American companies often think that European unions are just stronger than unions in Europe. They don't realize that labor and union laws are different.
Toys R Us tried the same in Sweden. They initially refused agreement and hired only non-union workers. But transport and logistics workers union and finance union started sympathy strike. Toys R Us didn't get deliveries and bank workers refused work related to company.
This is a perfect example of how corporate ownership of the political process has usurped the actual function of government responsible to the poorest people, in favor of taking care of corporate interests
A great example of how oligarchical power is literally built into our legal infrastructure
It's not a given that "the actual function of government responsible to the poorest people" should be the true purpose and focus of government.
I would assume that your discontentment is a result of misalignment between what you think is the government's role and what those who make government, think the government's role should be. Which one of you has a more legitimate claim to the truth?
A refusal to do business over a controversy has a First amendment claim to assembly and petition. No federal law has any business limiting such a claim outside of literal matters of life and death.
I can see an argument that the Commerce clause grants powers to regulate such claims, but unfortunately federal laws in pursuit of a Constitutional power are still subordinate to Constitutional rights (IMO). It would require a Constitutional amendment to so empower a federal law to override a Constitutional right (again, IMO, as I'm writing to your "legitimacy" question posed to the GP).
> corporate ownership of the political process has usurped the actual function of government responsible to the poorest people
This is a curious diagnosis of a late 40s law. Consider why average Americans, including those in the lowest rung, vote against pro-union legislation (or don’t turn out for it), as well as the difference between Swedish and American unions.
They didn't vote for it, or against it. In most countries, citizens don't get to vote on individual laws. We vote people into power, who then hopefully don't enact laws that harm us. But as we all know by now, that's never stopped a politician.
Also they forget that on average they are pretty benign. At least in my field they ask for quite tame things. And them being same union for everyone means that you don't really lose much to competitors. As they will have same rules in place...
Good point. Sweden has better institutions and labor laws to reduce friction and enable cooperation.
Enterprise bargaining in the US is more zero sum game between companies and workers. Everything you give to workers, reduces competitive edge against non-union competitors. It's in company interest to fight unions as much as possible.
In sectoral bargaining, unions negotiate same deal with their counterparts representing corporations. When nobody gets competitive edge over others, there is less downside for agreeing.
I would also add that many (most?) European countries allow multiple unions in the same shop, with worker choice. Inter-union competition is important to keep unions honest and aligned with their workers. I think this more than anything else is responsible for the anti-union sentiment in the US.
This really helps. There are also other ways unions can be corrupt.
For example, the ILWU union allows its members to give their position to their children as an inheritance. It's literally a mafia ("family").
And of course, any random Joe can't just apply for a job with the ILWU. In rare cases where positions become available, they conduct a lottery.
The end result is that the ILWU-controlled ports are competing with each other for the coveted last place in the global Port Performance Index. Right now, it's held by the LA ports.
The US also has lots of tribal/ethnic/skin color/religious/socioeconomic delineated groups that are not necessarily aligned with each other, and are OK with other groups being screwed.
One example I especially like to use is how agricultural workers are somehow not deserving of the same minimum wage as others. Even in the progressive states. Surely, it could not have anything to do with the workers mostly being poorer immigrants from a certain region.
I feel like this is a very convenient scapegoat for American unions to avoid looking internally at their own flaws. Many Americans have negative opinions of unions. Corporations and their wealthy owners have certainly put a lot of money to influence public opinion this way, but they aren't omnipotent. These efforts would be laughable off if the value-add of the union was readily-apparent. Dismissing anyone's negative opinion of a union as being the victim of a propaganda campaign is infantilizing, and dismissive of lived-experiences.
My negative opinion of a union came from my own direct experience as being part of a mega-union that crossed multiple industries. The structure of the union was such that they were so divorced from the actual work being done that they could not possibly help us. Advancement meant playing the union political game, and not being good at your job. They were a constant thorn in all of our sides. I try to limit my disdain to that union in particular (not all unions are like this). But your comment dismissing concerns such as these fault of the business sound incredibly tone deaf. And as a result will not lead to a positive opinion of unions in America.
If you think this little more, you must realize that this is not a good argument
Systemic and institutional reasons are more important than individuals.Enterprise bargaining in the US is more zero sum game between companies and workers. Everything you give to workers, reduces competitive edge against non-union competitors. It's in company interest to fight unions as much as possible.
...amd the Unions can also be in cahoots with each other (to not piss off the employer). A deal here, a deal there, between themselves and then with the employer, everybody is happy apart from the workers.
