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I'm coming from a US perspective and trying to understand what is actually happening https://www.ifmetall.se/aktuellt/tesla/ https://www.ifmetall.se/aktuellt/t

I'm coming from a US perspective and trying to understand what is actually happening https://www.ifmetall.se/aktuellt/tesla/ https://www.ifmetall.se/aktuellt/tesla/ Does IF Metall already represent all of Tesla's employees? Does that mean there are no active Tesla services in Sweden during the strike? If union membership is really the way of life in Sweden, is there anything preventing the government from a legislative solution? Just mandate collective agreements?

judge2020 3y ago
> Does IF Metall already represent all of Tesla's employees? Does that mean there are no active Tesla services in Sweden during the strike? From what I understand they initiated action on behalf of Tesla's workers and did not need to represent all or most of those employees to initiate the strike.
- hugginn 3y ago
  Yeah, the whole "voting for union membership" is foreign to Sweden, but in some industries membership is a rule rather than an exception. At some point, when there are enough union members at a company, unions tend to start working towards "collective agreements".
the-smug-one 3y ago
>If union membership is really the way of life in Sweden, is there anything preventing the government from a legislative solution? Just mandate collective agreements? Yes, the unions and the companies. Neither wants that.
actionfromafar 3y ago
The big difference vs the US, is that any union can "join in" on the strike.
simion314 3y ago
>is there anything preventing the government from a legislative solution? Just mandate collective agreements? I am not sure, but it is ironic when the guys complaining about over regulation want to regulate a free market that worked well in those countries for so long. I did not seen that much support for Tesla in Europe communities so the US government would be needed to have any chance to force such regulations.
- bitshiftfaced 3y ago
  Seems to me that the core issue right now is that of Swedish regulation requiring Tesla to follow a license plate procedure, but then not providing any method for Tesla to follow that regulation and obtain the license plates.
  - simion314 3y ago
    That is not the core issue, it is one of the many issues. Tesla cars will not arrive in Sweden, will not be repaired, parts will bot be delivered.
    - bitshiftfaced 3y ago
      Why would that be an issue? Isn't that just the normal cultural expectations surrounding how companies and labor unions handle disputes? What I'm saying is that the license plate issue has to do with a government entity failing to perform its function, something outside the scope of Tesla and the union.
vodou 3y ago
Most of this goes back to the "Saltsjöbaden Agreement", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saltsj%C3%B6baden_Agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saltsj%C3%B6baden_Agreement. To quote myself from the other day: "Basically, the government has left to the industry and unions to agree on a lot of stuff that is decided by law in other countries. E.g. Sweden does not have a minimum wage. This system has led to much fewer costly conflicts and strikes compared to many other countries for almost a century."
- logifail 3y ago
  > has left to the industry and unions to agree on a lot of stuff (From the outside) it seems hard to understand why something should be effectively be mandatory without being officially mandatory. If collective agreements are to be mandatory, the government should just pass a law making them mandatory, then that's done. Hiding behind the claim "it's up to each employer and their employees" to decide is just silly.
  - mattlutze 3y ago
    Counterpoint: if something pretty much works without a law being in place, why write a law? Laws are never perfect, and writing one just for the sake of it both makes complying with the law more complex and opens opportunities for people with money to create legal moats around interpretations and case law precedence.
    - logifail 3y ago
      > Counterpoint: if something pretty much works without a law being in place, why write a law? Well, I'll see that and raise you: If remuneration packages at Tesla (including in Scandinavia) "pretty much works" (in the sense that Tesla are able to attract and retain talent, which they apparently are), why write a collective bargaining agreement?
      - RestlessMind 3y ago
        Because they are working in the short term. Once corporations find a wedge, it's only a matter of time before they exploit it and reduce wages over the long run. I a glad that unions are taking a long view on this matter.
sampo 3y ago
> If union membership is really the way of life in Sweden, is there anything preventing the government from a legislative solution? Nordic countries actually have relatively weak labour laws. What might be handled in legislation in US (e.g. minimum wage), is handled in collective bargaining agreements, that are negotiated between trade unions and employers' associations. And the trade unions and the employers' associations like it this way, that the power is in their hands, and not in legislation. A government that would try to step on their turf, would be asking for a lot of trouble.
- carlosjobim 3y ago
  It's a very sweet deal for the unions and for large employers. The unions make sure to collectively "bargain" each year for extremely low pay raises and even for nominal pay cuts for their members. In exchange the large employers force every employee to sign up for union membership. Sometimes the company itself signs the employee to the union, without any consent from the individual. In exchange the unions get to collect their fees on the salaries of their members, which is used for political influence and funneled to political parties.
  - lawn 3y ago
    > In exchange the large employers force every employee to sign up for union membership. Sometimes the company itself signs the employee to the union, without any consent from the individual. This is not the case in Sweden. Maybe in the US?
    - carlosjobim 3y ago
