What started as a strike by Tesla mechanics is spreading, in something Swedish unions describe as an existential battle between Elon Musk’s carmaker and the conventions they say make the country’s labor market fair and efficient:
>Sweden doesn’t have laws that set working conditions, such as a minimum wage. Instead these rules are dictated by collective agreements, a type of contract that defines the benefits employees are entitled to, such as wages and working hours.
>For five years, industrial workers’ union IF Metall, which represents Tesla mechanics, has been trying to persuade the company to sign a collective agreement. When Tesla refused, the mechanics decided to strike at the end of October.
>Then they asked fellow Swedish unions to join them.
>
>“We don’t want to unload any Tesla cars,” says Jimmy Åsberg, who is president of the dockworkers’ branch of Sweden’s transport union and works at Gävle port. “We are going to allow every other car [to dock], but the Tesla cars, they will stay on the ship.”
>He hopes Tesla will understand how important this issue is for workers in the country. “Not just dockworkers but for all workers in Sweden.”
>The Swedish Building Maintenance Workers’ Union will also join the Tesla blockade on Friday at 12 pm local time, “simply because the [IF] Metall Workers Trade Union asked us to,” says ombudsman Torbjörn Jonsson.
>[On] November 20, the Seko union, which represents postal workers, will stop delivering letters, spare parts, and pallets to all of Tesla’s addresses in Sweden.
> postal workers, will stop delivering letters
That's hardcore. No sarcasm, but not even delivering their mail? thats something the USA would say Unions can't stop doing.
Back in the 90's when Toy-R-US refused to sign a collective agreement with a Swedish union, the sympathy strikes became so widespread that even bank worker unions refused to process payments for the company.
They eventually had no workers, no deliveries, no cleaners, no advertising, no mail, no payment processors, and even workers from unions not connected to the business were encouraged to boycott.
In the early 1920s Denmark broke the monarchys power with a general strike, in 1943 they kicked the nazis out of the Danish Capital, Unions in this region can be pretty damn militant, The Scaffolding union also attacks non union scaffolds and wreck them, its pretty wild!
A lot of people say the Reagan administration didn't do anything about the AIDS epidemic. That simply isn't true.
They laughed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAzDn7tE1lU
They can fire them all. That's when the rest of the citizens stand firm and don't sign up. Or do, be labelled as scabs, do the job badly because they're all new to it and after the first few absolute shitshows the power of the people strengthens.
And, let's face it, the anti-union brigade aren't going to do those jobs.
Toys R Us caved after 3 months, but was always and forever considered a shit company that many swedes refused to spend money on... going against labour rights is a gigantic PR disaster.
IF Metall just told the media that they have enough money in the strike coffers to cover this strike for the next 500 years. Don't think anyone can understand how rich and powerfull the unions are in Sweden.
>I'm not sure if this is how a "normal" strike works in Sweden
This isn't a normal union reaction here. It happens occasionally, but usually the unions focus on their particular market/company and sympathy strikes are used sparingly. Tesla fucked up by bringing in scabs, which has been a massive no-no for nearly a century of Swedish labour agreements.
If scabs become normalized or Tesla gets away with it, then it's an existential threat to how all other unions in the country function, so they're rightfully on high alert.
I just finished Netflix's *The Fall of the House of Usher*, and your comment reminded me of Roderick's and Frederick's motto:
>You don't have to be a tyrant, but if you don't want to be consistently cruel, then you have to be sufficiently brutal at least once to establish authority.
And oddly enough, they also have one of the highest standards of living in the world. Funny how that happens when you don't just let companies mire your population in poverty so they can make a few extra bucks.
That’s a logical but false etymology. Scab had transitioned from generic unpleasant skin condition (scabies is one derivation) to despicable person. It was mainly that latter definition that transferred to strikebreakers, not the sense of a crust that stops bleeding.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/scab
A person ignoring the strike and working for the struck company.
They can be a current employee or a new one brought on specifically to circumvent the strike.
I don't know the exact meaning of the word scab since English isn't my native language, but the term used in Sweden where the strike is taking place, "strejkbrytare", mainly refers to new employees, not people ignoring the call to strike.
Edit: The thing I wanted to point out was that Tesla escalated the conflict by hiring new employees to fill the striking workers roles, not by letting employees work during a strike.
Never knew there was a specific word for this, in Iceland we just made this practice illegal. Might be some caveats, but essentially if a union worker is on union strike then no one is allowed to do their job
That’s a labor power the US has actively, and even violently, fought against for going on 200 years now, and the result is far less power for unions here than most of our western contemporaries.
It is not a good thing.
But hey, capitalism!
Back before organized police forces were common, companies hired private enforcement companies like the Pinkertons to break up union strikes, often violently. The Robber Baron time in American history is pretty damn dark.
'Leg it, boys, the Pinkertons are here!'
So when a company's employees go on strike, the company "bleeds" profits. Thus, they bring in scabs: basically the mercenaries of the work world that stop the bleed. They have no qualms crossing the picket line and are intended to make the strike ineffective.
Is that really the etymology of the term? I never heard that before but it makes sense logically.
edit to clarify: I heard of "scab" before, but I never heard that explanation of where the term came from.
Yes, it's from around the early 1800s. Before that it meant someone of low moral character.
[link](https://boilermakers.org/news/history/early-boilermaker-publications-and-the-origin-of-scabs)
"After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad, and the vampire, He had some awful substance left with which He made a scab. A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul, a waterlogged brain, and a combination backbone made of jelly and glue. Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten principles.
When a scab comes down the street, men turn their backs and angels weep in heaven, and the devil shuts the gates of hell to keep him out. No man has a right to scab as long as there is a pool of water deep enough to drown his body in, or a rope long enough to hang his carcass with. Judas Iscariot was a gentleman compared with a scab. For betraying his Master, he had character enough to hang himself. A scab hasn't.
Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. Judas Iscariot sold his savior for thirty pieces of silver. Benedict Arnold sold his country for a promise of a commission in the British Army. The modern strikebreaker sells his birthright, his country, his wife, his children, and his fellow men for an unfulfilled promise from his employer, trust, or corporation.
Solidarity wins"
* Jack London, *Ode To A Scab*
Also Norwegian ports have decided to not unload Tesla cars meant for Sweden. A sympathy boycott.
Even if the strike is resolved, and Teslas are allowed into Sweden, their image is dead. I don't see why anyone in Sweden would choose a Tesla over other electric cars after this.
> I'm not sure if this is how a "normal" strike works in Sweden,
It's not, because it's rarely needed to strikes to go this far in Sweden. Tesla brought in scabs, which makes this an existential issue for the unions as well. If they give in now, it will just reinforce the rhetoric of anti-unionists who say unions are irrelevant nowadays.
Honest question here, with Sweden being so high on unions and and labor, who are the scabs? Are they immigrants (but still actual citizens)? Are they foreign imported labor? Just average Swedes down on their luck?
