Good for Sweden! But OTOH, it's sad to see the international race to the bottom: Tesla will of course not build a factory in Sweden, where the union representation rate is 88%, but in Germany, which theoretically has a very similar collective bargaining model, but where the rate has fallen to 54% (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_agreement_coverage#...).
Well it makes sense to NOT build a factory where the workers are prohibited from painting your cars. If the unions see this as a good thing then it is a win for everyone. Tesla build factories where people will work on their cars and Swedish unions don't have to turn down work that is available in their country.
Sweden has a long history of high quality manufacturing, spawning world renowned companies like Volvo, Astra, SAAB, ABB(ASEA), Bahco, Nobel, etc, etc, etc.
If Tesla doesn’t want to put up an assembly line in Sweden because their management is too stupid and greedy to see the advantage of a unionized workforce, it’s their loss.
Sweden's car production seems to have dropped from 300k/year in the 1970s to less than 200k/year, so it doesn't look great.
Meanwhile Mexico grew their production by 10X in the same time frame [2]
I don't think it answers the question - I bought a Windows laptop because it's more affordable, but I'd rather be driving a Mac, hardware-wise. Does the same concept not apply to you and your car, or others who have chosen a Mexican made car over a Swedish one?
That’s strange, more or less all countries that are wealthy have a unionized workforce.
And by wealthy countries, I don’t mean countries where a select few have all the money and power and the working man is struggling.
I would absolutely prefer to live in a country where my fellow man work for a “non-productive” factory in Sweden, or any other advanced European economy, than in the US.
And quite frankly, if management wants to exploit their workers, they can go fuck themselves.
Because management is obviously always right... Also, all German car manufavturers are unionized, every single one of them. Just to pick one example were it works out rather well with an unionized and collectively bargained workforce.
> where the workers are prohibited from painting your cars
It is not like this is a fact of life which is outside of tesla's control. All they need to do is agree on a collective agreement and their troubles go away.
Their refusal to even negotiate is the source of their problem. "When in Rome, Do as the Romans Do" When in Sweden....
It's not like it is a fact of life that is outside of the unions control either. If they wanted the work, they could let people work on Tesla vehicles. If they don't need the work, then there isn't any reason to do so.
> "When in Rome, Do as the Romans Do" When in Sweden....
But you can also choose where you want to go and that sounds like what Tesla is doing. They aren't forcing Swedish unions to do anything that Swedish unions don't want to do. And Swedish unions aren't making Telsa do something they don't want to do. Sounds like a win win for everyone.
Tesla may go to Germany, but Scandinavia and the Nordic countries are still very good places to create factories. Highly skilled labor is easy to come by, and the top earners make less than their colleagues in the US. These are only a few of the many reasons why it’s very easy to get (filthy) rich in the Nordic countries: https://youtu.be/A9UmdY0E8hU?si=6o3vs2Wu6eNM_h1h&t=738
The Nordic countries must adapt away from this pre-globalization mentality or have all of their assets slowly withered away by more flexible economies. The same exact problem applies to Finland where I'm from.
Euro-area economies are stagnant or shrinking whilst US economy is churning onwards like a madman. They will buy all of our assets away over time unless we start seriously competing.
Sad, but this is the only choice now that we've chosen to participate in the global economy.
Or we could choose to prioritise humans over the meaningless growth figures the US values. When the median income has barely changed or even shrunk overall growth number is irrelevant. In fact it's worse than irrelevant — it means your society is more uneven, which has many second order costs.
What we actually need to do is develop a political and economic language which values things people actually care about.
One thing I care about as a Swedish engineer is interesting work on the forefront of technology. Sadly that’s also been sacrificed in the Nordic model.
I very much agree with the Finish parent that we need to adapt our societies. It’s not just about economic standard of living, it’s about staying relevant.
In fact I would even go further: it’s an ethical question to me. I see the holding back of ambitious, entrepreneurial people in order to preserve “social stability” as increasingly unethical.
> One thing I care about as a Swedish engineer is interesting work on the forefront of technology. Sadly that’s also been sacrificed in the Nordic model.
I am also a Swedish engineer and find that there are plenty of interesting and innovative companies to work for. As a software engineer it has typically been easy to find jobs that offer better compensation packages than what the union requires but I still see a union agreement as a positive thing if the company has it. To me it signals that they care about their employees. I also believe that the strong unions in Sweden have given us the (at least) five weeks of vacation, compared to the two in (the weakly unionized USA) and other quality of life and safety improvements.
> I see the holding back of ambitious, entrepreneurial people in order to preserve “social stability” as increasingly unethical.
This is quite an ignorant view. Social stability is the foundation for society, and society is the foundation for innovation. Who will build what you innovate? Who will buy it? Who will service it? Who will innovate based on your innovation? If you did an honest comparison of the innovative output of socially stable countries with those that are not socially stable you would change your mind.
I think we have different opinions, but also that you are misinterpreting on purpose. The reason I put social stability in quotes is that it’s not the perfect words for what I mean, but it’s meaning should be clear from the context.
What I was referring to was the Nordic cultural focus on a certain kind of “equality”, often referred to as the law of Jante, which is very focused on holding capable independent-minded people back.
> Who will innovate based on your innovation?
This is an excellent question, but I would like to turn it around: Who’s innovation do you innovate on top of? The answer in my case is “Anglo-Saxons”. There is pretty much nothing in my tech stack from the EU. It’s just a black hole. Does that not concern you at all?
"From the EU" is hard to discriminate in our industry these days I think, things are developed all around the world these days.