      I know for a matter of fact that it is the case in Sweden with some employers. They'll sign you up for the union without your consent and without informing you. Then the union in their turn will sign you up with insurance companies and other third parties without consent of information. Just a bill suddenly arriving in your mail that you have to pay.
      - 3y ago
lawn 3y ago
> Does IF Metall already represent all of Tesla's employees? Does that mean there are no active Tesla services in Sweden during the strike? No they do not, and there are workers who work in Tesla services so it's not a complete standstill.
masklinn 3y ago
> If union membership is really the way of life in Sweden, is there anything preventing the government from a legislative solution? Just mandate collective agreements? The entire point of the german / Nordic union model is that by avoiding legislative action they can be more nimble and reactive to changes. Companies and unions don’t want legislation, and the governments are perfectly happy to let them handle things like adults. That however only works when everyone plays ball.
- eddtries 3y ago
  > plays ball Which is the case for 99% of companies. It’s only American ones internationally expanding who don’t realise other economies operate differently that get stung with this.
  - wil421 3y ago
    Why does everyone complain like it is an American issue? It’s an Elon issue, he hates unions and does it very publicly. For decades, Ford and others have factories in Europe and have union members.
    - eddtries 3y ago
      Because the previous examples of companies trying to avoid collective agreements have been American (notably Toys'R'Us and McDonalds)
      - masklinn 3y ago
        Didn't Amazon and Walmart also try it out in Germany?
    - masklinn 3y ago
      > Why does everyone complain like it is an American issue? Because it largely is. > For decades, Ford and others have factories in Europe and have union members. These were handled very differently. For the most part those were independent subsidiaries, under the same brand but playing with their own set of rules. They commonly had different lineups entirely, for instance the Ford Focus was created in cooperation by the british (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_of_Britain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_of_Britain) and German (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Germany) teams of Ford of Europe (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_of_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_of_Europe), and while the Focus was designed as an international car, it is the direct descendent of Ford of Europe's first passenger car the Escort (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Escort_(Europe) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Escort_(Europe)), which itself directly descends from Ford of Britain's Anglia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Anglia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Anglia).
norenh 3y ago
> Does IF Metall already represent all of Tesla's employees? No, but Sweden has mainly unions based on industries (like IF Metall represents workers in industrial and metal-sector, you have Transport that represents workers in transport industry, Unionen of white-collar trade workers, etc). There might even be no workers in the specific union at the specific workplace and they might still go on strike since they are the union you are supposed to negotiate with. There are requirements of negotiation but no requirements of results from that, which is the cause of the current situation at Tesla. Tesla "negotiated" but flatly refused any outcome involving the union so they fulfilled the lawful requirements. Now the Union uses the tools they have in place when the negotiations ends badly so everything is going as expected. >Does that mean there are no active Tesla services in Sweden during the strike? Like I wrote above, Tesla might have all services running if they have workers doing it, but chances are at least some are members of IF Metall. There is also the effect of sympthy strikes from various other unions: https://www.ifmetall.se/aktuellt/tesla/darfor-tvingas-if-metall-att-strejka/sympatiatgarder-fran-andra-fackforbund/ https://www.ifmetall.se/aktuellt/tesla/darfor-tvingas-if-met... This includes transport (loading/unloading in harbors, transport of goods, etc), Electricians (yep, you can guess it, practically everything involving electricity), Builders (maintenance and construction of buildings), service and communication (This is postal workers refusing delivery of post/goods to/from Tesla), etc. The effect goes beyond Teslas services and will extend to all kinds of infrastructure and other parts of society unless Tesla manage to get their own self-sufficient (and probably totally isolated) mini-society without any needs from other parties. So the more Tesla refuses to find a deal, the more the unions can escalate and it will get quite tricky to find laborers who want to deal with you. Other companies might refuse to deal with you with risk having the strike extend to you to if this goes far enough. > If union membership is really the way of life in Sweden, is there anything preventing the government from a legislative solution? It is really complicated, but the main thing preventing government going in with a legislative solution is that no-one (neither the industry or the laborers) wants it. It has been a solution that the union(s) and industry can solve this by themself and as long as they can, the government will stay out of it. This is kind of unique relaxed solution that puts a lot of responsibility on both the industry and the unions to sort things out and has worked well so far. Playing hard-ball like Elon will probably not end well for Tesla in Sweden (possibly Europe) if this continues since the system is kinda built on being mature and able to negotiate. My way or the highway attitudes are not well regarded. >Just mandate collective agreements? But what collective agreement? The system in Sweden is built on negotiation between the involved parties and finding some kind of common and sensible ground. There is really no easy top-down fix for that if one party refuses to play ball. Either the other party need to fight back or the whole system collapses and we risk ending up with government moving in, which neither party wants.