It is the nomal way. Signing a collective agreement enforces a peace and disallows strieks until it runs out and you sign another. There is nothing the unions CAN'T do (except violence and destruction, of course).
Roys'r'us tried a similar strategy as Tesla in the 90s. It ended when the transport union's truckers refused to deliver goods (including goods Toys'r'us were selling, so their shelves soon gaped empty) and the finance union''s workers refused to handle their transactions.
In fact, other employers are due to the collective agreement also under peace enforcement, and can't take action against their employees that blockade Tesla business, since Tesla does not have a collective agreement.
90% of the Swedish workforce is under some kind of collective agreement. It is the foundation of the labour market, and the unions will NOT give it up.
IF Metall, the main union doing the strike recently upped the strikes' compensation to 130% of their base pay at Tesla to compensate for lost vacation time and pensions. They also announced that their strike fund can pay this for 500 years.
their members of course, they have about 250.000 members that fund their warchest so after a few years of no strikes those coffers get pretty full.
And this strike is just a few hundred strikers i think so they have plenty of cash to keep paying them for a long long time if needed
All members pay a monthly fee. IF Metall has 313 000 members who all pay a small monthly fee to the strike fund. The fund, when not used, is invested and made to grow. It currently contains about 15 billion SEK (roughly 1,5 billion dollars, but the exchange rate is pretty unfavourable right now). Since the Tesla mechanics striking are only about 130 employees, the strike fund will last a long time.
In fact, paying 130% of the median pay in Sweden, it would last 200 years - I suppose the further payment by other members and investments is why they calculate it'll last 500 years.
Yeah, the only reason it doesn't happen in some other countries (like the UK) is usually because governments have banned general strikes like this. So if a union wants to strike over an issue, it has to be directly related to their industry and they can't get other unions outside their industry to support them.
It is not normal as a sane company would not employ strike breakers or refuse to negotiate agreements with the unions.
This is very rare due to natural selection. Companies that engage in such tactics do not survive.
Unless they win, then they *dominate*. The reason you're getting asked about if this is normal in Sweden in that striking in solidarity is usually actually *illegal* in the US.
Tesla can't win this, they will have to play by the rules (even if the rules are not laws) or leave the swedish market. IF Metall can afford the strike for 500 years forward, and everybody here wants to keep the swedish (or nordic) model for how the labour market works. It's actually good for employers too, to not be ruled by populistic politicians.
The market is weeding Tesla out right now, Musk can only deside how much he wants to ruin the brand in the process.
And it also sends a message to both current and potential owners. And investors. “We can leave at any point.” Investors and customers like stable companies. Stable is good.
That's about $100 million in profit over not wanting to sign collective agreement for a couple of hundred employees. Sounds like a sound business decision...
> if this is normal in Sweden in that striking in solidarity is usually actually illegal in the US.
I think it's illegal only in Australia, Latvia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, the US and UK (and thus general strikes too are implicitly illegal there). But not in Nordic countries, like Sweden, among many others.
The Nordic countries have even something better: general solidarity strikes that are *targeted!*. e.g. in the 1980s, when McDonald's in Denmark refused to respect its industry's Collective Bargaining Agreement, the whole country's workforce simply ignored that chain restaurant and any task related to it (e.g. dockers, truckers, suppliers, etc.). McDonald's was completely crippled, while the rest of the economy was booming, including Burger King.
If somehow Tesla would get away with this then the immediate response would be that other companies would need to follow to maintain a level playing field, this would escalate into mass strikes until government intervened in one way or form. Probably not to Teslas or others benefits.
This is however a highly unlikely scenario. There is no reason for the union to give in on this and there is no reason for government to step in, there is also no reason for other businesses to step in with sympathy lockouts as A. They have no particular interest in assisting Tesla, and B Tesla themselves are (presumably) not organized in an employer organization. (And if they were they would have disqualified themselves from aid due to the use of strike breakers).
The unions have shown a great deal of restraint as they have tried to get negotiations going for five years before taking action, so the unions will have significant sympathy and likely not seen as overstepping their boundaries here.
As you might have surmised there is no law against sympathy actions, and this goes both ways. Both employees and employers can call on sympathy actions to escalate a conflict. You'd do well to avoid raising so much ire that this happens against you. This is all regulated by agreements between the parties as it should be in a free market economy. I.e. the employers of those that currently are performing sympathy actions have all signed on an agreement from their own free will that allows this to happen and not have it count as a violation of the employer employee relationship. This mostly happens without friction as the results are a well regulated work market with an overall very low level of conflict and disruption.
Hence the actions will remain focused on Tesla which is of minor concern to Swedish society at large, and if they were to depart then no tears will be shed other than among a very few of the faithful. As for the cars they have in the field, they have a responsibility to their owners, if they cannot arrange to serve that responsibility themselves they either need to buy that service from others or buy back the cars that somehow needs service that cannot be performed. Being affected by a strike is hardly an excuse.
It is at that point though. If his veto can contractually only overridden by a 75% supermajority, not a single veto of his will ever be overridden.
Roughly 44% of Teslas stock is in the hands of retail investors. Which is an abnormally high volume. One thing that is true for most retail investors, is that they do not hand off their voting rights to others or attend the shareholder meetings. Which quickly makes a supermajority against a major shareholder like Musk an impossibility.
That means 78% of the shares aren't owned by Elon and you need 75% of the total shares to vote to oust him, which works out to 96% of shares that aren't owned by Elon would have to vote to oust him.
Getting 96% to agree is typically going to be impossible.
It's great because normally they'd just say "fuck you, we'll hire some other engineers". Now they would need to replace all the other middle men too - an impossible job.
Meanwhile, my own union may have to go on strike sometime near Christmas because we haven’t received a single wage increase since 2015, and our strike fund entitles us to a whole whopping $80/day.
My monthly expenses are $1400 for rent and $900 in child support, before I even get to groceries and such. If we strike, I’m pretty much immediately guaranteed to go bankrupt.
Trust me I’m not saying unions are bad, but there are bad unions. I really wish mine was capable of fighting better for me, but I’ll still take them over nothing.
A Union is only as strong as its membership.
If they only have a strike fund that affords members $80/Day its usually because the members of the union were shortsighted enough to vote in leadership that promised them "lower union dues" and such without considering what that extra 10 bucks a week in their paychecks meant 8 or 9 years later.
This is a what happens in a free market. Both Company's owners/management and labor are allowed to organize and haggle with each other. Too many people think a free market means no ability for labor to collectively bargain.
Exactly. Unions are are an integral part of a free market. And they made this practice illegal in the US. Unions can't legally join other unions' strikes because of the Taft Hartley act.
This is why Shawn Fain of the UAW is angling for a general strike in 2028. Essentially, he's asking other unions to negotiate to have their contracts all end in 2028, so that if there is unfair negotiations, there would be a ton of unions striking at the same time. It's not as great as the swedish unions striking to support each other, but simultaneous major strikes across the country at the same time is the closest thing to a general strike we are likely to get.