Then again maybe we have different tech stacks but mine typically includes: Linux (originally from Finland), ARM (from previously EU member UK), C++ (designed by a Dane) and Python (designed by a Dutch). That's the basis at least then there are other stuff as the need comes by.
As for social stability, I didn't intentionally misinterpret you. The kind of monetary equality that we traditionally have had in Sweden is good for social stability (the one without quotes I was talking about). That has changed during the last couple of decades and with increasing differences in income comes the increasing social problems we see.
OTOH I do agree that Jante can definitely be a negative factor when it comes to innovation.
As long my country can continue with its standard of living, I'm not so sure why I should worry why the tech stack is not from my country. It's a global economy and many things are global: the engineers working on said stack are not from the same country, also China, USA or Taiwan wouldn't be there if we wouldn't buy from them. Even Tesla wanted to come to build its factories here, and once the bullish attitude will give way (because it will) I'll have my local stack humming under my rear - built by unions just fine.
This 100%. We had "tax day" (release of tax records from last year) yesterday and the public flogging for entrepreneurs "earning too much" was rampant. This society has very heavily turned anti-achievement in the last few years.
> One thing I care about as a Swedish engineer is interesting work on the forefront of technology. Sadly that’s also been sacrificed in the Nordic model.
youre so high on copium if you think that the economic model has anything to do with that...
if you were a world class talent, you'd be able to get a position for such a job under any economic system. youre just not.
> One thing I care about as a Swedish engineer is interesting work on the forefront of technology.
Do you have concrete examples? I can imagine that if you're working on avionics Sweden might not be the best place, but otherwise it really doesn't seem to be lacking opportunities for a small country.
Sweden is fairly decent for avionics actually. For example we’ve designed and built our own fighter yet (the Gripen), which I’d say is impressive for a small country of 10 million inhabitants.
I’m interested in fundamental challenges around computing: programming languages, cloud platforms, operating systems, combinatorial optimization, database technology, machine learning and the like. Not many bleeding edge opportunities around that here.
We also have a work culture were effort and ability is not rewarded (which at least I associate with strong unions), but “playing politics” is. It’s very hard to stay motivated in a culture like that. I think this is an important part of the downward spiral.
> I’m interested in fundamental challenges around computing: programming languages, cloud platforms, operating systems
Yeah, for programming languages you should probably have been Danish and for operating systems the Finnish have had quite an impact. Both socially stable countries with dare I say pretty strong unions...
I'm dead serious. Btw, I'm also thinking of Anders Hejlsberg and Rasmus Lerdorf. They also live in North America. But that doesn't remove the fact that they were all born and bred in Scandinavia.
I'm guessing that their decision to move west had very little to do with the "stifling" unions and more to do with the increased opportunity for a skilled SWE over there. I would say that that increased opportunity has also very little to do with "stifling" unions and more to do with the huge single market that the US is. That huge single market allows companies to grow fast. The EU works hard to be a single market as well but we have language barriers, bigger legal differences and dare I say bigger cultural differences.
Also talking about Scandinavia, as tiny as it is population-wise, we've had a disproportionately large impact on the world in many different areas. Some factors that contribute to this, I believe, are our free education system and the social safety net that unions have played an important part upholding.
> We also have a work culture were effort and ability is not rewarded (which at least I associate with strong unions), but “playing politics” is.
To me that sounds like your typical large company. I've had a great time working at small startups but I've found that my job satisfaction pretty much scales with the inverse of company size (within limits, it seems 20-30 employees is the sweet-spot for me).
Adding to this, I also found that once a startup reaches a certain point, more "experienced" management starts getting hired (often from bigger companies), and the large company politics gets brought into the startup. Reflecting on it, oftentimes when this happens it is the time for me to start thinking about looking for a new job.
Well in the US there is at least the hypothetical of becoming the next Jeff Dean. In Sweden, not so much. I think it’s disingenuous to pretend there’s not a difference.
What sort of interesting work is not possible in Sweden? I've worked in many tech hubs and am now in Stockholm; Oxford, London, Palo Alto, etc, and haven't noticed anything
My impression is that the more ambitious and intellectually demanding the less of a chance you will see it succeed in Sweden, at least if its software. So sure, if you want to build a consumer app that plays music or lets you talk to friends then Sweden is great. If you want to build OpenAI, then not so much.
> choose to prioritise humans over the meaningless growth figures
Again, then you either need to invent your own currency and stop participating in the global economy or accept that Nordic welfare state will cease and we'll become akin to a soviet block economy in the next 50 yr timespan
I don't know how it makes them feel, but the poorest 20% of US citizens consume more than the average citizen in many European countries, so they're at least spending in a way that should feel that way.
I wonder how rich Elon Musk would be on that scale? "Wow Elon, you have managed to consume goods for $50000! You are off the chart of richness. $50k, what a rich man!"
are we? from what I've seen this is mostly talk, the statistics suggest that while globalization isn't growing as much as it was previously, it's more like it's leveled off rather than actually decreasing.
No, it creates social mobility for everyone. One example is that it’s now respectable to be a computer nerd in many circles the US, because some of the richest and most influential people of this generation are. In Sweden: not so much. Money and power stays were it has always been.
You have a fair share of famous names in tech for a small country... You blew up Ericsson but I believe Spotify, Minecraft, Skype, Candy Crush, Flightradar are all from Sweden?
Unless you're already a millionaire, you should be happy to live in Finland and not in a more "flexible" economy like the US. No public healthcare, guns everywhere, no workers rights... No thanks. I'll take the much lower GDP per capita of my country for a better chance of living a decent life here.
As for a better hypothesis as to why the US economy is so powerful: "The Prize" or "Guns, Germs and Steel".