Nb: 1st hand experience, currently ongoing.
Union members can be in cahoots amongst others even in the same union.
All across the US, if you are younger, you likely get less compensation than if you are older. Older union members vote for higher compensation for themselves and reduced compensation for young and future union members, since they cannot vote. For example, if you look up collective bargaining agreements, you will often see tier 1 benefits for employees hired before year x, tier 2 benefits for before year y, and tier 3 benefits for after year y, etc.
A similar dynamic plays out with taxpayer funded benefits and older voters vs younger voters.
The US has an “Additional Medicare Tax”, to help pay for healthcare for older people. But there is no “Additional Medicaid Tax”, to help pay for healthcare for poorer/younger people.
I think, based on the anti-union talking points I see, the media is most responsible for anti-union sentiment, whether it's the normal corporate friendly mainstream media or classic films like On the Waterfront where union corruption is a side plot. Complimenting this are books, biopics, news stories, etc. of mythologized biographies portraying some business leaders as people who have pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, when they were really born into a privileged position (see: Gates, Musk, Zuck, etc.).
> Enterprise bargaining in the US is more zero sum game between companies and workers. Everything you give to workers, reduces competitive edge against non-union competitors. It's in company interest to fight unions as much as possible.
I suppose they will always hide behind “competitive” edge. The more naked truth seems to be that between the stakeholders of the CEO+board of directors v.s. workers—avoiding the nebolous “company interest”—there is always inherently a zero sum game. Like one of the automative CEOs in the US who boasted about how she was paid according to her performance—her performance being, among other things, directly related to how low she could keep wages for the rank and file.
> Enterprise bargaining in the US is more zero sum game between companies and workers. Everything you give to workers, reduces competitive edge against non-union competitors. It's in company interest to fight unions as much as possible.
This is how companies treat enterprise bargaining. It is rarely true.
Unions are often after things that benefit both sides. Safety improvements both protect the workers and shield the company from both injury liability and material losses due to accidents. More generous leave policies and more worker-friendly hours result in happier, healthier, better rested, and therefore more productive workers, which can easily balance out the small reduction in total hours.
But executives/corporations don't see it this way - they see this all of this as a power game, and every union demand they agree to is a fight lost.
> Unions are often after things that benefit both sides. Safety improvements both protect the workers and shield the company from both injury liability and material losses due to accidents. More generous leave policies and more worker-friendly hours result in happier, healthier, better rested, and therefore more productive workers, which can easily balance out the small reduction in total hours.
In cases where this is actually true, the company would be offering these things of its own volition -- as happens in many industries without unions. So then what would you need the union for?
You could obviously have poorly managed companies that get this wrong, but then they would be at a competitive disadvantage in the market.
Where this more often doesn't happen is in the places where it isn't true. There are some jobs where worker productivity isn't that salient -- or is only relevant to the extent that it allows the company to employ fewer people, which is the sort of thing a union would then try to prevent.
I think that reality is always more nuanced than partisan talking points. Both unions and corps make good points about certain things and exaggerate others for their own benefit.
And when the government is in on it as well and gives the unions and employer organizations room to be innovative and flexible with one another, then it’s even a net gain over having the government giving detailed guidelines for everything
> In sectoral bargaining, unions negotiate same deal with their counterparts representing corporations. When nobody gets competitive edge over others, there is less downside for agreeing.
That's assuming the company/industry doesn't have competitors in other countries.
Yeah, the idea of the Swedish model being that it’s better for employers and workers union to decide details as then they can be adapted to the need of every specific field rather than be dictated by the government and be the same for all.
Makes for a much more agile, progressive and cooperative environment that benefits both businesses and workers.
Unions in Sweden don’t try to get paid the most possible by the employers – they want fair wages and healthy companies and together with employer organizations they try to make up rules that benefit both, as healthy companies and happy workers are beneficial for all parties
I had 3.5% union-agreed raise this year against an almost 10% inflation year-on-year. In Sweden the unions are not out to screw the employers over, the unions know the companies are under stress due to market downturn and share the burden with employees.
Before the downturn I consistently had at least 1% raise above inflation for several years.
That seems like it supports the principle of shared pain and shared profit and it’s good that the laws and company/union structure supports that. I think it’s better for stable long term stability and growth of a nation.
Another oft cited example is the McDonalds strike of '88 in Denmark.
I'm very proud of being part of this scandinavian society when it shows this kind of solidarity with workers. Workers are after all the majority of society.