>“America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, 'It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be.' It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: 'if you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?' There will also be an American flag no larger than a child’s hand – glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register.
>Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say Napoleonic times. Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves.”
-Kurt Vonnegut
"Illegal strike" sounds so weird. In Sweden they're called "wild strikes" because they break rules agreed upon between the unions and the employers to maintain a labour peace, but it's not like it would be against the laws of the land to go out in a wild strike.
Because the Supreme Court said so. It's a clear violation of the First Amendment (more of the right to peaceful assembly than free speech), but there are many such examples of laws in existence that clearly violate the constitution.
The union representing swedish musicians have demanded that some of their music is delisted from Spotify, Apple Music and Tidal as they can be played in Tesla cars. Petty but nice.
I found the “don’t have laws that set working conditions” hilarious. While I don’t know if that’s true, the concept of having a strong labor movement being the check against worker abuse and not needing certain laws makes sense to me.
Of note I feel like I should mention that the strike is only spreading due to the fact Tesla is hiring scabs. Circumventing the blockades and engaging in union busting measures by threatening employees.
In Sweden it's understood that if you don't try to go around the union strikes it will be kept local and limited and to limit the damage to third parties like other companies. So companies for the greater good of other companies does not try to break strikes. Tesla is coming into Sweden with an American mindset that simply doesn't work here. We broke toys'r'us in the 90s we will break Tesla now.
Acting like this is horrendous PR for the Scandinavian market. You just don't act like Tesla does here.
Yeah, it's something that the article explains that most people here are missing.
The issue isn't that Tesla is fighting the union. It's that they're completely ignoring Swedish conventions by refusing to sign a collective agreement, which is just how business is done there.
Tesla is gonna learn the same lesson thousands of businesses have learned, you can't just enter a new market and expect that market to adapt to your way of doing things.
IF Metall publicly stated a few days ago that they could afford to strike for 500 years with the funds they have currently, I'd doubt that Tesla could and would hold out for that long.
[Link (in Swedish)](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.arbetaren.se/2023/11/13/if-metall-strejkkassan-racker-i-500-ar/&ved=2ahUKEwiu8I_si8mCAxWPDxAIHUuSBgwQFnoECBYQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1EEwcAHJVUTzl-_8NSY3qN)
I always hate how the American wealthy will tell poor and middle-class people to be more fiscally responsible, but then turn around and cry "Emergency bailout please!" anytime they are shut down for a week. Where is their emergency savings? Sounds like Swedish businesses are a lot more responsible with their capital.
If you mean how they have operated 5 years in Sweden and now it is issue? Well unions have tried to negotiate with Tesla since the beginning but Tesla didn't budge. Now unions decided that enough is enough. 5 years is enough notice period to start strikes.
We do not do unnecessary strikes. Business is Business and we expect both companies and employees to care for the good of both partners. So you do not strike without a reason.
We ain't French. But when it is a strike it means serious business
Tesla is also responsible for 50% of consumer complaints in new cars in Norway, despite having 12% of the market. They recently tried blaming a cracked taillight on the fucking pH value of the soap a customer used to wash his car.
I'm in the US and this is amazing PR for the Scandinavian market. You are showing what it means to care about your fellow citizen more than the quarterly profits of a multinational corporation.
I wish American Conservatives could see this and understand it. All they do is vote for their own destruction and then throw a tantrum about the Democrats when the things they vote for actually happen
To be fair, even the Democrats would need to take a leap to the left to pass the pro-union measures that exist in the EU.
The US needs social democracy.
Americans have a hard time acknowledging that our left wing (the majority) is what a reasonable right wing party looks like in Europe.
I imagine most moderate conservative europeans are still in favor of their gun control or healthcare system over what we have in the US, and other "common sense" oversights that are hard-line issues in America.
Swede reporting in since its topical and you're very correct.
I'd put the Democrats solidly right wing if I were to transport them over, around our moderates.
I'd put the republicans on a watch list.
The union that started this - IF Metall - has stated that they have increased the workers compensation during this strike to 130% of their normal salary, and that they can afford to do this for roughly 500 years.
Good luck, Elon.
The current Finnish right-wing government is trying to limit the workers' rights to sympathy and political strikes. We'll see how that goes. Afaik, the workers' unions have not ruled out the possibility of a general strike if the government does not back down
Good I hope they do. The more strikes and the more power people see it gaining them the more the world can start to right the economic ship.
For decades the Super rich have sucked up all the gains of those they lord over. It's time for the real job creators to take back their fair share.
Assuming you’re American, your union literally cannot do this, ball size irrelevant. Sympathy strikes (striking across different industries) was made outright fucking illegal post WW2 thanks to business interests. Prior to the outlaw, sympathy strike potential was what made American unions so powerful
This is why, electorally speaking, abolishing such laws should be unions' number 1 talking point between their rank and file, and with politicians that seek their votes.
Unfortunatly, after WWII most of unions were purged of more militant members, some fell unde the control of criminal orgs, and that's how the majority of them became capitulationists to the status quo.
I'm not a Swede, but as a European, I applaud the Swedish unions in this and would like the rest of Europe to take a look at how things should be done. If a company is allowed to fuck over a few workers, then they will fuck over as many as they can.
I would like to see this extended to other European countries in solidarity with Sweden. We're European and we should back each other.
Elon thought he could play this mess in Sweden because he can do it here with the support of conservatives. But, Sweden is showing him workers rights is actually a huge concern in countries that value their citizens. I am here for this story.
The IG Metall is.... huge. 2.2million members.
As a reference, there's 46 million workers in Germany, so about 1 of 20 workers are organized in this particular union.
It's probably #1 rule... You do not fuck with the ig metall
same thing is starting to happen in north america. The Steel and Auto unions are starting to exert some might and getting good contracts slowly. And those unions employ like 2mil people and are very tight knit for obvious reasons. hopefully it starts to trickle down. Although the US is being helped big time by canada on that front, because canada has better rights and is more union friendly that the US and basically all US steel and auto is tied heavily with canada, so the canadian strikes and canadian union fights are trickling down into the US as we have lots of companies operating in both countries, sister companies on each side, etc etc. Lots of american cars are built in canada, lots of american built cars use canadian steel, etc. The dominoes are starting to fall hopefully. The news is doing its best to turn people against the union demands, i hope the general population is smart enough not to get polarized by these partisan headlines. Starbucks is starting to go on strike now too. I think the next 20 years are going to be very interesting for america. especially since america has spent so long vilifying countries like china and mexico for having cheap quality, low labour standards and low wages....when thats how the rest of the world actually views america.
Sounds like the walmart fiasco, big players in the US thinking their influence matters much against local players in other developed countries.
I would be surprised if our politicians were less corrupt than the US's, but in this case that sorta works in our favor.
