the collective agreement on the Tesla worker pool from outside?
- aaomidi 3y agoBecause workers having each others backs is actually a good thing? It effectively creates a powerful voice of literally everyday people who are working. Solidarity strikes is the real power of worker unions.
- stcredzero 3y agoBecause workers having each others backs is actually a good thing? Then why don't they have the backs of the majority of Tesla workers who didn't want the agreement? Are some workers more equal than others?
- jltsiren 3y agoPostNord is a private business owned by Sweden and Denmark. Unless there are specific laws to the contrary, its employees have the same right to strike as any other private sector employees. (More generally, postal services in the EU tend to be structured as businesses these days, because they are in direct competition with various courier and package delivery services.) Also, while the employees may be on strike, managers who rank high enough are not represented. If a company has particularly important obligations it needs to honor, it can always tell the managers to handle them personally.
- bjornsing 3y ago> Also, while the employees may be on strike, managers who rank high enough are not represented. If a company has particularly important obligations it needs to honor, it can always tell the managers to handle them personally. You have to get very high in the hierarchy before you find a manager that the unions will not represent. This is one of the major problems with the Nordic model I would say.
- Legogris 3y ago> This is one of the major problems with the Nordic model I would say. I'd say it's a key factor to why it can sustain at all. Compare to tech startups and big tech where I imagine the majority of those who would be able to drive a union are already intertwined enough in leadership that they feel prevented from organizing due to conflict of interest.
- InCityDreams 3y agoI'm not 'very high' at all (EU based, countries/rules differ). Just by title "Manager", I am not allowed by contract to join a Union. The Unions would represent me, but I voluntarily signed away that particular right. I do, though, thoroughly support the sympathy strikes: fuck you, tesla.
- mytailorisrich 3y agoRefusing to distribute mail to a specific recipient does not sound like a 'strike' in the sense of labour dispute to me. In France (often used a reference when it comes to striking...) that wouldn't be a legal strike, but obviously every jurisdiction is different. In any case, this also probably breaches EU law related to universal postal service, which states that mail must be delivered to every address 5 days a week.
- scottyah 3y agoIt screams corruption to me, this definitely sounds like one political group has infiltrated the governmental services and has gotten enough power to begin publicly target people/groups that they oppose.
- lock-the-spock 3y agoI'm sorry but your claim does not make sense at all given the meaning of the words you are using
- scottyah 3y agoI'm listening, what do you mean by that?
- hutzlibu 3y agoMany different, independent groups voluntarily decided to support other workers in their fight for fair working conditions against an international megacorp, which is supported by their law. That is to me the literal opposite definition of corruption.
- scottyah 3y agoSeems like one anti-Tesla (or EV in general, we can't tell from the article) group is leveraging their network of existing Union pacts and loopholes in the law to withhold license plates from waiting customers. Are the "independent groups" you're talking about the very connected Unions?
- mxsjoberg 3y agoyes, unions in sweden lean heavily towards one particular political party
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- samcal 3y agoThis is just how labor unions roll in the Nordic countries. McDonalds learned this in Denmark [1]. The sooner Tesla realizes they need to negotiate labor contracts through the unions to operate in Sweden, the more money they can make. [1]: https://mattbruenig.com/2021/09/20/when-mcdonalds-came-to-denmark/ https://mattbruenig.com/2021/09/20/when-mcdonalds-came-to-de...
- AnthonyMouse 3y agoThe two situations have an obvious difference. It's hard for McDonalds to sell Big Macs in a country without McDonalds restaurants in it. It's not hard for a car company to move production to a different country; that happens all the time. So pulling out entirely is a much more realistic option for a car company than a restaurant, and as a result the car company has more leverage and both sides know it. And they can pretty much hold out indefinitely because in the meantime they can just make the cars somewhere else, the same as they would forever if they left. It's not obvious what the unions have to hold over them when "stop making things in that country" is a completely viable alternative for the company which might have been nothing more than a coin flip even before this.
- Hikikomori 3y agoTesla doesn't make anything in Sweden. Their workforce is mostly mechanics working at car service centers. What the unions can do is make it very hard for Tesla to operate in Sweden. They cannot hire other companies to perform something for them, no electricians to repair charging stations, no cleaning services, cannot source any parts for cars there, etc. They can of course hire people directly to do these things and likely pay a premium to be able to attract people and get the things they need from other countries and use their own drivers to get that to Sweden. Sympathy strikes might spread to the other Nordic countries and maybe even Germany, where they are already fighting IG Metall. Then the federation of Nordic transport unions have proclaimed their support for IF Metall, so Tesla might be unable to get anything shipped in these countries. Or they could just sign the agreement that sets basic minimum requirements which supposedly they already exceed.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]