Want to share my reply to a comment reply here that was deleted, which called this “crazy”:
It’s not crazy. It’s a very effective way of balancing the power dynamics between corporations and workers. What’s crazy is not having these rights enshrined in law. Why should the government tell workers how they can or cannot strike?
This way of doing it gets you one thing that some Americans dream of: no federal mandated universal minimum wage. I mean think about it… a universal federal minimum wage is a ridiculous idea. It’s never going to be a good level for all industries.
But if you’re going to make minimum wage something that workers and corporations can just settle between themselves, you have to give the workers real power. Not make national laws that give corporations the right to make contracts that make their workers slaves to their employers.
Some American think this is socialism. I’d argue that it’s just good capitalism that ensures healthy (labour) market dynamics. Same as how you want regulations that discourage the formation of monopolies.
> It’s not crazy. It’s a very effective way of balancing the power dynamics between corporations and workers. What’s crazy is not having these rights enshrined in law. Why should the government tell workers how they can or cannot strike?
It's like asking, why should the government tell business how they can or cannot do business? It's essentially an anti-trust issue. You don't want any organization to have too much power, whether it's a company or a union or even the government. You want power to be distributed as much as possible, but unions, like any other organization, centralize it.
The typical argument is that corporations centralize it too, but the answer to this is more anti-trust measures, not less.
Except immigrants will come to the country and be willing to work for lower wages, they will be OK without taking the union benefits. Unions are a way to enrich current members by creating an exclusive cartel.
How do you deal with the fact that there are people willing to work for less?
Icelander here. We have 90+% union participation in the country. A large portion of certain unions are immigrant workers. They have at numerous times gone on strike for better pay.
So, at least here, your hypothesis does not seem to hold.
This is probably due to the unions educating those immigrant workers on what their rights are.
Iceland also has very bizarre "union" structures that more resemble professional associations than unions in other countries. When I worked at a software company in Kópavogur, on my team of 7 there were at least 4 different unions represented.
I'm not sure bizarre would be the way I'd describe it, but it is probably not identical to how the setup is everywhere else.
There are those that fit the professional association description, for instance the union of computer scientists which mandates a university degree in cs to become a member (this union does do collective bargaining with government and municipalities but not private enterprises), but then there are more broader unions for bigger sectors that do collective bargaining against the industrial collective (samtök atvinnulífsins).
So, I'm not sure what is with the downvotes for bbarn's comment. Its a point that isn't far off.
Norway will not issue a work permit for immigrants, if their work contract pays less than is typical in the industry. So this loophole is accounted for. Once an immigrant has permanent residency (or arrives due to marrying a Norwegian) then this could become a problem, but by then they have hopefully integrated enough, and will no longer work for peanuts. The cost of living being so high here probably discourages that anyways, and the things the sibling commenters stated also apply.
> How do you deal with the fact that there are people willing to work for less?
By having a collective bargaining agreement setting the minimum pay the company is allowed, leveling the playing field to remove exploitative measures like that.
How is it exploitative? If people coming from other areas want to work for cheaper because they're willing, do you think they shouldn't have an opportunity to do so?
No, they shouldn't, that is the definition of exploitative, offering someone a lower pay because they are desperate enough to accept it. It's a race to the bottom and something needs to stop it.
That shouldn't happen, you need some morality in this amoral system so it can be less exploitative, one way to set some moral guidance is to have a minimum threshold of what people should be paid for a job given that others are already offered that for a similar skillset. Willing to work for less in exchange of other benefits (like moving to a different society) only creates cascading issues for the others who aren't in that desperate position, eroding the labour market.
If people were willing to be slaves, should we allow them?
Stop throwing the word “cartel” around as if it even means a goddamn thing! A multi-billion dollar command economy (like a corporation) can focus its efforts on the opposite thing, like making sure that wages for their employers are kept low. But a group of employees banding together? Well duh, that’s a cartel, silly. What?
(In addition: unions for employers exist as well.)
> How do you deal with the fact that there are people willing to work for less?
The answer in the Netherlands is that for most industries that have one the collective agreement has been declared universally binding. It applies to everyone in that industry, whether they're a member of one of the bargaining organizations or not, and if a company ignores it they're breaking the law.
Same here in Sweden - when a company doesn’t have a collective agreement they also don’t have a right to have peace with the unions, so then the unions can put pressure on them to get a collective agreement and when that succeeds there will be a collective agreement that then apply to all employees
My point is you have a societal issue if you have thousands of workers migrating who are looking to work and willing to work for less. You can either choose to house and feed them and prevent them from working, or you can realize labor is cheaper.