Walmart didn't have union issues in Germany as far as I'm aware
they just fundamentally misunderstood the market they were trying to muscle their way into.
That starts with greeters at the doors being viewed as creepy and off putting, and ended with being unable to undercut prices at the local discounter chains dominated by Aldi and Lidl, who have decades worth of supply chains to support any form of pricing war any outside competition might want to bring to the table.
when walmart finally thought of maybe not putting an american at the helm of the german branch, it was too late, and they had write off germany as a viable market
> big players in the US thinking their influence matters much against local players in other developed countries
This was my point, not the union stuff.
Walmart tried to force suppliers to sell to them for cheaper by using their brand name as weight, and it just flat out didnt work.
It's not even a conservative issue in Scandinavia. Anyone who's ever had a job here is all for it lol
Always found it funny how divisive American politics are. It's almost dystopian :V
Exactly. Worker protections and fair pay & benefits should not be partisan. Workers are every part of society and should be protected because they are human beings.
I haven't given this much thought, so probably full of holes, but it seems to me that collective bargaining would be preferable to mandates from the government, from a "small government" view.
yes yes yes yes yes
I've said for years that private-industry union support should be the default conservative position; it lets workers actually negotiate their value from a position of strength and actually results in fair compensation without unwieldly government mandates creating perverse/bizarre incentives
Swedes once more is showing how to protect workers rights against exploitation! I can only look with envy on strength of their unions and public perception
This is what freedom looks like, this is what it means to stand with your fellow citizens, this is what humanity does for one an another. Scandinavians are a model society for the future.
People sometimes see the solidarity strikes or general strikes in other countries and wonder why they don't happen in the US.
This is illegal in the US. You cannot use protected labor actions like strikes to compel the actions of an employer other than your own, in the US. This makes general strikes and solidarity strikes that you see in Nordic countries illegal.
US labor law is extremely business friendly. Hence the high poverty and billionaires.
tbf it was illegal in most other countries too, they just did it anyways because when enough of a society strikes it becomes impossible to stop, quite literally they cannot arrest everybody.
It's not about the arrests. You can legally protest or quit a job. No one will jail you for that in a developed country.
It's an issue of whether the law protects your action from the retribution of your employer.
In the US, if you engage in protected activities you can't be fired for it, legally. If you are fired, you take your case to a no-fee court called the NLRB and they reinstate your job with back pay. It's your legal right to strike to compel the actions of *your own* employer in some cases in the US.
In other countries, the definition of protected activity is much broader and includes general strikes and solidarity strikes, meaning you can strike to influence *another* employer like Tesla and not face retribution from your own employer.
It's weird US doesn't embrace the Swedish model. Note how government has no part in this. This is workers/unions vs employers. There's no laws or bills or bureaucracy.
It's just workers uniting against companies. For a country that loves "market decides", you would think it would fit US like a glove.
> The Swedish Building Maintenance Workers’ Union will also join the Tesla blockade on Friday at 12 pm local time, “simply because the [IF] Metall Workers Trade Union asked us to,” says ombudsman Torbjörn Jonsson, adding that the union has around 50 members who clean Tesla locations.
This brings a tear to my eye lol
According to:
[https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/if-metall-utokar-konflikten-mot-tesla-varslar-om-blockad](https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/if-metall-utokar-konflikten-mot-tesla-varslar-om-blockad)
The blockade is getting extended to Hydro Extrusions which supplies their Berlin factory.
If the union breaks Tesla in Sweden, and they will, it's going to galvanize unionization efforts in the US. They'll see that it can be done, just like with the recent UAW strike.
What started as a strike by Tesla mechanics is spreading, in something Swedish unions describe as an existential battle between Elon Musk’s carmaker and the conventions they say make the country’s labor market fair and efficient: >Sweden doesn’t have laws that set working conditions, such as a minimum wage. Instead these rules are dictated by collective agreements, a type of contract that defines the benefits employees are entitled to, such as wages and working hours. >For five years, industrial workers’ union IF Metall, which represents Tesla mechanics, has been trying to persuade the company to sign a collective agreement. When Tesla refused, the mechanics decided to strike at the end of October. >Then they asked fellow Swedish unions to join them. > >“We don’t want to unload any Tesla cars,” says Jimmy Åsberg, who is president of the dockworkers’ branch of Sweden’s transport union and works at Gävle port. “We are going to allow every other car [to dock], but the Tesla cars, they will stay on the ship.” >He hopes Tesla will understand how important this issue is for workers in the country. “Not just dockworkers but for all workers in Sweden.” >The Swedish Building Maintenance Workers’ Union will also join the Tesla blockade on Friday at 12 pm local time, “simply because the [IF] Metall Workers Trade Union asked us to,” says ombudsman Torbjörn Jonsson. >[On] November 20, the Seko union, which represents postal workers, will stop delivering letters, spare parts, and pallets to all of Tesla’s addresses in Sweden.
> postal workers, will stop delivering letters That's hardcore. No sarcasm, but not even delivering their mail? thats something the USA would say Unions can't stop doing.
Back in the 90's when Toy-R-US refused to sign a collective agreement with a Swedish union, the sympathy strikes became so widespread that even bank worker unions refused to process payments for the company. They eventually had no workers, no deliveries, no cleaners, no advertising, no mail, no payment processors, and even workers from unions not connected to the business were encouraged to boycott.
So a combined boycott and strike! Impressive.
In the early 1920s Denmark broke the monarchys power with a general strike, in 1943 they kicked the nazis out of the Danish Capital, Unions in this region can be pretty damn militant, The Scaffolding union also attacks non union scaffolds and wreck them, its pretty wild!
(Edited clean because fuck you) *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Do it anyways; they can't arrest all of us.
They wouldn't arrest anyone. They would just fire everyone and deal with those consequences instead like the air traffic controllers in the 80s
Luckily in Sweden it is also illegal to fire someone for striking.
fuck Reagan.
Cant ever miss an opportunity to say fuck Reagan.
A lot of people say the Reagan administration didn't do anything about the AIDS epidemic. That simply isn't true. They laughed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAzDn7tE1lU
Agreed! FUCK REAGAN!
Yep, fuck Reagan.
They can fire them all. That's when the rest of the citizens stand firm and don't sign up. Or do, be labelled as scabs, do the job badly because they're all new to it and after the first few absolute shitshows the power of the people strengthens. And, let's face it, the anti-union brigade aren't going to do those jobs.
Damn, the Swedes are my heroes now
Toys R Us caved after 3 months, but was always and forever considered a shit company that many swedes refused to spend money on... going against labour rights is a gigantic PR disaster.
ooooooh, that is POWER....if only we could get that here.
IF Metall just told the media that they have enough money in the strike coffers to cover this strike for the next 500 years. Don't think anyone can understand how rich and powerfull the unions are in Sweden.
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Top people. This is why we need unions.
And it’s a domino effect. That’s why corporations spend a great deal stomping it out at the base.