judge2020 3y ago

> Does IF Metall already represent all of Tesla's employees? Does that mean there are no active Tesla services in Sweden during the strike? From what I understand they initiated action on behalf of Tesla's workers and did not need to represent all or most of those employees to initiate the strike.

hugginn 3y ago
Yeah, the whole "voting for union membership" is foreign to Sweden, but in some industries membership is a rule rather than an exception. At some point, when there are enough union members at a company, unions tend to start working towards "collective agreements".

the-smug-one 3y ago

>If union membership is really the way of life in Sweden, is there anything preventing the government from a legislative solution? Just mandate collective agreements? Yes, the unions and the companies. Neither wants that.

actionfromafar 3y ago

The big difference vs the US, is that any union can "join in" on the strike.

simion314 3y ago

>is there anything preventing the government from a legislative solution? Just mandate collective agreements? I am not sure, but it is ironic when the guys complaining about over regulation want to regulate a free market that worked well in those countries for so long. I did not seen that much support for Tesla in Europe communities so the US government would be needed to have any chance to force such regulations.

bitshiftfaced 3y ago
Seems to me that the core issue right now is that of Swedish regulation requiring Tesla to follow a license plate procedure, but then not providing any method for Tesla to follow that regulation and obtain the license plates.
- simion314 3y ago
  That is not the core issue, it is one of the many issues. Tesla cars will not arrive in Sweden, will not be repaired, parts will bot be delivered.
  - bitshiftfaced 3y ago
    Why would that be an issue? Isn't that just the normal cultural expectations surrounding how companies and labor unions handle disputes? What I'm saying is that the license plate issue has to do with a government entity failing to perform its function, something outside the scope of Tesla and the union.

vodou 3y ago

Most of this goes back to the "Saltsjöbaden Agreement", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saltsj%C3%B6baden_Agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saltsj%C3%B6baden_Agreement. To quote myself from the other day: "Basically, the government has left to the industry and unions to agree on a lot of stuff that is decided by law in other countries. E.g. Sweden does not have a minimum wage. This system has led to much fewer costly conflicts and strikes compared to many other countries for almost a century."

logifail 3y ago
> has left to the industry and unions to agree on a lot of stuff (From the outside) it seems hard to understand why something should be effectively be mandatory without being officially mandatory. If collective agreements are to be mandatory, the government should just pass a law making them mandatory, then that's done. Hiding behind the claim "it's up to each employer and their employees" to decide is just silly.
- mattlutze 3y ago
  Counterpoint: if something pretty much works without a law being in place, why write a law? Laws are never perfect, and writing one just for the sake of it both makes complying with the law more complex and opens opportunities for people with money to create legal moats around interpretations and case law precedence.
  - logifail 3y ago
    > Counterpoint: if something pretty much works without a law being in place, why write a law? Well, I'll see that and raise you: If remuneration packages at Tesla (including in Scandinavia) "pretty much works" (in the sense that Tesla are able to attract and retain talent, which they apparently are), why write a collective bargaining agreement?
    - RestlessMind 3y ago
      Because they are working in the short term. Once corporations find a wedge, it's only a matter of time before they exploit it and reduce wages over the long run. I a glad that unions are taking a long view on this matter.

sampo 3y ago

> If union membership is really the way of life in Sweden, is there anything preventing the government from a legislative solution? Nordic countries actually have relatively weak labour laws. What might be handled in legislation in US (e.g. minimum wage), is handled in collective bargaining agreements, that are negotiated between trade unions and employers' associations. And the trade unions and the employers' associations like it this way, that the power is in their hands, and not in legislation. A government that would try to step on their turf, would be asking for a lot of trouble.

carlosjobim 3y ago
It's a very sweet deal for the unions and for large employers. The unions make sure to collectively "bargain" each year for extremely low pay raises and even for nominal pay cuts for their members. In exchange the large employers force every employee to sign up for union membership. Sometimes the company itself signs the employee to the union, without any consent from the individual. In exchange the unions get to collect their fees on the salaries of their members, which is used for political influence and funneled to political parties.
- lawn 3y ago
  > In exchange the large employers force every employee to sign up for union membership. Sometimes the company itself signs the employee to the union, without any consent from the individual. This is not the case in Sweden. Maybe in the US?
  - carlosjobim 3y ago
    I know for a matter of fact that it is the case in Sweden with some employers. They'll sign you up for the union without your consent and without informing you. Then the union in their turn will sign you up with insurance companies and other third parties without consent of information. Just a bill suddenly arriving in your mail that you have to pay.
    - 3y ago

lawn 3y ago

> Does IF Metall already represent all of Tesla's employees? Does that mean there are no active Tesla services in Sweden during the strike? No they do not, and there are workers who work in Tesla services so it's not a complete standstill.