Yea, that is a problem. In sweden it has kind of resulted in the govt pushing immigrants into welfare and different programs to make unions happy (even if of course it hurts workers in the long run that a huge part of the population doesnt work and just live on welfare).
European labor law tends to be aimed at productive compromise. By comparison, American unionization appears polarized into almost winner takes all extreme.
I have issues with unions becoming way too powerful and prevent things from being done efficiently. I get certain aspects are safety related like needing an electrician to come in to wire up certain things. But I've had a friend that was a network installer that was allowed to mount the gear in the rack and wire in the low voltage ethernet cabling, but was not allowed to attache the power cord. That required the time of an electrician union member. On their schedule. After installing the gear, he had to wait doing nothing until this could happen. These types of rules are dumb, but show the overreaching power of unions.
There are plenty of stories/examples (so not just n=1) of these kinds of boneheaded rules that just make things very inefficient.
That required the time of an electrician union member.
For what it's worth, that is simply not a thing in Sweden. Being a union member (or not) is completely separated from any certifications or licensing. You cannot have being a union member as a requirement for hiring someone or have jobs that are only open to union members.
As we keep saying, US Unions !== Swedish Unions (Or Scandinavian for that matter)
Maybe the US Unions need to change name to something else because they act nothing like Unions in Europe. From what I see described by movies and companies it sounds more like Maffia, is that correct or is it propaganda?
their tactics are very maffiaesque. a previous job went through the process to vote for a union, and during the lead up to it, there were definite examples of pressuring to family members. two individuals showed up to my apartment while i was at work, and were best described by my roommate as goons. they tried to talk to my roommate about why it would be a good idea for me to join even though the roommate had nothing to do with anything i did. she told me it was a very surreal experience.
When discussing wages and such people imply that it's a balanced situation, because if someone doesn't like the wage they can simply not work at the company. That is theoretically true, but we see pushback on strikes and unions. Strikes and unions are the _primary_ form of employees actually using their bargaining power with companies. What is hard to do individually, becomes much easier as a union when workers unite and bargain together.
I hope to see more bargaining and unionizing by workers. We need a shift in the power dynamics in the United States.
Unions are a good thing, definately right now when the competition from "slave owners" in eastern Europe, China etc will exploit workers and outrun competition that way.
For Tesla, with China's export of electric vehicle it would be a good thing to "set the bar" and prevent low cost workers from entering the market - hence securing Tesla's position in Sweden.
And that's what the "Swedish model" of working is all about, Unions "set the lower bar" for what is acceptable and what is not.
I've lived in Brazil and over there most unions are disgraceful corrupt and nepotist institutions. Their directors are filthy rich from a time every worker was forced to pay a day of his wages every year. Opting out was as convenient and hard you can imagine and most agreements were corrupt dealings in closed doors with no regard to the interest of workers.
The one union I was forced to participate had its director caught accepting bribery and hiring his own family for director roles, whom in turn were lavished in gifts from companies like imported luxury vehicles.
The obligatory association law was abolished a few years ago but these unions are still trying to lobby government to provide an alternative to. A few months ago the Supreme Court came to an understanding it was okay to bring back the tax with opt out system under a different name.
Imagine European unions would export their "lower bars" by helping workers in other countries unionize. That would give globalisation a whole new meaning.
International solidarity between unions is a natural part of being a union
(Well, unless when you want to protect jobs from moving abroad, then the solidarity is gone. Eg. the German unions are great at ensuring that any job cuts happens in other European countries instead of in Germany)
I understand the feeling of Aborsy; in another European country (France) Unions are a non-elected political force that seizes power by force in a factory / company.
Once they have established their power, they do anything they can to impose their law on other workers and collect money from both the owners, and the other employees.
And to be considered part of the group, you have to pay an annual membership to them in order to get “protected”.
I pay a couple dollars a year in Sweden and my union offers unemployment insurance, 80% of my salary for six months if I’m laid off. I’m okay with that annual membership if that was all I got :)
You gain in those items and may lose in others. It probably depends on how the unions are set up.
For example, my work environment in France was so toxic that over time I developed psychological problems, because the institution could not address the abuse, harassment, bullying, etc, since everyone had secure permanent contracts protected by unions.
Any source for "abuse and a host of other problems" brought about by swedish unions, or is this just a gut feeling by yours truly?
Even of I look at the most problematic union conduct I can recall of the top of my head it is absolutely dwarfed by any potential abuse coming from corporations which unarguably is many magnitudes more problematic. And this includes armed rebellions against company armies.