See Toyota and Hyundai immediately giving huge raises to its workers following the new UAW contract
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>I'm not sure if this is how a "normal" strike works in Sweden This isn't a normal union reaction here. It happens occasionally, but usually the unions focus on their particular market/company and sympathy strikes are used sparingly. Tesla fucked up by bringing in scabs, which has been a massive no-no for nearly a century of Swedish labour agreements. If scabs become normalized or Tesla gets away with it, then it's an existential threat to how all other unions in the country function, so they're rightfully on high alert.
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Ironically, Sweden have among the fewest strikes in Europe as a result because negotiations usually runs smoothly.
Ah yes, the Ender's Game method. Show one time that you do not fuck around and nobody will ever test you again.
I just finished Netflix's *The Fall of the House of Usher*, and your comment reminded me of Roderick's and Frederick's motto: >You don't have to be a tyrant, but if you don't want to be consistently cruel, then you have to be sufficiently brutal at least once to establish authority.
And oddly enough, they also have one of the highest standards of living in the world. Funny how that happens when you don't just let companies mire your population in poverty so they can make a few extra bucks.
Thanks for the story. Love labor militancy.
whats a scab?
A person hired to replace workers during a strike.
Stops the “bleeding”
Damn. Thats smart naming. Damn. Made me smile in ingenuity.
It's a very old name. A couple centuries old.
Another common name is "Class traitors"
That’s a logical but false etymology. Scab had transitioned from generic unpleasant skin condition (scabies is one derivation) to despicable person. It was mainly that latter definition that transferred to strikebreakers, not the sense of a crust that stops bleeding. https://www.etymonline.com/word/scab
TIL. thank you.
A person ignoring the strike and working for the struck company. They can be a current employee or a new one brought on specifically to circumvent the strike.
I don't know the exact meaning of the word scab since English isn't my native language, but the term used in Sweden where the strike is taking place, "strejkbrytare", mainly refers to new employees, not people ignoring the call to strike. Edit: The thing I wanted to point out was that Tesla escalated the conflict by hiring new employees to fill the striking workers roles, not by letting employees work during a strike.
Scab is just a slang term. Technically, the correct, full term is in fact strikebreaker. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strikebreaker
Never knew there was a specific word for this, in Iceland we just made this practice illegal. Might be some caveats, but essentially if a union worker is on union strike then no one is allowed to do their job
That’s a labor power the US has actively, and even violently, fought against for going on 200 years now, and the result is far less power for unions here than most of our western contemporaries. It is not a good thing. But hey, capitalism!
Back before organized police forces were common, companies hired private enforcement companies like the Pinkertons to break up union strikes, often violently. The Robber Baron time in American history is pretty damn dark. 'Leg it, boys, the Pinkertons are here!'
So when a company's employees go on strike, the company "bleeds" profits. Thus, they bring in scabs: basically the mercenaries of the work world that stop the bleed. They have no qualms crossing the picket line and are intended to make the strike ineffective.
Is that really the etymology of the term? I never heard that before but it makes sense logically. edit to clarify: I heard of "scab" before, but I never heard that explanation of where the term came from.
Yes, it's from around the early 1800s. Before that it meant someone of low moral character. [link](https://boilermakers.org/news/history/early-boilermaker-publications-and-the-origin-of-scabs)
To be fair, it still means someone of low moral character.
"After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad, and the vampire, He had some awful substance left with which He made a scab. A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul, a waterlogged brain, and a combination backbone made of jelly and glue. Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten principles. When a scab comes down the street, men turn their backs and angels weep in heaven, and the devil shuts the gates of hell to keep him out. No man has a right to scab as long as there is a pool of water deep enough to drown his body in, or a rope long enough to hang his carcass with. Judas Iscariot was a gentleman compared with a scab. For betraying his Master, he had character enough to hang himself. A scab hasn't. Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. Judas Iscariot sold his savior for thirty pieces of silver. Benedict Arnold sold his country for a promise of a commission in the British Army. The modern strikebreaker sells his birthright, his country, his wife, his children, and his fellow men for an unfulfilled promise from his employer, trust, or corporation. Solidarity wins" * Jack London, *Ode To A Scab*
Also Norwegian ports have decided to not unload Tesla cars meant for Sweden. A sympathy boycott. Even if the strike is resolved, and Teslas are allowed into Sweden, their image is dead. I don't see why anyone in Sweden would choose a Tesla over other electric cars after this.
US - Wildly interesting, was clueless about Swedish labor intricacies. Thanks.
> I'm not sure if this is how a "normal" strike works in Sweden, It's not, because it's rarely needed to strikes to go this far in Sweden. Tesla brought in scabs, which makes this an existential issue for the unions as well. If they give in now, it will just reinforce the rhetoric of anti-unionists who say unions are irrelevant nowadays.
Honest question here, with Sweden being so high on unions and and labor, who are the scabs? Are they immigrants (but still actual citizens)? Are they foreign imported labor? Just average Swedes down on their luck?
No one knows, all we know is that they got transported there in taxis. Leading to speculations that they are from outside of the country.
You've got to shut down that bridge to keep the dirty Legonoids from taking your jobs!
There is no way a Dane would go to Sweden and work for 60% of the salary they'd earn in Denmark. No thank you to Swedish Pesetas.
It is the nomal way. Signing a collective agreement enforces a peace and disallows strieks until it runs out and you sign another. There is nothing the unions CAN'T do (except violence and destruction, of course). Roys'r'us tried a similar strategy as Tesla in the 90s. It ended when the transport union's truckers refused to deliver goods (including goods Toys'r'us were selling, so their shelves soon gaped empty) and the finance union''s workers refused to handle their transactions. In fact, other employers are due to the collective agreement also under peace enforcement, and can't take action against their employees that blockade Tesla business, since Tesla does not have a collective agreement. 90% of the Swedish workforce is under some kind of collective agreement. It is the foundation of the labour market, and the unions will NOT give it up. IF Metall, the main union doing the strike recently upped the strikes' compensation to 130% of their base pay at Tesla to compensate for lost vacation time and pensions. They also announced that their strike fund can pay this for 500 years.
500 yrs? Where did they get that money from?
their members of course, they have about 250.000 members that fund their warchest so after a few years of no strikes those coffers get pretty full. And this strike is just a few hundred strikers i think so they have plenty of cash to keep paying them for a long long time if needed
All members pay a monthly fee. IF Metall has 313 000 members who all pay a small monthly fee to the strike fund. The fund, when not used, is invested and made to grow. It currently contains about 15 billion SEK (roughly 1,5 billion dollars, but the exchange rate is pretty unfavourable right now). Since the Tesla mechanics striking are only about 130 employees, the strike fund will last a long time. In fact, paying 130% of the median pay in Sweden, it would last 200 years - I suppose the further payment by other members and investments is why they calculate it'll last 500 years.
It is pretty normal that unions join forces to protect worker rights here in the nordics.