You didn't read the argument did you. The problem is that the welfare state is becoming impossible to run because there's not enough money in the economy.
You didn't read my comment did you. I gave you pointers with other reasons why the economy may not be thriving, if that's even the true for Finland.
You have many counter-examples of countries doing fine with a welfare state, but instead you cherry pick an example of one of the countries that you consider does "well" without one.
In many ways it’s actually the other way around: If you already are a millionaire then the Nordic countries are wonderful places to live. But if you’re not, but young, talented and ambitious, then the US is the place to be.
Ah, yes: because if you're not "ambitious", aka "driven to become a multi-millionaire, no matter what it costs to get there", then you must be mediocre and lazy.
I’m not saying that there are no upsides with the Nordic model. But like any system, it also has downsides. How you feel about those upsides and downsides largely comes down to personality and (largely political) values.
It’s a way to reach a balance between what employers want and what unions want. What employees want tends to become rather irrelevant, like it is in this Tesla situation for example.
I recently left Sveriges Ingenjörer. I don’t agree that strong unions is only a good thing. I hope Tesla will prevail, or leave Sweden so the union bigwigs (and Swedes in general) get something to think about.
I was a member of a huge union for a long time and they don't do anything if you're fired or laid off. Because you aren't in the union anymore. But they loved collecting dues. I wonder where all that money goes? There must be a way to find out.
Indeed you can. All Swedish unions will publish annual reports that include information on what they've done and what the money has been spent on. Here are all the reports for the largest union in Sweden for example: https://www.unionen.se/filer/broschyr/unionens-verksamhetsbe...
> they don't do anything if you're fired or laid off. Because you aren't in the union anymore
That's... not how it works, in decent unions at least. In fact, in many sectors in Europe the unions will come out swinging only when layoffs are on the cards. And union membership is not necessarily tied to a job, often people remain union members as long as they stay in the same sector (some unions even allow non-sector members).
I was correcting your misinformation on Eddie Dempsey. Are you going to honestly claim you weren't attacking Eddie Dempsey, trying to call him out for living in housing he's legally entitled to?
I never denied there isn't a union leader who makes over 6 figures.
Which union leader makes over 6 figures salary and lives in council housing? Even so, why do you care so much?
Sorry. I get a bit passionate defending someone's right to a fair wage and a home.
Not sure if you're British too (OP and I are) but attacking union bosses is a thinly veiled attack on the Labour party, so in a way, it's a comment intended to incite.
You said it was just one union leader that makes 6 figures. I gave you evidence there are 23.
And call me mad, but someone who owns £100k+ should not be living in council houses intended for people of limited means. It's disgusting and parasitic.
Your original claim: " In the UK leaders of the big unions get six figure salaries, but still live in council (public) housing. KERCHING. "
Again, I ask you to give us the name of a single big union boss who earns £100k+ base salary (you can't pay rent with your employer pension contributions) AND who currently lives in a council property.
I'll even be charitable and accept deputy leaders.
Bob Crow was the canonical example. Obviously he's dead of a heart attack, but he showed now signs of moving out before he died.
We'll see what Eddie does after the next time he votes himself a payrise.
You still seem to think that it's OK for someone on ~£70k per year salary to live in housing intended for the most vulnerable, though, which is a strange for position for someone of the left.
> to live in housing intended for the most vulnerable
My understanding of the UK system is pretty limited, but I don't think it works that way.
That is, I thought the UK prioritizes housing assignment for the most vulnerable, but once you are in you are a secure tenant and - baring breaking your tenancy agreement - can stay there for the rest of your life, and even pass that tenancy on to a family member.
There is nothing in the law that say you must leave if you make too much, and I thought Thatcher pushed the idea that council housing should be transferred to the residents, as a way to promote home ownership. Isn't that why the UK has the Right to Buy for council housing?
If council housing were indeed only for the most vulnerable, why promote the idea that if you make enough money you can remove housing stock and force the council to build new housing?
Would you feel better if Dempsey buys out his council housing?
> which is a strange for position for someone of the left.
Why is that strange? I am on the left. Everyone should have access to basic housing as a secure tenant, no matter how much they make, just like everyone should have access to a government funded public library, health care, and education.
£70k/year salary does not sound like all that much to uproot, especially if you are friends with your neighbors, your kids love the local school, your parents live nearby, etc. Social ties are one reason you should not get kicked out of your housing simply because you exceed a certain income threshold.
Council housing rent in the UK is much less that market rents. I agree that it would suit the well paid tenant not to move, and there doesn't seem to be a legal way of making them move out.
However, my point is not that it's illegal, just that it's unethical.
Why do you want a legal way to move them out, even if that breaks their social support network?
Because I don't understand why you think there is any issue with him staying.
If there isn't enough council housing, raise taxes and buy/build more housing. Someone making 70K/year should be in a higher tax bracket so it's not like he's not contributing more to society.
Would you really say it is unethical for a rich man to check out a book from the public library, because he can afford to buy his own books?
There is a finite supply of council housing. It's a zero-sum game - wins and someone else loses. I mean, we can imagine a world where we could expand the supply indefinitely but I don't think that world exists.
In general, I think benefits should largely be means tested.
You are nowhere near the limit of housing possible in the UK, and are nowhere near the zero-sum point.
Your system is set up to encourage people in council housing to make enough money to be able to buy their home. With your zero-sum argument in mind, you must think this unethical as it takes council housing away from the council.
Your system does not appear to be set up with your ethics in mind, so I hope you can understand why it doesn't seem like something others should be bound by.
It's been eminently entertaining reading your responses lol. I used to live in the south and met many Tories who think and foam at the mouth just like you. Man, do not miss it at all.
