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> Postal workers even decided not to deliver mail to the electric automaker, including license plates – an action that Musk called "insane". The local court has
by eckesicle 3y ago
> Postal workers even decided not to deliver mail to the electric automaker, including license plates – an action that Musk called "insane". The local court has since put a stop to that action.
This is no longer true. A higher court overturned that decision and the license plates are again blocked from reaching Tesla.
- gottorf 3y agoThat's wild! As a (pseudo-) government agency, it seems like the postal service shouldn't be legally allowed to pick and choose whose mail to deliver and whose to withhold.
- oldpersonintx 3y ago[dead]
- j4yav 3y agoIs it the employees or the agency that decided that?
- toxik 3y agoRight, and they don’t. The workers do.
- jsiepkes 3y agoShould a mail worker be able to decide who gets their mail and who don't? For example as a mail worker should I be able to opt out from delivering mail to politicians whose political statements I find deplorable?
- eddtries 3y agoAbsolutely not! But that isn't what is happening here.
- actionfromafar 3y agoYou wouldn't have the right to do that by Swedish law. You only have the right to strike.
- eddtries 3y ago* and the strike must be lawful, to strike. You couldn’t arbitrarily strike and stop delivering mail to Trump for example.
- Leherenn 3y agoSorry if I am obtuse, but what's the difference between Trump and a specific company? That one is a legal entity? If the plates were to be delivered not to Tesla, but to an individual, then they wouldn't be allowed not to deliver them?
- morelisp 3y agoYou'd have to a) convince a majority of your coworkers, and b) have some associated, relevant labor demand. A strike isn't just "I don't want to do this."
- eddtries 3y agoI probably shouldn't have complicated things by mentioning an individual, I really don't know if that could even be possible. Imagine I said Republican Party. The key thing is that for a strike to be declared it has to be called for by the union, it would be unprecedented to call a strike for political action against a party.
- yreg 3y ago>it would be unprecedented And is there a precedent for what's happening now?
- xorcist 3y agoIt is not a question of what is allowed. The company delivering parcels must fulfill their contracts, but the contracts clearly have stipulations for force majeure. Which a strike is, by the very definition. What is not clear here? Sweden has very few strikes, but this is a textbook example of one. The postal worker's union have called for their members to refuse to carry out a specific work. This is well within their rights to do. The union calls for this as part of a collective action for their fellow workers. The company delivering the parcels could call for their employer's union to lock out the workers on strike. But why would they want to escalate the conflict? They too prefer their collective bargaining agreements respected. And they are clearly not in violation of any of their contracts as this is a legal strike. There are plenty of gray areas within worker's rights, but this is as simple as it could be.
- morelisp 3y ago> For example as a mail worker should I be able to opt out from delivering mail to politicians whose political statements I find deplorable? Ironically, I think this would be illegal in Sweden but might be legal in the US under Title VII exemptions.
- oh_sigh 3y agoCompare and contrast the reception Swedish mail workers are getting for their behavior, versus Kim Davis, who refused to issue an otherwise non-problematic marriage license(which was part of her job).
- morelisp 3y agoEven Davis was ultimately allowed to refuse to issue licenses personally; she just couldn't forbid the deputy clerks from doing it (only one of whom, her son, also refused). She also had an elected position with an oath of office, not an employment contract.
- oh_sigh 3y agoActually, the judge ordered that the deputy clerks must issue the marriage licenses(save for her son), unless they wanted to be held in contempt of court. I'm not sure how the path matters much. It contains language along the lines of "I will faithfully execute, to the best of my ability, the office of...." I'm imagining having religious qualms about certain behaviors would fall under "best of my abilities"
- yreg 3y agoI find it insane that the workers of the state-owned postal office can decide what mail to deliver based on their personal views. What's next, the mass transit drivers refusing to stop near Tesla's offices? Court workers refusing to accept Tesla's lawsuits? Firemen refusing to put out fire on Tesla's properties?
- actionfromafar 3y agoThey can't decide based on personal views. That is illegal. It's only legal during a strike.
- tshaddox 3y agoIt’s a strike. How could the workers be prohibited from deciding whether to strike?
- dragonwriter 3y agoProhibited is easy. Just pass a law making it illegal for workers in that agency to strike, or to advocate, promote, discuss, etc., potential strikes (that may conflict with existing law, be politically difficult, etc., but the mechanism is clear.) Prevented, though, is harder. Prohibitions aren't always effective prevention.
- VoxPelli 3y agoThere are no agency workers who are participating in any strikes? Unlike the US we have a privatized postal service and the old postal service is now merged with the danish postal service and co-owned between the Swedish and Danish states and competing on an open market with other postal services. Not everyone has state postal services like in the US
- robertlagrant 3y agoAre they on strike? I thought they were just refusing to provide services to single customer.
- vanderZwan 3y agoI'm guessing that in this case enforcing that would break the right of government employees to strike.