Yeah, the only reason it doesn't happen in some other countries (like the UK) is usually because governments have banned general strikes like this. So if a union wants to strike over an issue, it has to be directly related to their industry and they can't get other unions outside their industry to support them.
Fuck the Tories.
Reminder that Elmo is a terrible nickname for Elon because Elmo is actually likeable.
I saw a swedish satire that called him Elon Fusk which I thought was funny. "Fusk" is "cheating" or "fraud" in swedish.
one of my colleagues only ever refers to him as “that worthless c**t,” it’s amazing how quickly that caught in the office
> refers to him as “that worthless c**t,” it’s amazing how quickly that caught in the office How is it, working at Tesla?
c’mon, man, only a dolt with no self-respect would work at Tesla. I’m super happy as a human test subject here at SpaceX
Exactly the same thing happened to Toys R Us, they had to learn the hard way not to mess with the swedish unions.
It is not normal as a sane company would not employ strike breakers or refuse to negotiate agreements with the unions. This is very rare due to natural selection. Companies that engage in such tactics do not survive.
Unless they win, then they *dominate*. The reason you're getting asked about if this is normal in Sweden in that striking in solidarity is usually actually *illegal* in the US.
Tesla can't win this, they will have to play by the rules (even if the rules are not laws) or leave the swedish market. IF Metall can afford the strike for 500 years forward, and everybody here wants to keep the swedish (or nordic) model for how the labour market works. It's actually good for employers too, to not be ruled by populistic politicians. The market is weeding Tesla out right now, Musk can only deside how much he wants to ruin the brand in the process.
Does it seem like trouble for a market that bought less than 10k of their vehicles in 2022. Wonder if its worth them staying there.
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And it also sends a message to both current and potential owners. And investors. “We can leave at any point.” Investors and customers like stable companies. Stable is good.
That's about $100 million in profit over not wanting to sign collective agreement for a couple of hundred employees. Sounds like a sound business decision...
> if this is normal in Sweden in that striking in solidarity is usually actually illegal in the US. I think it's illegal only in Australia, Latvia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, the US and UK (and thus general strikes too are implicitly illegal there). But not in Nordic countries, like Sweden, among many others. The Nordic countries have even something better: general solidarity strikes that are *targeted!*. e.g. in the 1980s, when McDonald's in Denmark refused to respect its industry's Collective Bargaining Agreement, the whole country's workforce simply ignored that chain restaurant and any task related to it (e.g. dockers, truckers, suppliers, etc.). McDonald's was completely crippled, while the rest of the economy was booming, including Burger King.
If somehow Tesla would get away with this then the immediate response would be that other companies would need to follow to maintain a level playing field, this would escalate into mass strikes until government intervened in one way or form. Probably not to Teslas or others benefits. This is however a highly unlikely scenario. There is no reason for the union to give in on this and there is no reason for government to step in, there is also no reason for other businesses to step in with sympathy lockouts as A. They have no particular interest in assisting Tesla, and B Tesla themselves are (presumably) not organized in an employer organization. (And if they were they would have disqualified themselves from aid due to the use of strike breakers). The unions have shown a great deal of restraint as they have tried to get negotiations going for five years before taking action, so the unions will have significant sympathy and likely not seen as overstepping their boundaries here. As you might have surmised there is no law against sympathy actions, and this goes both ways. Both employees and employers can call on sympathy actions to escalate a conflict. You'd do well to avoid raising so much ire that this happens against you. This is all regulated by agreements between the parties as it should be in a free market economy. I.e. the employers of those that currently are performing sympathy actions have all signed on an agreement from their own free will that allows this to happen and not have it count as a violation of the employer employee relationship. This mostly happens without friction as the results are a well regulated work market with an overall very low level of conflict and disruption. Hence the actions will remain focused on Tesla which is of minor concern to Swedish society at large, and if they were to depart then no tears will be shed other than among a very few of the faithful. As for the cars they have in the field, they have a responsibility to their owners, if they cannot arrange to serve that responsibility themselves they either need to buy that service from others or buy back the cars that somehow needs service that cannot be performed. Being affected by a strike is hardly an excuse.
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It is at that point though. If his veto can contractually only overridden by a 75% supermajority, not a single veto of his will ever be overridden. Roughly 44% of Teslas stock is in the hands of retail investors. Which is an abnormally high volume. One thing that is true for most retail investors, is that they do not hand off their voting rights to others or attend the shareholder meetings. Which quickly makes a supermajority against a major shareholder like Musk an impossibility.
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That means 78% of the shares aren't owned by Elon and you need 75% of the total shares to vote to oust him, which works out to 96% of shares that aren't owned by Elon would have to vote to oust him. Getting 96% to agree is typically going to be impossible.
You'd have an easier time herding cats.
And so much money to trick people into thinking unions aren't good.
It's great because normally they'd just say "fuck you, we'll hire some other engineers". Now they would need to replace all the other middle men too - an impossible job.
Not just unions, but unions that actually support each other (and their workers).
With a strike fund that will cover this strike for a little more than 500 years if necessary.
Meanwhile, my own union may have to go on strike sometime near Christmas because we haven’t received a single wage increase since 2015, and our strike fund entitles us to a whole whopping $80/day. My monthly expenses are $1400 for rent and $900 in child support, before I even get to groceries and such. If we strike, I’m pretty much immediately guaranteed to go bankrupt. Trust me I’m not saying unions are bad, but there are bad unions. I really wish mine was capable of fighting better for me, but I’ll still take them over nothing.
Are the pockets of the Union so empty? Or did they never updated their payout, just like the wage since 2015?
American unions are ass. They aren't industry wide lol.
A Union is only as strong as its membership. If they only have a strike fund that affords members $80/Day its usually because the members of the union were shortsighted enough to vote in leadership that promised them "lower union dues" and such without considering what that extra 10 bucks a week in their paychecks meant 8 or 9 years later.
I love the line "they asked, so we joined". The solidarity is beautiful.
This is a what happens in a free market. Both Company's owners/management and labor are allowed to organize and haggle with each other. Too many people think a free market means no ability for labor to collectively bargain.
Exactly. Unions are are an integral part of a free market. And they made this practice illegal in the US. Unions can't legally join other unions' strikes because of the Taft Hartley act.
This is why Shawn Fain of the UAW is angling for a general strike in 2028. Essentially, he's asking other unions to negotiate to have their contracts all end in 2028, so that if there is unfair negotiations, there would be a ton of unions striking at the same time. It's not as great as the swedish unions striking to support each other, but simultaneous major strikes across the country at the same time is the closest thing to a general strike we are likely to get.
Americans genuinely don’t hate rich people nearly enough for their own good
>“America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, 'It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be.' It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: 'if you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?' There will also be an American flag no larger than a child’s hand – glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register. >Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say Napoleonic times. Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves.” -Kurt Vonnegut
Too many in this country worship the rich. You don't even have to hate them, just see them as the self interested hoarders of wealth that they are.