It is a bit like pointing to a few cases were ambulances produced traffic accidents and demand that they can't be trusted for that reason. Maybe it's my physics interest, but if this was a formula I would say we can ignore the union downsides because they are insignificant.
Unions over all have shown to be helping raise the standards for even those who are not in them and there is enough sociological research to back that conclusively. Systemically, if corporations would share their success with their employees instead of trying to maximize the extracted value. So the flavour of unions you will get has to do with the society you are in.
In an era where corporate sends Pinkerton thugs to beat up people unions will jive very differently than in a social democratic nation in Scandinavia in the 2020s. Heck, I would even say that in the rugged-individualism-embarassed-billionaire-land that the US is, unions would take on a different shape than in any neighbouring country just based on cultural differences. So a bit more nuance and a look at things at scale is certainly needed.
What do you think we should conclude from this? Is abuse more intrinsic to unions than it is to employers? What are the other problems?
If the doctor tells you that you need antibiotics to survive your infection, do you dwell on all the possible side effects, or do you just want to not die?
If this is not just being pendantic, it seems to imply that having no unions are better than having unions. Is that actually what you want to argue here? If not, what are you trying to contribute?
Volvo Cars AB is a publicly traded Swedish company traded on the Stockholm stock exchange.
They have to comply with all relevant Swedish laws for a public Swedish company and all requirements imposed by the Stockholm stock exchange.
Geely Holding owns 82% of Volvo Cars AB according to recent data. Swedish pension companies AMF and Folksam are second and third largest owner with 3.8% and 2.0% of the votes.
So while Geely of course has a massive influence on the company, they can not do whatever they want, they have to abide by the rules and respect the other owners as well, and the other owners are also present on eg the board
In Finland, we’re celebrating the Wolt founders for paying so much taxes. At The sametime their platform has significantly disrupted traditional labor structures. The core innovation seems to lie in navigating around established labor laws and union regulations.
Amazon is an interesting example: In Germany they insisted on paying their warehouse workers based on, but not boind by, Germany's collective bargained logistics agreement (Tarifvertrag) and not the retail one. On France, during the same time, they accepted the French retail agreement with the respective unions. Guess which one, retail or logistics, has the lower salaries in each country.
That Tesla isn't even willing to accept the smallest concessions in countries they operate in, no idea why they do this...
Amazon avoided having to sign a collective agreement with a union in Sweden by outsourcing their business in Sweden to some other company. The workers in that company have a collective agreement. I guess some arrangement like this could work for Musk as well if he wants to save face and pretend like Tesla still never signs collective agreements?
In America , Corporate Interests and demands are taken more seriously than the Rights of Citizens or what the Law states. And our Senators and Congress fall right in line behind the Chamber of Commerce to make sure Unions do not expand and our citizens are denied their lawful rights to organize any unions. Corporations hold meetings threating loss of jobs if any organizing by any employees. They turn employees against each other. All this is illegal but our elected officials go along with the companies and they can do what they want.
TLDR; The Swedish union of Service and Communications puts Tesla on notice of a sympathy strike, refusing to deliver mail and packages to Tesla in support of IF Metall's demand of a collective agreement. The action will go into effect on the 20th of November, 2023.
----- Translation -------
IF Metall's fight is also our fight. By refusing to comply with the rules of the game here 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. It is of course completely unacceptable. The fight that IF Metall is now taking is important for the entire Swedish collective agreement model. Therefore, our union board has chosen to issue a sympathy notice, says Seko's union president, Gabriella Lavecchia.
Seko's sympathy measures involve a blockade against the delivery, delivery and collection of shipments, letters, packages and pallets made by PostNord and CityMail to all of Tesla's workplaces in all locations in Sweden. This means that, for example, spare parts and components for the workshops will not be delivered by these logistics companies. The blockade means that the sympathy measures remain even if another company takes over the blocked work.
- We back IF Metall 100 percent in this important conflict. We are in an important period for the Swedish trade union movement and for the Swedish model. We and our members will do everything we can so that together we will emerge victorious from this fight for fair conditions for Tesla's employees, says Seko's contract secretary, Ulrika Nilsson.
Seko's industrial action will take effect on 20 November 2023 at 01:00
Notice of extension of conflict measures will be taken in the event that there is a violation of the strike measures.
Toys R Us tried the same in Sweden. They initially refused agreement and hired only non-union workers. But transport and logistics workers union and finance union started sympathy strike. Toys R Us didn't get deliveries and bank workers refused work related to company.