As a Swede, perhaps I can shed some light on the "Tesla situation".
Tesla is not breaking the law when they don't sign a collective agreement with IF Metall. Tesla would not break any laws if they brought in workers from other countries, as long as those workers are able to get work visas or are from countries within the EU. They WOULD be breaking the law if they tried to fire employees for going on strike, so they would end up paying double salary.
However, Tesla's real problem is not the law. It is the solidarity between unions in Sweden. Once the IF Metall strike gets going, other unions will join in. Tesla's business would grind to a halt in days and people who own a Tesla would not be able to get their cars serviced anywhere. All this is a given, since there is absolutely no chance that the Swedish unions will back down.
A number of years ago, Toys'r'us tried the same thing. They were brought to their knees in about a week, if memory serves. They ended up signing the agreement, despite the fact that they had also said that "they never signed agreements with the unions". They had apparently not done their homework when it comes to "the Swedish model". Their stance was simply impossible, as is Tesla's.
There are two things I don't understand:
1. What does Tesla think will happen? Do they really think that they can do business in Sweden without getting along with the unions?
2. Why are they so negative towards unions? The Swedish model is built on a century of cooperation between employers and unions and it is working very well. I have myself been on the employer side many times when speaking to unions, and by far the most common situation is that we have good and productive discussions, where both parties are focused on helping the company to succeed. There are of cours exceptions, but they are not very common.
Thank you for this fascinating insight into labor organizations in Sweden.
Observations:
The things that stand out to me are that Tesla owners would potentially not be able to have their car serviced, and the overall unity of seemingly unrelated unions in organizing.
Also coming from an American perspective I muse about how America would be if we had a similarly strong human-centered organized labor. It sounds nice to me. Q hassle for corporations but making money can be arbitrarily complicated!
I think this case could be a bit different. You can easily go to another restaurant if you have a grudge against McDonald's. It's not so simple if you already own an expensive Tesla that you need serviced and repaired.
As a european, I didn't knew this was not a thing at McDonalds. I have always seen beer served there and I don't know why it should be exempt from serving it.
During my long-ago employment at McDonalds, nearly all the staff was under 18, and so ineligible to be handling alcoholic beverages, even 3.2 beer. Many American states are quite fussy about this sort of thing--I've had a younger cashier at a grocery store call over an older to scan my carton of beer.
Now I guess there are more of the over-18 or over-21 employed at McDonalds, but it might disrupt the flow of ordering if all orders with beer had to go through particular registers.
In Germany we're allowed to drink beer at 16 (everything at 18) and afaik if you, aged 15 to 17, are working somewhere that sells alcohol there isn't a law that's forbidding you to handle it.
I am not a regular customer but I don't think I have seen that many under 18 working at McDonalds tbh and the few that would could be asked to just prepare the burgers and stuff or handling payments.
In most european countries, the McD menu has the local table booze (beer, wine, …).
In several countries McD actually has its own McBeer (might be the sole offering, or be alongside the country’s usual) although I have no idea what goes into it or how good it is.
> company claims that it doesn't sign collective bargaining agreements anywhere in the world
LoL, yeah good luck with that.
From my experiences working for American companies, this is typical behaviour where an American company doesn't (yet) realise the things that got them ahead in the U.S.A. won't necessarily work — or even be legal or accepted — in Europe.
Elon Musk famous for sacking entire department or even close down factory PERMANENTLY. Europeans will find out their current unemployment will be doubling in coming months with no money to pay for American expensive oil and gas replacement to Russian. Swede will learn they arent that special and even influential. Their train schedules really under perform if you ever experienced the Japanese one.
One of the stereotypes I have about Japan is that the rail system will be keep, to within seconds, and that the drivers sometimes commit seppuku if they're 30 seconds late.
I don't doubt that everyone else's trains "really under perform" in comparison.