- Hikikomori 3y agoThey're not allowed to pick and choose themselves. Why and when you can strike and sympathy strike is clearly defined, if you take action outside this framework it would be an illegal strike. And just to add, the postal service in question is private and works like a private company, though the states of Sweden and Denmark fully owns it. Employees are not state employees.
- gottorf 3y ago> the postal service in question is private and works like a private company, though the states of Sweden and Denmark fully owns it. A "private company" that is fully owned by the government is private company in name only; hence my calling it a pseudo-government agency. Especially for a legally-privileged function that is serving postal mail.
- actionfromafar 3y agoThe government isn't meddling in the daily operation of Postnord. They can, via the board, replace the CEO. A blunt tool. The privileged function that is serving mail is clearly defined by law, but the right to strike is also clearly defined in law.
- bayindirh 3y agoDoesn’t matter. Even when you’re fully owned by a government, unionization allows you to do this. This is what unionization is, protects the worker regardless of your employer.
- robertlagrant 3y agoUnionization shouldn't be there to disrupt another company. It should be there so you can bargain against your employer. This seems really inappropriate.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> Unionization shouldn't be there to disrupt another company. It should be there so you can bargain against your employer. That's what Tesla's employees are doing. The point of a sympathetic strike is so that a small country's workforce can stand up to the likes of Tesla. Tesla can always withdraw from the Nordic market if they don't like the rules (which never changed). They don't want to do that because there is something there worth negotiating for.
- dragontamer 3y agoUPS and FedEx are mail delivery companies that are completely unrelated to US Government. I dunno much about Europe but if it's a private company, then rules and services are obviously different.
- riversflow 3y agoUPS and FedEx also arent allowed to touch your mailbox, and don't have their own law enforcement wing.
- VoxPelli 3y agoSwedish postal service is open to any private actor and does not have any law enforcement wing. Lots of companies have access to the mail boxes. I know of at least three companies that deliver to my mailbox + one that delivers marketing materials to it.
- bee_rider 3y agoI’m not sure what exactly the rules are in these foreign countries, but it doesn’t seem unbelievable that the state could end up bound by a contract with the union. In a good country, the state also follows rules and laws and makes contracts, after all. Particularly, as you note, in the case of a pseudo-government agency like Postnord. The only tricky bit, IMO, is the requirement that the plates must be delivered by Postnord. If it is a bit of law, it seems a little unfair that there should be a legal requirement to do business with Postnord. I thought there’d been a story recently about some alternative arrangement where the plates were instead delivered to a dealership or something, and the people could pick them up… I wonder if that changed.
- orwin 3y agoPlease, if you want to call it pseudo-something, call it pseudo-state agency. The government own nothing except their personal stuff, hopefully. Its owned by the State. Two of them even. One of them can call for a board meeting and fire the CEO (who does not have any right to force his employees). But it is not owned by the government. Please continue the discussion,i just wanted it out.
- bee_rider 3y agoThat’s fair, I was just sticking to the language used in the comment I responded to. Of course, it is an easy mistake for those of us in the US to make; we tend to use “government” more generally. I guess because we used the name “states” for our province-sized administrative unit thingies.
- orwin 3y agoYeah, it wasn't against you or your take, it was the nth post saying it and it bothered me. I also just wanted to disagree with some on the internet because I'm procrastinating.
- brightball 3y agoAt this point, I honestly just hope the standoff continues because I want to see how many moves each side has. This is really interesting to watch as somebody who isn't affected by it directly. Government workers deciding not to provide services to specific entities or people they are in dispute with is a bridge that I can only assume should have some pretty serious consequences.
- ImPostingOnHN 3y agoThey're almost all private workers exercising their right of association (or lack thereof) with a person who they believe is mistreating or trying to mistreat workers. If a "customer" walks into a store and starts mistreating workers, it's totally reasonable for them to tell the customer to buzz off, and for their employer to support them. What kind of terrible boss or society would force workers to service their abuser? If elmu wants to throw his money around to exploit and abuse workers, he can do it somewhere else. Few others seem to be having this issue, so it seems the root cause is him and his behavior. Whether or not he fixes himself, Sweden did and will do fine without this 1 rich narcissist with oppositional defiant disorder.
- VoxPelli 3y agoIt’s fun to see Americans upset over private workers exercising their rights and the fact that Swedish postal service is a private business, must hurt to realize that the Nordics in many ways has less government overhead than the US :D
- 1970-01-01 3y agoThe sad truth is there is plenty of room for Musk to make things much worse. I imagine he can deny them SpaceX payloads. Starlink was just made available to them as well. He could throttle or deny their uplinks and downlinks.
- fragmede 3y agoEven worse than that, he could make fun of them on Twitter!
- snoopsnopp 3y agoIt’s interesting because free speech has become very expensive speech for Musk.