masklinn 3y ago

> If union membership is really the way of life in Sweden, is there anything preventing the government from a legislative solution? Just mandate collective agreements? The entire point of the german / Nordic union model is that by avoiding legislative action they can be more nimble and reactive to changes. Companies and unions don’t want legislation, and the governments are perfectly happy to let them handle things like adults. That however only works when everyone plays ball.

eddtries 3y ago
> plays ball Which is the case for 99% of companies. It’s only American ones internationally expanding who don’t realise other economies operate differently that get stung with this.
- wil421 3y ago
  Why does everyone complain like it is an American issue? It’s an Elon issue, he hates unions and does it very publicly. For decades, Ford and others have factories in Europe and have union members.
  - eddtries 3y ago
    Because the previous examples of companies trying to avoid collective agreements have been American (notably Toys'R'Us and McDonalds)
    - masklinn 3y ago
      Didn't Amazon and Walmart also try it out in Germany?
  - masklinn 3y ago
    > Why does everyone complain like it is an American issue? Because it largely is. > For decades, Ford and others have factories in Europe and have union members. These were handled very differently. For the most part those were independent subsidiaries, under the same brand but playing with their own set of rules. They commonly had different lineups entirely, for instance the Ford Focus was created in cooperation by the british (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_of_Britain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_of_Britain) and German (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Germany) teams of Ford of Europe (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_of_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_of_Europe), and while the Focus was designed as an international car, it is the direct descendent of Ford of Europe's first passenger car the Escort (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Escort_(Europe) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Escort_(Europe)), which itself directly descends from Ford of Britain's Anglia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Anglia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Anglia).

norenh 3y ago

> Does IF Metall already represent all of Tesla's employees? No, but Sweden has mainly unions based on industries (like IF Metall represents workers in industrial and metal-sector, you have Transport that represents workers in transport industry, Unionen of white-collar trade workers, etc). There might even be no workers in the specific union at the specific workplace and they might still go on strike since they are the union you are supposed to negotiate with. There are requirements of negotiation but no requirements of results from that, which is the cause of the current situation at Tesla. Tesla "negotiated" but flatly refused any outcome involving the union so they fulfilled the lawful requirements. Now the Union uses the tools they have in place when the negotiations ends badly so everything is going as expected. >Does that mean there are no active Tesla services in Sweden during the strike? Like I wrote above, Tesla might have all services running if they have workers doing it, but chances are at least some are members of IF Metall. There is also the effect of sympthy strikes from various other unions: https://www.ifmetall.se/aktuellt/tesla/darfor-tvingas-if-metall-att-strejka/sympatiatgarder-fran-andra-fackforbund/ https://www.ifmetall.se/aktuellt/tesla/darfor-tvingas-if-met... This includes transport (loading/unloading in harbors, transport of goods, etc), Electricians (yep, you can guess it, practically everything involving electricity), Builders (maintenance and construction of buildings), service and communication (This is postal workers refusing delivery of post/goods to/from Tesla), etc. The effect goes beyond Teslas services and will extend to all kinds of infrastructure and other parts of society unless Tesla manage to get their own self-sufficient (and probably totally isolated) mini-society without any needs from other parties. So the more Tesla refuses to find a deal, the more the unions can escalate and it will get quite tricky to find laborers who want to deal with you. Other companies might refuse to deal with you with risk having the strike extend to you to if this goes far enough. > If union membership is really the way of life in Sweden, is there anything preventing the government from a legislative solution? It is really complicated, but the main thing preventing government going in with a legislative solution is that no-one (neither the industry or the laborers) wants it. It has been a solution that the union(s) and industry can solve this by themself and as long as they can, the government will stay out of it. This is kind of unique relaxed solution that puts a lot of responsibility on both the industry and the unions to sort things out and has worked well so far. Playing hard-ball like Elon will probably not end well for Tesla in Sweden (possibly Europe) if this continues since the system is kinda built on being mature and able to negotiate. My way or the highway attitudes are not well regarded. >Just mandate collective agreements? But what collective agreement? The system in Sweden is built on negotiation between the involved parties and finding some kind of common and sensible ground. There is really no easy top-down fix for that if one party refuses to play ball. Either the other party need to fight back or the whole system collapses and we risk ending up with government moving in, which neither party wants.