Well, those 130 people is a really big thing. Another company in Sweden just got a strike on their hand. That company has 2000 employees and is hardly mentioned on the news while everyone is talking about Tesla :-)
elon is furious that european workers demand to work in a safe environment because this is not how fortunes are built (they're built the old fashion way, with broken limbs and lead poisoning)
Isn't voluntary agreement between employer and employees better than regulations? They should be last resort, and they can't catch everything, such as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38028660
I have to say I don't understand Elon's (Tesla's) reaction here. Surely he was advised on Swedish and EU laws and how things work over here before he decided to do business in Sweden?
That's why I also said "the way things work here" because it's a cultural thing; you just don't mess with worker's right in Europe. It might not be against the law, but it's not a normal practise. From what I found online last time this happened in Sweden was in 1920s. I'm not from Sweden but I am European and I know that unions and strikes are a normal thing and everybody supports them.
If Elon tries to forcefully break up a strike, he will just amass the wrath of other unions and the entire Swedish population turning an issue of collective agreement into a political problem. I honestly don't see this ending well for Tesla.
The US is one of the few places which allows this. (That is a "Today I Learned".)
If I read https://sv-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/%C3%85karpsla... right, Sweden got rid of the legal right to employ strikebreakers in 1938 when they switched to the "Swedish Model" based more on collective bargaining than on government involvement.
Someone used to the US laws should be aware that different countries don't use the same legal framework.
They're kinda illegal in Germany, actually. Based on a legal change in 2017, employers are prohibited from hiring temp workers[0] to take over work from striking employees. There are probably loopholes by having excess temp workers on staff at all times rather than hiring them specifically during a strike but this kind of redundancy is probably frowned upon by shareholders more than the lost productivity of a strike.
[0]: Specifically the law addresses "loan workers" but Germany has fairly strict laws surrounding so-called "independent contractors" in these roles: https://www.buzer.de/s1.htm?g=A%C3%9CG&a=11
Based on the attitude he has shown to compliance at X, I guess he thinks that's not a problem he can't solve by just throwing money at it when push comes to shove. He's infamously been quoted as saying he's okay representing himself in court because he's been sued so many times. I don't think he listens to lawyers unless they can credibly convince him he'll go to prison otherwise.
I take it you missed the part where he shot his mouth off in public about buying Twitter and then got dragged into court and forced to actually buy it.
Tesla is not doing anything illegal as far as I understand.
Looks like there is an expectation that Tesla behaves in a certain way in Sweden because "that's way we've always done it" but that's not in law. Tesla is sticking to the law, as far as I understand.
I'm a bit uncomfortable about companies being criticised for sticking to the law.
Of course, if workes and unions disagree they can also use their legal rights to try to force Tesla to reconsider. But if they wanted to make all companies behave in a certain way they they should have put that in law.
> I'm a bit uncomfortable about companies being criticised for sticking to the law.
Are you serious? Should you only be allowed to criticise companies (and people?) when they break the law? That would be the end of free speech.
Obeying the law is not synonymous with doing good. The law is the very bottom line, but there's tons of shitty behaviour that's perfectly legal. That doesn't mean it's okay. There are tons of ways in which you can be an asshole without doing anything illegal. You won't go to prison, but people will criticise and avoid you.
Don't make the law your only basis for morality. Laws can be wrong, and they're certainly not enough. Because if you do that, you're basically demanding that every aspect of society be completely legislated, and that's a really bad idea.
There's different levels in criticism. Here Tesla seems to be hammered simply for sticking with the law. This is excessive, IMO: if what they are doing is so outrageous then that should not be allowed in law.
Companies are totally entitled to stick to the law, but they also need to then deal with the fact that narrow compliance with the law might bring them into conflict with parts of society (who in turn might stick to the law in dealing with them).
That said, we already have determined that generally just "sticking to the law" isn't a great defense in all situations anyway.
In a free society based on the rule of law, you cannot demand that anyone goes beyond the law. That's a key principle.
Now, as mentioned, in business other parties can also use their legal rights to bring about negotiations, but let's not depict Tesla as horrible for simply staying within the law...
We have long determined that the rule of law is only one component of a functioning society. There is a lot of stuff beyond the rule of law that makes things work. Anyone not understanding that will have trouble in any society.
Would you be happy in a society where everybody lies to you all the time? Lying isn't illegal (except under oath), but it would make for a really shitty society.