So it sounds like the action isn't about particulars, at least not at this point.
They are describing the dispute as being about general principles afaict. That Tesla should accept the "swedish labour model" in general. They emphasize that it's an non-disruptive model and good for business.
This stuff is all context(that I don't have. Otherwise it's just a generic "unions or not" debate unrelated to Tesla, Sweden or 2023.
That said... US companies seem at aeas with these sorts of issues in Europe. In china, companies either stay out or bite the bullet and play by Chinese rules.
In Europe, especially around labour issues... American companies seem to always "rebel." It's as if local labour laws just aren't taken into prior account... and companies are caught surprised by the inevitable.
This doesn't really happen outside of Europe, nor for non-labour issues like environmental regs.
It's interesting, I've started seeing job ads in Sweden where you are expected to setup your own company to work for a US-based company with US-style PTO. The salary looks bigger than what is typically offered by Swedish companies but that is because not only do you have to work more, the company you setup will also have to pay the quite steep payroll tax (at ~31%) that most employees are not familiar with (as it's paid by the employer on top of your salary before personal taxes).
The law in Sweden dictates that a company must give its employees at least 5 weeks of vacation of which at least four weeks consecutively some time during June, July and August.
This is really insidious as it looks like you'll be earning a lot (but you won't) and it's hard to sue yourself for only giving yourself two weeks of vacation.
I found it on LinkedIn, specifically targeting Swedish SWE ASFAIR but do you really want to work for $50/hour? That's less than I pay my carpenter and it's what $100000/year boils down to when you have to work 50 weeks/year.
The ad said prominently $100000/year which sounds pretty ok for an SWE salary in Sweden, but then if you read on you realized that you needed to start your own company and your company would be paid $100000/year which is quite a big difference. That's my main objection to these types of ads, if you don't already run your own company, chances are low you are familiar with the payroll tax and other costs that comes from running a company which will eat into what you may initially perceive as a good salary, only to end up working more for less.
In my experience as self-employed, it's not that hard to find Swedish companies that pays at least twice the hourly rate and then you can have much longer vacation and still earn more!
It seems very odd that the government would dictate four consecutive weeks at that time of year. Why do they get to decide when you should work or take the bulk of your holiday?
>It seems very odd that the government would dictate four consecutive weeks
Because summer vacations are part of the culture, and considered important. That rule allows families to take long holidays together, with other families, etc.
I realize that it's a foreign idea... but this is a foreign place.
The government doesn't dictate when you take your vacation. They only dictate that if you want four consecutive weeks of vacation during the summer no company is allowed to deny it. Your employer is however allowed to say that you get your four weeks any time during that period. Most people typically vacation in July so the whole country basically closes down then.
Honestly, I think governments in some places (Sweden certainly) should just formalize these practices and make them easier and more transparent.
Work is getting international. There is value for Swedish workers and the economy here. Companies (even with good faith) can't deal with unlimited jurisdictions directly.
If it's formalized, it can be managed.
For some countries (Eg France) it would probably too hard or conflicting. For sweden... why not?
Some companies absolutely try it for environmental regs, too. I think what you're possibly seeing here is that where a multinational tries labour abuses, the response is typically very messy and public, whereas only the very most extreme _regulatory_ offences will be particularly publicly visible (typically where the company tries to defy the regulator after being caught red-handed). More commonly they'll be told what they need to fix and possibly fined.
Sad the same isn't true in the UK where amazon is happily abusing the spirit (and perhaps also the letter - IANAL, don't sue me) of our already weakened labour laws.
There is nothing illegal about operating without a collective labour agreement in Sweden. For example, I’m born in Sweden and have worked here for 20+ years and I don’t think I’ve ever had an employer with a collective labor agreement. Among tech startups and smaller companies it’s quite rare, and when I’ve worked for larger companies I’ve incorporated and contracted, largely to get away from the negative effects of unions and job security: absurdly low pay.
> Does Tesla have a chance/way of operating in Sweden without collective bargaining?
Sure it does. It just has to survive the “sympathy actions” from many of the other unions. As I understand it many of the actual Tesla employees refuse to go on strike.
Oh now I understand what this is. Swedish have a standard of how fast you work MTM and others have as well. I bet Tesla doesn't want to follow that and want people to work much faster.
So, some average speed of worked might be MTM 90-100, but in Sweden is like 70, because studies show they get injured much less. And if you see videos of workers, they appear to work like in slow motion.
This might be one of things they have dispute about.
This is not very informative at all, the first sentence is a vague statement about “decent and safe working conditions” without any detail or elaboration and the rest is basically an ad for the union complete with a “join today” call to action.
It directly answers the question why this trade union is taking industrial action against tesla. Because tesla refuses to negotiate a collective agreement with its employees. Seems quite informative.
I support unionization, but I still wouldn’t call a single sentence saying “we need a collective agreement” as “informative”. I would expect some details around what exactly is causing the safety issues they claim.
What you’re asking for is in the article. The “single sentence” is actually three paragraphs which explain why this is a concern.
> what exactly is causing the safety issues they claim
This is in the third of those three paragraphs in the article:
> The collective agreements are negotiated on a sector-by-sector basis, and employees are guaranteed the wages and working conditions that are standard across the sector. This allows for companies to operate on a level playing field, while avoiding the risk of any one employer distorting competition in the sector by imposing poor conditions on their employees.
Tesla doesn’t allow the employees to work under the same conditions as dictated by the agreed-upon standards.
Collective agreements / collective bargaining are very common in europe, and their purpose is to establish a baseline of guarantees, compensation and generally workers rights.