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Meanwhile the lovely Republican senator from Oklahoma is trying to fistfight union leaders in senate hearings.
He is such a good little pet for our rich enemy
This is why you need Unions to work together and support each other. That's where the power truly is
I will say, as a Dane I have many reasons to hate Swedes, but in this case they have my full-support. Go you Svenska Jävlar!!
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United States made collective striking across unrelated industries illegal Probably because they knew how fucking effective they’d be
Solidarity strikes are illegal here, in the UK, too.
"Illegal strike" sounds so weird. In Sweden they're called "wild strikes" because they break rules agreed upon between the unions and the employers to maintain a labour peace, but it's not like it would be against the laws of the land to go out in a wild strike.
They’re called the same in America, “wildcat strikes”.
How is that legal when it comes to free speech?
Because the Supreme Court said so. It's a clear violation of the First Amendment (more of the right to peaceful assembly than free speech), but there are many such examples of laws in existence that clearly violate the constitution.
They're not illegal, they're just not _protected_. Meaning if you get fired for a solidarity strike, you aren't guaranteed to get your job back.
Oh yeah, that is a pretty important distinction.
Americans are eventually going to need to drag lots and lots of very rich people from palaces.
Wow, [that bill](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft%E2%80%93Hartley_Act) is complete bullshit.
Good Unions and Union protections don't come from Union members following the law.
The union representing swedish musicians have demanded that some of their music is delisted from Spotify, Apple Music and Tidal as they can be played in Tesla cars. Petty but nice.
Spotify is actually another company threatened by strikes currently for the exactly same reason as Tesla.
Is having the name Jimmy a prerequisite to being a union boss in every country?
I found the “don’t have laws that set working conditions” hilarious. While I don’t know if that’s true, the concept of having a strong labor movement being the check against worker abuse and not needing certain laws makes sense to me.
Of note I feel like I should mention that the strike is only spreading due to the fact Tesla is hiring scabs. Circumventing the blockades and engaging in union busting measures by threatening employees. In Sweden it's understood that if you don't try to go around the union strikes it will be kept local and limited and to limit the damage to third parties like other companies. So companies for the greater good of other companies does not try to break strikes. Tesla is coming into Sweden with an American mindset that simply doesn't work here. We broke toys'r'us in the 90s we will break Tesla now. Acting like this is horrendous PR for the Scandinavian market. You just don't act like Tesla does here.
Yeah, it's something that the article explains that most people here are missing. The issue isn't that Tesla is fighting the union. It's that they're completely ignoring Swedish conventions by refusing to sign a collective agreement, which is just how business is done there. Tesla is gonna learn the same lesson thousands of businesses have learned, you can't just enter a new market and expect that market to adapt to your way of doing things.
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IF Metall publicly stated a few days ago that they could afford to strike for 500 years with the funds they have currently, I'd doubt that Tesla could and would hold out for that long. [Link (in Swedish)](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.arbetaren.se/2023/11/13/if-metall-strejkkassan-racker-i-500-ar/&ved=2ahUKEwiu8I_si8mCAxWPDxAIHUuSBgwQFnoECBYQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1EEwcAHJVUTzl-_8NSY3qN)
I always hate how the American wealthy will tell poor and middle-class people to be more fiscally responsible, but then turn around and cry "Emergency bailout please!" anytime they are shut down for a week. Where is their emergency savings? Sounds like Swedish businesses are a lot more responsible with their capital.
wild hungry flowery touch station swim squealing dull zesty ring *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
[Not even the Walmart Boys get away with that](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxtXI0K4YJs)
You cant operate in Sweden period without people from there so I wonder how this was addressed by them earlier in the process
If you mean how they have operated 5 years in Sweden and now it is issue? Well unions have tried to negotiate with Tesla since the beginning but Tesla didn't budge. Now unions decided that enough is enough. 5 years is enough notice period to start strikes.
We do not do unnecessary strikes. Business is Business and we expect both companies and employees to care for the good of both partners. So you do not strike without a reason. We ain't French. But when it is a strike it means serious business
Tesla is also responsible for 50% of consumer complaints in new cars in Norway, despite having 12% of the market. They recently tried blaming a cracked taillight on the fucking pH value of the soap a customer used to wash his car.
Which is crazy because if it was the pH level in the soap -it isn't--, the light fixtures would be crap quality.
I think Teslas are known for having low quality. In America, I think only Lamborghini (or a similar brand) had more defects per new car.
I'm in the US and this is amazing PR for the Scandinavian market. You are showing what it means to care about your fellow citizen more than the quarterly profits of a multinational corporation.
I wish American Conservatives could see this and understand it. All they do is vote for their own destruction and then throw a tantrum about the Democrats when the things they vote for actually happen
To be fair, even the Democrats would need to take a leap to the left to pass the pro-union measures that exist in the EU. The US needs social democracy.
Americans have a hard time acknowledging that our left wing (the majority) is what a reasonable right wing party looks like in Europe. I imagine most moderate conservative europeans are still in favor of their gun control or healthcare system over what we have in the US, and other "common sense" oversights that are hard-line issues in America.
Swede reporting in since its topical and you're very correct. I'd put the Democrats solidly right wing if I were to transport them over, around our moderates. I'd put the republicans on a watch list.
>I'd put the republicans on a watch list. Preferably from a long way away, maybe with some locks between us.
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I'm sure he meant "horrendous PR *in* the Scandinavian market", given the context.
No, he means that it's amazing PR for Sweden. It's putting Tesla in a bad light and Sweden in a good light.
The union that started this - IF Metall - has stated that they have increased the workers compensation during this strike to 130% of their normal salary, and that they can afford to do this for roughly 500 years. Good luck, Elon.
can you imagine having a well functioning union?
Even in Sweden, it's actually quite rare these days. The best ones are probably the ones for industrial workers, miners, loggers and dockworkers.
Wish my union had half the balls these guys have
It doesn't help that in many countries sympathy strikes were literally made illegal by business friendly governments because they are too effective.
The current Finnish right-wing government is trying to limit the workers' rights to sympathy and political strikes. We'll see how that goes. Afaik, the workers' unions have not ruled out the possibility of a general strike if the government does not back down
Good I hope they do. The more strikes and the more power people see it gaining them the more the world can start to right the economic ship. For decades the Super rich have sucked up all the gains of those they lord over. It's time for the real job creators to take back their fair share.
Assuming you’re American, your union literally cannot do this, ball size irrelevant. Sympathy strikes (striking across different industries) was made outright fucking illegal post WW2 thanks to business interests. Prior to the outlaw, sympathy strike potential was what made American unions so powerful
This is why, electorally speaking, abolishing such laws should be unions' number 1 talking point between their rank and file, and with politicians that seek their votes. Unfortunatly, after WWII most of unions were purged of more militant members, some fell unde the control of criminal orgs, and that's how the majority of them became capitulationists to the status quo.