You can absolutely expect people to do more than just obey the law. Everybody does. Tesla does not, and that may lead Tesla's employees to use their perfectly legal right to strike. And by your standards, you can't demand that they don't strike, because it's legal.
But it's a shitty basis for a relationship. If Tesla wants its workers to do good work for them, they need to listen to their workers.
Solely sticking to the law means paying minimum wage with maximum hours for any work type with no benefits. Negotiation and better terms are not part of the law, but I'm pretty sure you don't want to do without. Union agreements are the standard way to do this here, and refusing to negotiate with unions means refusing to cooperate with the work force market.
They can disagree with unions and the people within the law, just as they can fail as a business from making enemies of the whole country within the law. Civil customs and agreements are not meant to be law.
There is no minimum wage in sweden, because in central european labour fashion they expect labour and companies to cooperate and come to a mutually agreeable and socially beneficial rate.
Although germany recently ended up introducing a legal minimum wage because an other US corp was being too shit about it (I don’t remember if it was amazon or something like walmart).
Sweden does not have a minimum wage because unions are more efficient at ensuring livable wages than legislation and setting a legal minimum wage in this scenario would only benefit the bargaining position of employers by giving them a low-ball reference value.
This is very different from the neoliberal argument against minimum wages which boils down to "if we need to pay workers a livable wage our profit margins would be tighter" or more charitably "if we need to pay workers a livable wage some jobs would become unprofitable and we'd have to lay those people off" (which only holds true when the jobs are non-essential to the company in such a way that laying people off doesn't mean outsourcing them - a lot of low-paying jobs are absolutely essential to business operations but are seen as cost centers because they don't directly contribute to revenue).
The reason the EU is "pushing for minimum wages" is that the EU pushed for the liberalisation of markets in EU countries some twenty years ago (and its various extensions thereof) and that led to an increase in wealth gaps, a loss of income security, gutting of social welfare systems and the proliferation of temp work agencies (which e.g. in Germany were illegal up to that point and offer an easy way to sidestep unions). Minimum wage is a bandaid for the gashing wound left by market liberalisation.
Following the law is a very low bar because of that, since employers and unions are supposed to be able to sort things out between themselves. If companies begin to just "stick to the law" the system will break down obviously and a new system will have to replace it.
Yes. That also smacks of corporatism and "old boys club" probably in part because Sweden is a small country and, I imagine, everyone used to know everyone else in business and political circles.
Well nothing in the law say you need to be polite, say hello, thank you and good bye. However good luck having decent collaboration and commercial entries if you yell at everyone and insult them.
Criticism is fine, but I think people should be careful not to conflate the two.
It’s fine to say “I think Tesla should pay more and not hire scabs”
The difference between law and opinion determines how this is enforced.
If actions are illegal, the government forces compliance.
If it is a matter of opinion, then it is up to the involved parties to sort it out themselves. This could be based on their negotiating leverage. Strikes, scabs, boycotts, and sympathy strikes are all fair game
When it comes to ethics, the law should always be seen as the bare minimum, not the bar that we as society should actually expect people and companies to clear.
The problem is that what you call "ethics" is arbitrary. The law applied uniformly is actually a safety net to protect everyone against arbitrary actions.
That's why the rule of law has been so important in the struggle for free societies and liberty.
Yet another scar on Tesla's public image. For context I'm alluding to recent reports of extremely high injury rates in Tesla's German factories, rumours about Chinese factory conditions.
[Cynical] Might be beneficial to outsource the this type of dirty work to subsidiaries or subcontractors, the way Apple offloads to Foxcon?
Yes. The Swedish Transport Union just now declared that workers will stop unloading Tesla cars in the harbors starting noon November 7, if Tesla has not yet signed the collective agreement. Other unions are expected to follow with similar announcements.
A strikebreaker is usually someone external hired specifically to replace a striking worker. That's why this may or may not be restricted by law.
Very often a 'scab' (which, again, is an insult) is simply an existing worker who's decided not to srike and who constinues to work as usual. Though the term may also refer to a strikebreaker.