Collective agreements are also incredibly common (in my eu country they cover like 98% of the workers).
The main reason for a company to avoid those is because of the intention to offer lower rights, worse pay, and less guarantees (job security / protection from discrimination etc).
These articles from Sweden give those concepts for granted because they usually are taken for granted in most Europe.
> a vague statement about “decent and safe working conditions”
There's nothing vague about it given the context. They mean standard Swedish working conditions, like the deals they have (and everyone else has (literally 90% of workers)) everywhere else. The precise conditions of collective agreements vary somewhat but overall are pretty uniform per sector so everyone here knows what they're talking about. Unfortunately I can't find you an English article for what they're talking about but you can try your hand at translating this one [1] for some introductory information.
You are reading one side of the dispute's statement.
That said, yes, it doesn't sound like their on specific demands, at least currently. They want Tesla to "accept the swedish labour model."
"Decent and safe working conditions" is the union's general raisin d'etre. Their role, general goal, etc. It would be like Tesla saying they want to "profitably manufacture vehicles." Just a general description of what they do... and it's fine if they were to state it while describing their position.
It seems reading comprehension isn't your forte. Here's the very first paragraph of the article you're accusing of not being very informative.
> The main reason for IF Metall to take industrial action at Tesla is to ensure that our members have decent and safe working conditions. Over a long period of time, we have attempted to discuss with Tesla the signing of a collective agreement, yet without success. Now we see no solution other than to take industrial action.
> The main reason for IF Metall to take industrial action at Tesla is to ensure that our members have decent and safe working conditions.
I’m Swedish and have been following this closely. I’ve yet to see anything that indicates either a) that Tesla employees do not have decent and safe working conditions or b) that Tesla employees themselves want a collective agreement with IF Metall. In fact Tesla has stated that their agreement is better for employees than the one the union IF Metall is trying to impose. There are also statements from Tesla mechanics in the press to the same effect, e.g. because they currently get stock options.
To me it’s quite obvious that this is about defending “the Swedish model”, a semi-socialist labour market system where compensation is decided primarily in negotiations between cartels of unions and cartels of large employers. (Individuals can negotiate their own salaries, but in practice only within this reference frame of collective bargaining.)
> There are also statements from Tesla mechanics in the press to the same effect
Scabs :) more seriously: let's say I have 100 employees; I underpay 90 of them, and overpay 10. When the union comes knocking, I roll out the 10 overpaid ones to whinge in the press. I'm not saying this is Tesla's case, just that all declarations (particularly from employers) have to be taken with a big pinch of salt.
That's not to say that unions are always right, some of them are undoubtedly power-hungry organizations more interested in survival than in their core mission (like all institutions). But typically, cries from employers about their agreements being "better" are just because they don't want to be tied to the guarantees that union agreements contain; nobody stops them from paying above what stated in the agreement anyway.
> nobody stops them from paying above what stated in the agreement anyway
That's not the point - the point is they don't want to be strong-armed via collective bargaining. We have a market to enforce market rates; you don't need a union to do that.
You call it strong-arming, I call it negotiating among equals. When unions are involved, the original imbalance of capital owners vs labor becomes more of a level playing field, and the resulting agreements tend to be fairer than they would otherwise be.
Obviously, if you are a capital owner used to leverage your asymmetric power, this sucks. It probably sucks even if you're one of the few workers who happen to be able to be treated almost as peers (typically because of skill scarcity), since the union might concede something you enjoy in exchange for guarantees that you don't (think you) need. But for the workforce as a whole, collective bargaining is typically a net positive. Which is a big part of why Scandinavian countries have some of the highest quality of life scores in the world.
"The market will solve this" only works with an idealized free market.
Labour is the very definition of an un-free market. Employees are looking for the very means to survive, while employers (especially ones like Tesla) are just looking for ways to make themselves even richer than they already are.
A free market, in the sense of "market theory", requires (among several other conditions, very few of which apply here) that what is being negotiated over is a commodity. Neither side can have their very existence at stake, and what's being traded can be swapped with another provider's version of it for no (or very low) cost.
Their existence isn't at stake. It's only at stake if there's only one employer, e.g. in the total opposite of a free market.
Your phrasing, e.g. "even richer than they already are" is really not helping. Anyone can start a business, even a tiny one. They take on risk. They need people to survive this risk. Those people want close to no risk, and a salary and other things. They get those not because of labour unions, but because these two types of people need each other.
There are so many variables, it's fundamentally disingenuous to say "just find another job". Maybe Tesla is the only car factory in town, and your skills are very specific to car manufacturing. Maybe you have a disability that makes it extra-challenging to job-hunt. Maybe you borrowed money to fix your home, and you can't afford to be out of work for a month as you look for another gig. Etc etc.
The word safe here is doing a lot of heavy lifting imo. Not necessarily safe as in physical safety but also contractual safety.
An example is pension where companies not under collective agreement tend to not specify pension in contract rather just a blurb about "pension is to be compensated based on the currently applicable company policy". Basically allowing them to do whatever bait and switch they want later. Even if the benefits are good now there's no guarantee that they will stay that way. That's what a collective agreement is supposed to protect, that you can't go below that standard.
> I’ve yet to see anything that indicates [...] that Tesla employees themselves want a collective agreement with IF Metall.
I, uh, wonder how you arrive to this conclusion considering all the Tesla employees striking for this exact purpose? Admittedly it's not the employees themselves manning the picket lines, but that's for safety reason as bosses at Tesla has threatened to fire people who participate in the strike.