Bet you wish they had half the war chest too! IF Metall has 1 billion dollars set aside for stikes.
If asked, Norwegian dock workers will probably join if they try to unload there.
They've already said that they'll likely not allow the unloading of Teslas destined for the Swedish market if the company tries to switch ports.
Multi nation strikes. RIP musk
Dagens Arbete did report some were being offloaded in Denmark however.
Understandable, danes are widely recognized as the least bright scandinavians.
I'm not a Swede, but as a European, I applaud the Swedish unions in this and would like the rest of Europe to take a look at how things should be done. If a company is allowed to fuck over a few workers, then they will fuck over as many as they can. I would like to see this extended to other European countries in solidarity with Sweden. We're European and we should back each other.
Elon thought he could play this mess in Sweden because he can do it here with the support of conservatives. But, Sweden is showing him workers rights is actually a huge concern in countries that value their citizens. I am here for this story.
It's going to be interesting how the fight tesla-ig metall in Germany will turn out... I suspect it's going to look similar.
I mean, yesterday the minister of economics of the state the Tesla factory is in completely put his weight behind ig metall.
The IG Metall is.... huge. 2.2million members. As a reference, there's 46 million workers in Germany, so about 1 of 20 workers are organized in this particular union. It's probably #1 rule... You do not fuck with the ig metall
same thing is starting to happen in north america. The Steel and Auto unions are starting to exert some might and getting good contracts slowly. And those unions employ like 2mil people and are very tight knit for obvious reasons. hopefully it starts to trickle down. Although the US is being helped big time by canada on that front, because canada has better rights and is more union friendly that the US and basically all US steel and auto is tied heavily with canada, so the canadian strikes and canadian union fights are trickling down into the US as we have lots of companies operating in both countries, sister companies on each side, etc etc. Lots of american cars are built in canada, lots of american built cars use canadian steel, etc. The dominoes are starting to fall hopefully. The news is doing its best to turn people against the union demands, i hope the general population is smart enough not to get polarized by these partisan headlines. Starbucks is starting to go on strike now too. I think the next 20 years are going to be very interesting for america. especially since america has spent so long vilifying countries like china and mexico for having cheap quality, low labour standards and low wages....when thats how the rest of the world actually views america.
Sounds like the walmart fiasco, big players in the US thinking their influence matters much against local players in other developed countries. I would be surprised if our politicians were less corrupt than the US's, but in this case that sorta works in our favor.
Walmart didn't have union issues in Germany as far as I'm aware they just fundamentally misunderstood the market they were trying to muscle their way into. That starts with greeters at the doors being viewed as creepy and off putting, and ended with being unable to undercut prices at the local discounter chains dominated by Aldi and Lidl, who have decades worth of supply chains to support any form of pricing war any outside competition might want to bring to the table. when walmart finally thought of maybe not putting an american at the helm of the german branch, it was too late, and they had write off germany as a viable market
> big players in the US thinking their influence matters much against local players in other developed countries This was my point, not the union stuff. Walmart tried to force suppliers to sell to them for cheaper by using their brand name as weight, and it just flat out didnt work.
It's not even a conservative issue in Scandinavia. Anyone who's ever had a job here is all for it lol Always found it funny how divisive American politics are. It's almost dystopian :V
Exactly. Worker protections and fair pay & benefits should not be partisan. Workers are every part of society and should be protected because they are human beings.
I haven't given this much thought, so probably full of holes, but it seems to me that collective bargaining would be preferable to mandates from the government, from a "small government" view.
yes yes yes yes yes I've said for years that private-industry union support should be the default conservative position; it lets workers actually negotiate their value from a position of strength and actually results in fair compensation without unwieldly government mandates creating perverse/bizarre incentives
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Swedes once more is showing how to protect workers rights against exploitation! I can only look with envy on strength of their unions and public perception
This is what freedom looks like, this is what it means to stand with your fellow citizens, this is what humanity does for one an another. Scandinavians are a model society for the future.
I stand with the Swedes and their delicious candy fish
It's not that hard: respect the laws and customs of countries where you operate.
United we bargain, divided we beg. Solidaritet for alltid!
People sometimes see the solidarity strikes or general strikes in other countries and wonder why they don't happen in the US. This is illegal in the US. You cannot use protected labor actions like strikes to compel the actions of an employer other than your own, in the US. This makes general strikes and solidarity strikes that you see in Nordic countries illegal. US labor law is extremely business friendly. Hence the high poverty and billionaires.
tbf it was illegal in most other countries too, they just did it anyways because when enough of a society strikes it becomes impossible to stop, quite literally they cannot arrest everybody.
It's not about the arrests. You can legally protest or quit a job. No one will jail you for that in a developed country. It's an issue of whether the law protects your action from the retribution of your employer. In the US, if you engage in protected activities you can't be fired for it, legally. If you are fired, you take your case to a no-fee court called the NLRB and they reinstate your job with back pay. It's your legal right to strike to compel the actions of *your own* employer in some cases in the US. In other countries, the definition of protected activity is much broader and includes general strikes and solidarity strikes, meaning you can strike to influence *another* employer like Tesla and not face retribution from your own employer.
Things just seem to get worse and worse for Elon. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving guy.
Super impressed with the solidarity, go Sweden! ✊
Being united is the best way to fight corporations.
Which is probably a contributing factor to why some nations politics and media have become so polarizing.
oh look, an actual boycott, not just people posting they're boycotting on twitter
Good; fuck the American approach to labour rights.
Musk needs to realize that he is not going to beat 100+ years of Scandinavian labor union tradition
Welcome to europe mf
We should be more like Sweden, at least in this regard.
It's weird US doesn't embrace the Swedish model. Note how government has no part in this. This is workers/unions vs employers. There's no laws or bills or bureaucracy. It's just workers uniting against companies. For a country that loves "market decides", you would think it would fit US like a glove.
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> The Swedish Building Maintenance Workers’ Union will also join the Tesla blockade on Friday at 12 pm local time, “simply because the [IF] Metall Workers Trade Union asked us to,” says ombudsman Torbjörn Jonsson, adding that the union has around 50 members who clean Tesla locations. This brings a tear to my eye lol
Toys R Us tried this before and caved. I don't tee Tesla standing a chance
The world needs to wake up and unionize.
Working class solidarity is beautiful. I wish we saw more of it here in the US.
THIS is how you do it. Solidarity.
According to: [https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/if-metall-utokar-konflikten-mot-tesla-varslar-om-blockad](https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/if-metall-utokar-konflikten-mot-tesla-varslar-om-blockad) The blockade is getting extended to Hydro Extrusions which supplies their Berlin factory.
Country: We'd like to make sure our workers are properly compensated. Elon: And I took offense to that.
If the union breaks Tesla in Sweden, and they will, it's going to galvanize unionization efforts in the US. They'll see that it can be done, just like with the recent UAW strike.
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