UPS, FedEx, McDonald and Toys R Us already tried to make up their own rules. They've all ended up singing the agreement. Tesla will see that the demands are sound and reasonable. Tesla will comply or leave. Simple as that
This kind of nonsense doesn't play well in Europe. Nor should it.
> The company is refusing to sign one, IF Metall has reported, saying that company claims that it doesn't sign collective bargaining agreements anywhere in the world.
Tesla tried to keep unions out but apparently IG Metall (the largest and politically most powerful industrial trade union in Germany) announced earlier this month that more than a thousand workers at the Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg joined the union: https://www.igmetall.de/im-betrieb/ig-metall-organisiert-tes...
According to the union's statement, a third of all workers is on sick leave at any given time due to workplace injuries. They're also paid below union rate despite claims to the contrary by Tesla management. Tesla also tried to preempt a union recruiting event by giving the workers free pea soup so they'd stay in throughout the lunch break and not talk to the union reps waiting outside the factory.
To me it sounds like the union just got its foot in the door at Tesla Germany and we're not at the point yet where organized action like a strike is feasible. It's worth mentioning that German employment law prohibits a company from hiring temp workers to take over the job of a striking employee, at the threat of a fine of up to €500k. On the other hand, there are strict laws around strikes for workers too, e.g. solidarity strikes are prohibited.
The situation is a little different. IIRC Tesla's trying to hire on the cheap here in Germany, and not succeeding very well, and is in... a... let's say a discussion process with the Man about the number of accidents in a Tesla factory.
Such discussions with the Man tend to be quiet, polite and slow at first, but the Man will eventually lose patience. I saw a photo in the newspaper of someone who couldn't discuss his tax issues due to health issues; the photo showed him being wheeled into court in his hospital bed.
Well he may simply fire all locals and bring in all-foreign staff. What will stop him? Salaries Tesla pay are sufficient for Blue Card or similar permit.
They would quickly end up in violation of "Lagen om anställningsskydd". All terminations must adhere to the minimum notice, be objectively justified, and can be appealed in case of unfair dismissal. The employer may be forced to pay up to 36 months of full severance pay.
Firings for reasons not related to individual misbehavior must also be Last-In, First-Out, disallowing replacing employees with those hired after them.
And the government is making it even harder for immigrants who work there to stay:
> Even though the salary is in line with the collective agreement, she earns too little when the regulations for being allowed to stay in Sweden are tightened next month.
Well, if that is even legal in Sweden (I'm not sure) - the striking workers could _physically_ stop this. And then there would be the question of the statutory limitations on Swedish state involvement in labor disputes.
(And the union could also get in touch with such hires and explaining the situation to them, which is also likely to be somewhat effective in deterring this sort of scabbing.)
In .no the visa application process involves a form where the prospective employer states that we tried and failed to find employees in the country. I've written justification prose for that form. I would be astonished if there isn't a similar form in Sweden.
Last time I dealt with this in Sweden there was a similar form. There was also a form that should certify that the offered salary is not below the "industry level" - which in many industries is set by unions. Also a form that the employee candidate should submit to Migrationsverket (this concerned only non-EU candidates) contained data about life and health insurance companies/contracts that cover expenses in case of injuries and such, so that Migrationsverket could (and sometimes did) check if the named companies exist.
There are a couple of different ways the union might "fight" (not sure of the english term). They can block things physically, like standing around the shop to prevent people in/out. They can also expand the strike outside Teslas shops, for example to transportation companies supplying parts to Tesla etc.
Given how core this question is to the Swedish Unions and Sweden in general, I expect it would be very easy to get support for many wide-reaching actions both from other unions and from the public. (For example, there's no minimum salary in Sweden, instead the companies & unions are supposed to handle it)
Blue Card is 1.5x gross average local salary. Rather annoyingly, googling this gives me a headline answer of "SEK 57,450 per month" that doesn't actually correspond to any of the actual results following this (many of which aren't for this year anyway).
Also odd (given that it's in the news), I can't get search results telling me what Tesla is currently paying, nor what higher level of pay the union is asking for.