- redandblack 3y agoI hope Elon gets the license plates delivered by courier, which really cannot be that expensive. Then the unions have to figure out their next steps. Get your popcorn
- actionfromafar 3y agoThat card was attempted to be played and found illegal the first 5 minutes of this interesting tangle between Tesla and unions. :-)
- Probiotic6081 3y ago[flagged]
- waihtis 3y ago> People can and should fight for their rights > Tesla cannot and shouldn't fight for their rights Very logical and balanced position among other issues with your comment
- beaeglebeach 3y agoCapital punishment for people who strike using the post office?
- justinclift 3y agoWonder if the available couriers are all in the same union though? :)
- ReflectedImage 3y agoWell there is only 1 courier available for legal reasons and none of the other couriers would deliver them either. :p
- Moldoteck 3y agoCouriers can do absolutely the same)))
- 3y ago
- ApolloFortyNine 3y agoAllowing the government owned post office to pick and choose who gets mail just seems like a step too far. But even then the court wasn't forcing them to deliver mail, just allowing that mail to be picked up. And now that's blocked? I just don't understand how one entity can have this much power, in this case they essentially are the government they could demand whatever the hell they wanted. Your choice is to leave the country or agree to the demands of the postal service. People hate tesla and Musk right now so they'll by and large support this, but eventually the post office will realize how much power they weild and use it for some other gain. And how is this not similar to the post office choosing not to deliver tax documents, forcing an entity to eventually become delinquent? The government agency responsible for sending license plates only uses the government owned mail provider (makes sense) but that provider can pick and choose who it delivers mail to?
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> don't understand how one entity can have this much power...choice is to leave the country or agree to the demands of the postal service...eventually the post office will realize how much power they weild and use it for some other gain It's fairly constrained. They have leverage because the law gives Postnord a monopoly on delivering license plates. If they abuse that narrow power, it's trivial to take it away without triggering any broader impacts. The fact that this is outside the political Overton window should say something about Tesla's public support.
- belltaco 3y ago> The only reason they have leverage is the law that gives Postnord a monopoly on delivering license plates Is that a law or an exclusive contract between the government and PostNord, given after bidding and a tender process as they call it in Europe and Asian countries? I think it's a contract, and contracts have exclusions in cases of forces majeures like strikes. Since the Transport Agency is required by law to provide plates for properly registered cars, I would think they would be required to let Tesla pick them up, or use a different carrier for Tesla plates.
- belltaco 3y agoPostNord is experiencing a force majeure under Swedish law, i.e a strike. I would think that the govt Transport Agency's exclusive contract with them provides an out with them in cases of force majeure to use alternate means, like allowing Tesla to pick up the plates from the factory or use a different carrier to deliver plates, since plates are mandated by the state and the Transport Agency is required to provide them by law. Also it's one thing to refuse pickup, but PostNord employees are picking up the plates from the factory and then storing them at PostNord. The plates are definitely not the property of PostNord, they are either the property of the state Transport Agency, Tesla or the car owners. Accepting the package and then holding someone else's property seems a bit strange, especially given that these are not even Tesla's striking employees. I wonder how strong property laws are in Sweden.
- martin8412 3y agoThe factory is privately owned, and the workers there can just strike. Tesla isn't getting anything regardless.
- eggy 3y agoWow, Scandinavia - Big Brother's Man Cave! No substantial bad factory conditions or request for higher pay, "just agree to collective bargaining agreements, that's all." I was a welder back in NY in 1997, and joined a company and I was told by the Union's lackey that joining the union was voluntary. At the end of my three months, the thug came looking for dues. He clarified, "it's voluntary, you can take another job." Since then, the taste of a mobster mentality has steered me away from unions for the rest of my life. They once served a purpose, but my opinion is they have become less important and do not really do what they advertise. The Swedish Trade Unions are dropping due to the ratio of native workers vs. immigrant workers, so it is a matter of time before the homogeneity of the population goes down, and trade unions with it. They're partially isolated from the EU, but too dependent to not suffer the coming collapse of the EU economies. Musk could just say FU to them too. With over 125,000 global employees, and a lot of countries subsidizing EVs to hide their real costs, the 170 Swedish laborers would quickly be out of a lot of work, and Sweden can buy other EVs and deal with them. The Tesla is most popular in Sweden, then Norway, and finally Denmark. The people who have already bought them would know who was responsible for them not being able to get their Tesla's fixed - not Elon, but their own government and unions. See how many other businesses get cold feet doing business in Scandinavia from this. Maybe we'll see graveyards of Teslas in Scandinavia like we do of EVs due to failed startups in China. No win for anyone.
- pkulak 3y ago> do not really do what they advertise. Now there's a hot take in light of the largest worker gains in decades, entirely because of unions, just in the last couple years.
- kwere 3y agoUnions are too adversarial in relation with business owners/managers for a Pareto efficency in most of modern economies. What they do mostly is forcing a price on labour due to their cartel like strenght, when they are not sitting on their asses.