[jltsiren]

PostNord 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.

[mytailorisrich]

Refusing 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.

[Spivak]

This is what sympathy strikes are, if you're a unionized commercial bakery who delivers to a unionized restaurant that's currently striking you don't go and strike against your own boss. That's silly. You refuse to cross the picket line and deliver goods and services to the business who's striking so they have a harder time operating.

That's like the entire point. They're so effective lots of places ban them which like... take that for what it's worth.

[stcredzero]

They're so effective lots of places ban them which like... take that for what it's worth.

In this case, they are violating consensuality. The Tesla workers don't want the collective agreement. The sympathy strikers are outsiders to the Tesla employee pool who are imposing the collective agreement on them.

Given this incident, I can understand why these are banned. It seems to have more to do with a political power play than it does worker's rights.

[emj]

Well it is an ideological battle by a US company acting in an work environment very much unlike what the US has. I do hope the unions manage to keep this going for a year or two.

[tuukkah]

At least some Tesla workers do want the collective agreement (without it, they have little protection against the whims of Elon).

[AnthonyMouse]

> without it, they have little protection against the whims of Elon

What stops them from quitting at any time, or not working for him to begin with?

[Hikikomori]

Nothing. Just like nothing stops the ones that do want a collection agreement as they work for Tesla and have join the union. There's no requirement for a majority wanting it or not.

[adolph]

live by the whim, die by the whim

maybe should follow their own whim

[user_named]

There is no such EU law. Post is not delivered 5 days a week in Sweden.

[mytailorisrich]

"EU countries are obliged to guarantee a permanent, affordable, universal postal service everywhere within their territory, i.e. they have to guarantee as a minimum the following:

- a service (collection from access points and delivery) on 5 working days a week (with exceptions);

- the collection, sorting, transport and delivery of postal items weighing up to 10 kg;

- services for registered and insured items." [1]

That being said, obviously the specific number of days is not important here.

[1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-content/summary/postal-se...

[paulryanrogers]

Personal postage and large commercial shipments seem unrelated to me. Moreso if the former is via a government delivery service and the latter is via a private company.

[mytailorisrich]

To you perhaps, but not to universal postal service laws...

""The universal service obligation (USO) is the core of the Postal Services Directive (97/67/EC, amended by Directives 2002/39/EC and 2008/6/EC). This is the requirement that letters and parcels should be delivered to each home or business premises, on 5 days each week, throughout each EU country (with exemptions)."

Tesla has a right to postal service in the same way as everyone else.

[einr]

Force majeure trumps all obligations. There is no law being broken here.

[mytailorisrich]

What force majeure? Do you know what the term means?

[einr]

To answer in kind: yes, do you?

https://da.se/2023/11/totalstopp-for-nya-telsabilar-far-elon...

https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_majeure

"Med force majeure avses vanligen krig, upplopp, brand, naturkatastrofer (som översvämning, orkan, jordbävning), explosioner, strejk, nya lagar som förbjuder fullföljandet av avtalet, och liknande."

I'll assume you read Swedish since you seem to be an expert at the issue. If not, you can plug these into a translator yourself.

[Legogris]

Do you? Strikes are recognized as legitimate force majeure in general.

You know how to find your way for that from Wikipedia, I assume. From PostNord:

https://nitter.net/PostNordSverige/status/172767223321924818...

https://nitter.net/PostNordSverige/status/172773029292270847...

[stcredzero]

Force majeure trumps all obligations.

Making unions a "Force majeure" basically gives them the ability to smite as if they were gods.

European states have recently developed this annoying habit of "protecting" the rights of citizens, but then leaving loopholes that render the protections null and void. By recently, I mean since the early 20th century. The Weimar Republic is the poster child of that.

[tuukkah]

Companies are not citizens.

[3np]

Did you read the reply to your previous duplicate comment before copy-pasting your now moot point in the current top thread?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38438450

[bjornsing]

> 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]

> 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]

I'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.

[thaumasiotes]

> PostNord is a private business owned by Sweden and Denmark.

That would be a public business?

[jltsiren]

PostNord a publicly owned company, but it's an ordinary company by its legal status. The latter is what matters for the legal rights of its employees. Because PostNord is in direct competition with privately owned businesses, it should operate under the same rules as its competitors. It could be seen as an unfair an possibly illegal advantage if its employees were not allowed to strike.

[user_named]

It's not publicly listed. It's private.

[thaumasiotes]

That is not the sense of the word "private" used by jltsiren:

>>> its employees have the same right to strike as any other private sector employees.

A business owned by the state is part of the public sector, not the private sector. This isn't a question of whether shares of its stock are traded on a public exchange. Companies with publicly-listed stock are still private companies in this sense.

[type0]

Why aren't Tesla suing PostNord instead?

[moogly]

Because the right to strike is written in the constitution. Postnord isn't really in the wrong here, but instead it's the Swedish DMV that has a questionable inflexibility of using something else than Postnord. The state is not supposed to partake, intentionally or not, in this "game of chess" between employers and unions.

[mxsjoberg]

they are suing both