Same in Germany, where the left party and labor union drive a campaign against Tesla Grünheide (just southeast of Berlin) with very nebulous claims such as safe working conditions or wages. Those claims are never backed by hard numbers, just anecdotes about work accidents or in case of wages pure accusations.
The German IG Metall is quite obviously teaming up with the Swedish IF Metall (does anyone else recognize the similarity in their names) to keep their power. It will be interesting to see how this will work out.
> Same in Germany, where the left party and labor union drive a campaign against Tesla Grünheide (just southeast of Berlin) with very nebulous claims such as safe working conditions or wages. Those claims are never backed by hard numbers, just anecdotes about work accidents or in case of wages pure accusations.
This is a very strange claim considering that the German media recently published articles on workplace accidents at Tesla in Grünheide. Some of them are government documents they can't share, but they have published many numbers.
Doesn't this strongly support what the left party and labor union are saying?
There is nothing illegal about operating without a collective labour agreement in Sweden. For example, I’m born in Sweden and have worked here for 20+ years and I don’t think I’ve ever had an employer with a collective labor agreement. Among tech startups and smaller companies it’s quite rare, and when I’ve worked for larger companies I’ve incorporated and contracted, largely to get away from the negative effects of unions and job security: absurdly low pay.
Yes you are absolutely right. In this case it is about Tesla, owned by the richest man in the world. In other cases it has been about a salad bar run by an ordinary small-business owner. The "Swedish model" is that they should all sign collective agreements or else the unions will be very unhappy and you will have a hard time to continue running your business.
No single person owns Tesla. It's a publicly traded company, Elon does not have majority ownership nor control of the board. Anyone can buy shares and take ownership or run for the board.
It's what you get if you try to break a strike by hiring scabs. The unions will try to break you right back. Elon is going to have to hire a lot of scabs if he still wants to do business in Sweden.
And if I'm not mistaken, business for Tesla has been pretty big in Scandinavia. I've heard they've got a significant chunk of the market in Norway. No idea if Sweden is the same, but I think Elon's confrontational approach could really hurt Tesla.
Did you mean to write "failed state" there? That's a rather odd remark when you're talking about one of the most developed and well-organised countries in the world. But that standard, there aren't a lot of successful states out there.
Tesla is (or was) huge in Sweden too. I just checked, and EVs are apparently 64% of the market, with the Model Y by far the best-selling model. I guess that's about to change if Elon keeps this up.
The American far-right have some weird ideas about Sweden. (To some extent the European far-right do, too, but its proximity makes the truly fantastical stuff harder to sustain.)
There are more people in Ohio right now than there are Swedes. The successful administration and/or failed-state-ness of Sweden simply isn’t a very big concern in terms of addressable market.
This is to say nothing about whether or not Tesla has to care about Sweden; just that Sweden is a tiny country with 10.5M people and it probably isn’t make/break for any global enterprise attempting to operate at planet scale (as it seems Tesla is trying to do).
I expect this to continue to expand indefinitely. Tesla's going to end up being driven out of Sweden. Musk would rather (locally) bankrupt it than cave.
In 1947, after a strike wave triggered by postwar inflation, the anti-union Taft–Hartley Act[1] was passed by bipartisan agreement over President Truman’s veto.
You're being downvoted currently, but anti-Communist sentiment was absolutely a big factor in the erosion of the power of unions over the course of the Cold War years.
Since the unions cooperate together this way, it looks like they can shut down whatever business they want to, especially since they can decide not to deliver packages and mail. Why should a union accept a company's terms at all? If you're powerful enough to shut down a business, what's stopping you from getting whatever you want, regardless of whether it's reasonable?
The sympathy strikers don't risk losing pay, since they strike against someone other than their employer. Laws and contracts don't seem to be preventing the unions from shutting down Tesla's operation. The need for production doesn't seem to be preventing this either.
you mean, just like companies have it in the US? they also cooperate, to do things like suppress wages or fix prices. what's stopping them from getting whatever they want?
What the unions are doing in Sweden are apparently legal. The US has laws to protect against the things you're talking about, such as the Sherman Act and FTC oversight.
This is not even close to the first time something like this has happened. In denmark unions collectively crippled mcdonalds operations, with sympathy strikes disallowing deliveries, from dockworkers refusing to unload supplies and equipment, to construction workers refusing to fit out stores, to truckers refusing to deliver supplies and food and beverage workers refusing to work on supply chain items. Mcdonalds workers are now paid $22 an hour in denmark
Similar reason amazon simply doesn't operate here. Many other companies have learned the hard way: you simply don't fight the system, give fair contracts, and things work out okay.
Just treat the system as the system. Locate there if your business model works in that system.
If you plan on a "normal" employment model where workers get fired sometimes, redundancy is part of your MO, etc... don't locate to France.
If you plan on being union free, don't go to Sweden.
Walking in with declaration that "you can either have McDonald's or you can have your union model," that is so immature. I can't think of another aspect of business where this kind of thinking is acceptable.
Imagine doing this with building permits or whatnot.
It would be fairly stupid for a country to retaliate against another country because one of their companies failed to abide by local rules and regs. Not that it hasn't happened before but this isn't how you remain a dominant player in the market, such powder is best kept dry for when it is really needed.
Over Tesla? No way! The US didn't even go nearly as far over the Boeing-Airbus disputes.
Also, the EU countries field, between them and the UK, multiple aircraft carriers, nuclear subs (hunter-killer and ICBM ones), modern militaries (albeit smaller in size than during the cold war) and robust industrial base for basically everything. Surey the US quiting wouldn't be great, but it wpuld be an even worse self inflicted wound than Brexit.