Downloading TM Sweden AB's fiscal report for 2022 (årsredovisning), under "Not 7" there is costs for staff and average number of staff for 2021 and 2022:
Both seem to come out to an average of around 38 KSEK/month (~€3250). I'd suspect the mechanics to have the lowest salary in the organization, so probably somewhat lower than that. But that's pure speculation on my behalf.
It could be a matter of coincidence due to hiring of more staff in more junior positions or so, but the lack of salary increases from year to year could be more interesting to the union (the unions typically have a percentage "mark" salary bump in the collective agreement that you're guaranteed every year). That is also speculative.
Right-wing anti-immigration / self-protection politics, just like in the US. The weird conundrum between being economically liberal ("bring in cheap foreign workers") while politically conservative ("own people first").
In a post-Trump era it almost makes perfect sense, but the world doesn’t work according to the internal talk inside a MBA’s head ( yet ). In other words, just go to the location and make your theory work, I’ll wait..
While true, this meme feels almost as petty as Musk himself: Tesla had barely shipped its first car when Musk took over.
Founded July 1, 2003, the Roadster was officially revealed to the public on July 19, 2006; Eberhard was asked to step down as CEO in August 2007; Tesla had still only delivered 147 cars by January 2009.
Maybe. That has not been the case for the big American companies I have worked for here in Sweden. We always got the same benefits, including stock options etc, as everyone else in the companies. Not sure what the unions would say if a company tried to punish workers for being unionized, but I suspect they would not be happy about it, and there may very well be something in the collective agreement they want signed that already covers this.
Ah, even the unionized Amazon workers in Europe get RSUs.
To cite Ellen Ripley: I don't know which species is worse, but I'm sure they wont let themselves get killed forba percentage". And not everyone, especially outside the US, is willing to do so neither.
Alternatively, let's just pay people a living wage and offer them safe working conditions.
Unions are not the problem here, it's the working conditions. Unions form as a reaction to working conditions / terms. If there wasn't a problem, there wouldn't be a union.
Why are societies not allowed to chose certain models how to deal with some economic or employment situations? Why would only capital be allowed to pool but not workers?
Because this ends in a race to the bottom. Employers have much greater power than employees as long as the latter are individualized and only act according to their individual best interest. Society is better when we do things for each other - and sometimes that involves things like not being a scab.
They can and they do - who says otherwise? If a model is very pervasive this also is expressed in people moving to other countries, which in the EU isn't that difficult (and conversely, there are also people moving the other way. A bit like a market for societal models).
So really, individuals do make decisions and act on them on many levels.
They surely can - thanks, in big part, to the unions. Employers are sticky, working conditions cost money. Left to market mechanisms only, a company with good working conditions doesn't use this as a way to pouch workers from a competitor with bad working condition - instead, the company makes its working conditions even worse, or gets outcompeted.
Tesla is not breaking the law when they don't sign a collective agreement with IF Metall. Tesla would not break any laws if they brought in workers from other countries, as long as those workers are able to get work visas or are from countries within the EU. They WOULD be breaking the law if they tried to fire employees for going on strike, so they would end up paying double salary.
However, Tesla's real problem is not the law. It is the solidarity between unions in Sweden. Once the IF Metall strike gets going, other unions will join in. Tesla's business would grind to a halt in days and people who own a Tesla would not be able to get their cars serviced anywhere. All this is a given, since there is absolutely no chance that the Swedish unions will back down.
A number of years ago, Toys'r'us tried the same thing. They were brought to their knees in about a week, if memory serves. They ended up signing the agreement, despite the fact that they had also said that "they never signed agreements with the unions". They had apparently not done their homework when it comes to "the Swedish model". Their stance was simply impossible, as is Tesla's.
There are two things I don't understand: 1. What does Tesla think will happen? Do they really think that they can do business in Sweden without getting along with the unions?
2. Why are they so negative towards unions? The Swedish model is built on a century of cooperation between employers and unions and it is working very well. I have myself been on the employer side many times when speaking to unions, and by far the most common situation is that we have good and productive discussions, where both parties are focused on helping the company to succeed. There are of cours exceptions, but they are not very common.