As difficult as it might be to wrap our heads around it, no, there's no forcing, but it's the workers' collective decision as a union to not deliver to Tesla. A union is not some god-given abstract concept, it's a assembly of elected members of the workers which collectively voted to proceed this way. So the only "forcing" you could talk about is Tesla forcing them to accept unacceptable conditions, and even this wouldn't be really "forcing" - as we can see there are two parties negotiating their rights, all within their powers.
As difficult as it is to wrap our heads around. If no one is forcing them not to do it, it is their decision not to. So when they say employees decision it's true.
If you're a member of a union and the union says please don't do X, and you're aligned with the union, then you will be happy to not do X. This isn't a forceful action nor is it the workers decision, it's this greyish thing between the black and white. The members of the union could have a vote and change direction to do X if they wanted, but why would workers defend a company trying to get around a model that's resulted in one of the best working environments in the world?
The union doesn't force anyone, it's a collective action, the workers are the union, they've decided to not deliver to Tesla because Tesla is infringing on the most fundamental labour right in Sweden.
Stop thinking about Nordic unions as a boogeyman, a mafia, or whatever other "oppressive" figure you want to make them out to be, the way unions work here is different than what you are probably used to. It's a cornerstone on how the labour market functions in the Nordics...
>The union doesn't force anyone, it's a collective action, the workers are the union, they've decided to not deliver to Tesla because Tesla is infringing on the most fundamental labour right in Sweden.
That's a strange way of putting it. Is the us federal government notification not "forcing" anyone to pay taxes, or not smoke weed, because the us is a democracy and therefore it's "collective action"?
Can you realistically have a vote to stop paying taxes or to smoke weed?
Because Seko could have a vote to deliver to Tesla if they wanted, but ultimately the Unions are on the employees side so we're okay with their decisions.
> Can you realistically have a vote to stop paying taxes or to smoke weed?
This is inevitably going to turn into a quibble about whether representation and/or the electoral college constitutes "true" democracy, so I'm going to head that off by amending my previous comment to be at the state level (rather than the federal level). There's several states that had ballot measures on tax increases and/or marijuana legalization, and failed, for example:
> In those cases it would be strange to characterize the dissenters as not being "forced" into anything, even if it was a collective decision.
Okay, I see, but then you could also leave your Union for zero cost. You could leave your US citizenship too, I guess, by moving. But my point is I think forcing is far too strong a word for the union meanings here. Why wouldn't you support this if you benefit from the Swedish model?
>Okay, I see, but then you could also leave your Union for zero cost.
Clearly it's not as simple or cheap as "zero cost", otherwise Tesla would have bribed some workers $1000 (or whatever) to defect, rather than hiring a bunch of expensive lawyers.
>But my point is I think forcing is far too strong a word for the union meanings here. Why wouldn't you support this if you benefit from the Swedish model?
Whether you benefit from something is irrelevant to whether it's "forced" or not. I think taxes are a net positive for everyone in society, but I'm under no illusions that everyone's forced to pay it.
If you support taxes (or striking) and the government (or the union) forces you to pay taxes (or strike), you're not being "forced". So far so good. But what if you don't support taxes (or striking)? You might think taxes are a good thing and are necessary for a functioning society, but it's still pretty clear that for someone that doesn't want to pay taxes, they're forced to pay taxes.
Saying something isn't "forced" is the opposite of "overloading the string "forced" with several meanings". Also, in the broader context of this argument, I'm for an more expansive definition of "forced" and replying to someone who thinks whatever the union is doing isn't "forcing" anyone. Therefore I'm actually granting my opponent some leeway. If you think the above circumstance also counts as "forced", that actually supports my claim that whatever the union is doing is "forcing" people.
I'm under the impression that the strikes are being enforced by the union. In other words if you're a union member, and the union voted to strike, you can't unilaterally decide to continue working. Is this not the case?