Unless Elon ends up POTUS (after all, in Demolition Man they passed an ammendment to allow Schwarzeneger to be elected, so ehy not?), the US won't do nothing over Tesla whatsoever, now or in the future.
What's NATO got to do with it? Really these are absurd statements. The US is tickled pink that Sweden finally joins NATO and three weeks later they go and drop out of NATO on account of a business dispute?
Sweden exports 3x more to the US than the other way around, and of those $15B in exports it's primarily critical infra like trucks, medicine, and refined petroleum. I don't believe the US would "retaliate" because Musk doesn't want to give his ~130 employees industry-standard packages in Sweden, but if they did A) it's not a huge amount and B) I doubt the US really wants to reduce critical infra to help a trillion dollar company strong-arm a union in another country lol
I'm saying I don't think Sweden would be impacted by losing a tiny bit of its GDP in exports in order to protect its work culture, but I also don't believe it'd ever come down to that anyway.
Sweden is part of the EU, and thus cannot be sanctioned without sanvtioning the EU as a whole. And that is something the US cannot afford. In general and paeticularly in light of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
If Tesla doesn't want a Swedish location, they don't have to have one. There's nothing extreme or dysfunctional about Swedish labour norms. It's not France. Even if there were, that's Sweden. Tesla don't have to locate there.
Why are Tesla not prepare for this? It's not like they completely ignore permitting or environmental regs just because they're different from the US.
Tesla live by Chinese rules in Chin. That even includes the major task of making Elon shut the gob.
You want to operate internationally... everywhere is different. Not everywhere is suitable. Choose wisely.
If Tesla eats a major delay because they hadn't anticipated the inevitable... That's on them and it is bad management.
This would be a _baffling_ move by the US, and hasn't happened in previous cases of American companies fucking around and finding out in Scandinavia, even when they were far more iconic American companies like McDonalds.
For practical purposes, the US also cannot just start a trade war with Sweden; they would have to start it with _the EU_. (You'd think people would've learned this from Trump's nonsensical attempts to make trade deals with individual EU countries.)
I don't understand this view. you come to a foreign country to do business. This country has an established set of rules that you have to follow to do business in it.
You arrive and demand something that is not following these local rules, and then get mad because they do not agree? What am I missing?
> The Torslanda Works (or Torslandaverken in Swedish), is one of the largest production facilities of Volvo Cars and is located in Torslanda on the island of Hisingen, about 12 km north west of Gothenburg city centre. The plant marked fifty years of operation on April 24, 2014.[1] under the motto "Increased capacity – for ever-higher quality."
Are we talking about workers here, or about general geopolitics?
Plus everything I've seen about Geely seems to indicate that they're quite hands-off, that's how the group became so successful. I'd be glad to be proven wrong.
The latter. Geely is smart enough to let Swedes do what they do best, Tesla seems to believe that they are going to export the US worker model to the EU. It isn't going to happen.
Specifically, Swedish unions are fighting back, which I have come to understand have a Musketeeresque 'all for one, and one for all' model. (I.e. failure to successfully bargain with one union leads to all unions striking against you)
IMHO, good for them!
The rest of the world gripes about the current ascendancy of corporate combinations over labor... and the Swedish response is to observe that (all labor) is still bigger than (large corporation).
Fair bargains come from negotiations between entities with similar levels of power.
I don't think it's the initial strike that unites all unions against Tesla, but the attempts at breaking the strike by hiring scabs. Escalate the conflict, and the unions unite.
Tesla should back down before it spills over into other territories. They are really in a mismatched fight here and what works in the United States really isn't going to work in Sweden / The Nordics / The rest of Europe.
Being from the US, this kind of union solidarity is really beautiful to watch. We've had our own string of recent wins, which has also been pretty fantastic, but seeing it all go down as if this is standard practice hits different. Like the difference between watching your buddy make a wild-ass, hail-mary basketball shot, and watching Micheal Jordan tomahawk dunk. They're both cool to see and amazing in different ways, but there's something mesmerizing about a well-oiled machine performing optimally with (seemingly) no effort.
From what I understand, solidarity like these are illegal in the US under the Taft–Hartley Act of 1947. (Many other countries as well.) So you aren’t going to see such things at home until there are some pretty drastic changes in federal politics.
The power balance between an employer and employees, especially those in lower-paying jobs, is crucial.
Often, workers in these jobs earn less than they should because that's the going rate in the market. They accept lower wages to make ends meet, since some income is better than none. If they ask for more pay, they risk being replaced. Here's how it happens:
If worker A requests a raise, they are readily replaced by worker B willing to work for the original salary. This pattern repeats with worker C and the cycle continues, mostly benefiting the employer.
The only way to break this cycle and potentially secure higher wages, is if workers A, B, and C work together to collectively negotiate with their employers. If one of them is willing to work for less, the leverage is lost.
It's nowhere near perfect, and unfortunately misused as well. But concentrating power solely with the employer can be far worse, leaving behind a society fuelled by greed, at the expense of a broken social fabric with crippling destitution.
This seems strange that it would be legal for workers in other industries to specifically target a brand.
How can they justify painting some products, but not others as a "work action"? A work action would involve something to do with their terms or state of employment, or actually going on strike and refusing to paint any products.
This looks like a targeted coercion effort against a single brand.
Don't understand how any of this can be possible under the European economic framework. How can their free trade agreement allow this sort of race to the bottom and differential in labor rules and trade union practice? The rules must be written in a heavily anti-union manner.
Power is good until it is actually used. At that point, it loses its power. From that point of view, this may be the beginning of the end for these Swedish unions.
Much the opposite, just this week Klarna had to sign a collective bargaining agreement after unions threatened to strike, quite a first for a big tech company here.
The labour market in Sweden cannot exist without unions, the government does not meddle much in the market, it does not set even a minimum wage, it's all part of negotiations between employers and employees (represented by unions).
Unions are essential for the self-regulation of the labour market between its participants over here.
On the contrary, I think it works as a fantastic recruitment drive for these Swedish unions, the only people that are against are the ones that have a better deal already. But they seem to forget that if those unions wouldn't set a baseline they too would be in a race to the bottom.
> For Målarna, it is a matter of course to stand side by side with our sisters and brothers in IF Metall, and we also see the danger in such a large and established employer challenging the Swedish collective agreement model, which is why we are placing these unprecedented massive notices in the area of agreements.
I'll always support unions, they are the only thing we have against corpos and their infinite abuse.
The workers don't want the union, they have better terms right now. They are not on strike. You may then say, well it's because they are afraid but in Sweden most employees are in a union agreed employment contract and it is very illegal to prevent employees from engaging with an union or go on strike like this.
The issue here is that the union wants in because that is how they make money and now they are becoming less relevant because they care more about themselves and their political power which is extensive in Sweden. They don't really care about the workers here in my experience. They exclude members based on political affiliations and make bad deals.
I hope Tesla do not give up this fight and just continues on because this is shit behavior from shit organisations. I like the idea of unions but in Sweden they have completely forgotten what their purpose is.
Everyone who downvotes, please explain who they are fighting for in this case? The Tesla workers are not on strike, they say openly to journalists that they have never had better terms. The people who actually need to be unionized (young people working in service jobs like restaurants) seldom are and is getting exploited on a daily basis in Sweden since there is no minimum wage.
The unions don’t make any money from forcing a collective bargaining agreement on Tesla. Unions make their money from membership dues, and all workers are free to join, or not to join, a union.
If Tesla can operate in Sweden without having to play the game, that makes the unions worry that other companies may follow suit. That would mean the union would lose power and future members.
They make money from members yes, but no one wants to be a member if they can't utilize their power over companies. That is why they do these kind of stunts.
Please explain who they are fighting for in this case? Not the workers because they aren't even on strike lol.
This comment is written by someone who is butthurt by the unions because he likes sweden democrates(neo nazi party). So yeah take this comment with a big grain of salt.
Yes, 1/5 of Swedes are sympathising with neo-nazis, that's not a secret or anything. It might be that a good portion of this 1/5 doesn't realise they are supporting a neo-nazi party because they are voting for them on the basis of other issues but alas, they still support it.
The unions aren't striking about labour practices in the US, but in Sweden. That's what this is about. Chinese workers will have to form their own unions, I'm afraid.
Once the "Elon is bad emotions" subside and the reality that strong-arm politics does not work in the free world hits this will not have all the shiny new excitement. Did not realize HN commenters were this strong on the bandwagon of emotion.
As a Brit living in Sweden, it is indeed annoying, luckily Swedes tend to speak English better than some Brits. -- but I often find myself opening google translate on my iPhone.
For countries like Germany, where there are people who genuinely do not speak English (and I accidentally have interacted with while being there); it is evidently a greater need to be supported via Apple Translate there.
If anyone has watched "Billions", it seems like Elon Musk is having a typical Billions moment. He's always gotten what he wants with his incredible wealth and thinks anything can be bought out.
But since all this the Union(s) are doing across Sweden and Norway they just have 4 options:
1. Pull out of Sweden
2. Sign the agreement
3. Use non-unionised workers from another country (which could join the union at any time)
4. Hire their workers through a unionised subcontractor.
Musk might be above the US, but he isn't above Sweden, especially not something so core to our values.
Im Swedish, and part of a union. However I've never worked for a Unionised company as it's quite uncommon within the tech sector. And since its a labourers market we're very well taken care of either way. I'm also born and raised in a ICE manufacturing city and know that unions are doing gods work for "replaceable people". A lot of "standard skillsets" within manufacturing are easily replaceable, but that doesn't mean salary should be a race to the bottom. They still provide value by doing their job, and that is what the unions protect.
> Im Swedish, and part of a union. However I've never worked for a Unionised company
I'm Finnish and if Swedish system is anything like ours, there is such thing as unionized/nonunionized company in Sweden. There are only companies that sign the sectorally bargained labor agreement and those who don't. Small companies with few workers don't have to sign anything, they just need to adhere to minimums in sectoral agreement to avoid any conflict.
US has very peculiar system where companies/workplaces must unionize individually to have workers representation. There can be one union per workplace if I understand it correctly.
> But since all this the Union(s) are doing across Sweden and Norway they just have 4 options:
This is a needlessly zero-sum interpretation. It ignores other externalities (e.g. Swedish consumers finding other ways to get their Teslas serviced, the Swedish government stepping in), and ignores the obvious fact that the Union and employer might come to a compromise agreement.
People tend to look at union actions as warfare, but Clausewitz is right here too: strikes are the continuation of salary negotiations by other means. The goal isn't (and can't be) "victory" in some kind of abstract idea, with good guys and bad guys. At the end of the day the two sides will decide on a pay/benefit/market structure that they both are happy with, because if that's not possible there's no reason for negotiating to begin with.
Immovable objects and irresistible forces. I predict Tesla will accept the unions because the knock-on effect through the rest of Europe is something they can't afford.
Unions are strong here which in general is a good thing!
You can't also fire people just for willing to join or create a union!
This is not the U S of A. Were you can get fired for stuff which you have the right to do.
I hope the unions will win soon!
I my self joined the https://www.sverigesingenjorer.se/in-english/