[HN Gopher] Tesla sues Swedish state agency over number plate bl...
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Tesla sues Swedish state agency over number plate blockage
Author : jruohonen
Score : 51 points
Date : 2023-11-27 11:43 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.thelocal.se)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.thelocal.se)
| jruohonen wrote:
| Interesting that they're suing the state and not the labor union.
| Hikikomori wrote:
| What would they sue the union for?
| jruohonen wrote:
| It seems complicated because there are multiple unions
| involved in the strike. If I've understood correctly, the big
| union (IF Metall) and Tesla have clashed over wage
| bargaining, but now a supporting strike involves also the
| employees working on the number plates.
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| This situation seems to involve the union/unions
| responsible for mail delivery, who refuse to deliver
| packages from Tesla, and by law all plates must be sent via
| mail.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| So the suit relates to the state enforced monopoly on
| license delivery? That I suppose makes more sense, but I
| can also see the argument that the license is an official
| document and hence must be delivered by official mail.
|
| Something vaguely similar is playing out in Texas. Paper
| plates are now illegal, and not without good reason
| (widely forged), but in the context of other laws passed
| at the same time it seems aimed at tesla. Tesla has no
| dealerships, it has been said dealerships don't work well
| with EVs because the lack of maintenance which sustains a
| dealership. In Texas you are required to have a
| dealership to sell cars. Briefly Tesla was going to
| transport the vehicles in TX to the new Mexico border and
| back before delivering them to buyers. Some accomodations
| were made to prevent that, but now the way to get plates
| in the absence of paper ones from the government is...
| Dealerships are allowed to keep plates on trade ins to
| put on new cars as temporary plates.
| LegitShady wrote:
| >but I can also see the argument that the license is an
| official document and hence must be delivered by official
| mail.
|
| There's no legal reason for this to be true, as far as I
| can tell. Official documents get handed out in person all
| the time.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| I agree, this strike maybe just adds inconvenience for
| tesla owners?
| Hikikomori wrote:
| If the supporting strike is legal what would they sue the
| union for?
| nabla9 wrote:
| The sympathy strike is legal. The unions have no obligation to
| ensure number plate delivery.
| jjgreen wrote:
| Not such a good idea to have a Tesla facility in your country
| then.
| kamranjon wrote:
| Or maybe not such a great idea for Tesla to build one if they
| intended to take advantage of workers without repercussions?
| nxm wrote:
| No one takes advantage of them.
| larsnystrom wrote:
| I have zero insight into how Tesla workers are treated here
| in Sweden, but it's important to note that Sweden doesn't
| even have a minimum wage law (it has been directly opposing
| such rules on an EU-level as well) because this should be
| negotiated between workers (unions) and employers. If Tesla
| continues to operate in Sweden without a collective
| agreement this model will break down.
| wendyshu wrote:
| Define "take advantage of"
| rsynnott wrote:
| The only time Musk can stop digging is when it is for an
| imaginary car tunnel.
| fwsgonzo wrote:
| The Swedish Transport Agency says they are only able to ship
| license plates using PostNord according to regulation, so I'm not
| sure how exactly Tesla thought they were going to win this
| lawsuit.
| jesperlang wrote:
| Tesla is trying any means necessary since they know that
| Swedish labour laws are strong: if they do not have a union
| agreement, workers are allowed to strike (indefinitely). This
| vacuum we are now in is probably very costly for Tesla so I at
| this point I think it is an ideological/personal battle..
| kmlx wrote:
| > This vacuum we are now in is probably very costly for Tesla
|
| i would assume the nordic markets are tiny compared to the
| RoW. does anyone here have any data on revenue from those
| markets for tesla?
| Stranger43 wrote:
| Costly in terms of eventually being forced to choose
| between allowing unionization and leaving the nordic market
| entirely.
|
| It's something that just about every other big anti-union
| American company have had to deal with and it's in the past
| always led to the American company basically surrendering
| and allowed unionization usually without any major loss of
| profit/revenue, apart from the money wasted fighting the
| strong and very popular Scandinavian trade unions.
| fsloth wrote:
| Yup, not aware of any US company that would have exited
| nordics because of unions. Nordics are politically very
| integrated societies and large scale actors are all
| perceived to "play on the same side" including unions
| etc. So Tesla is not just taking on the unions, they are
| challenging the entire social contract by proxy.
| matsemann wrote:
| Norway and Sweden are both top 5 countries in sold Teslas.
| iepathos wrote:
| Sure do, https://www.statista.com/outlook/mmo/passenger-
| cars/tesla/sw... sweden is $629m annually for tesla out of
| Tesla's $26b total annual revenue.
| lynx23 wrote:
| If I were Musk, I'd just shut down the whole operation in
| Sweden. It is not like the country is particularily big.
| larsnystrom wrote:
| I believe this is what will happen. The Swedish unions
| can't budge, and Elon won't budge, so there's really no
| other solution to this conflict.
| Stranger43 wrote:
| Elon dont control Tesla the way he does X and have been
| consistently overruled by his the tesla board of
| directors so this will merely be another case of Elon
| loosing face.
| Dah00n wrote:
| Then he will likely have to do so in Denmark and Norway
| too.
| orwin wrote:
| If he does that, he will have to do the same with norway,
| and probably Denmark too.
|
| Also, Tesla will have to open-source his hardware, because
| it will have to respect warranties, and without
| transport/local Tesla shops, the only alternative will be
| conventional car shop, which right now cannot really serve
| Teslas, at least in France.
| renlo wrote:
| > because it will have to respect warranties
|
| How? If they leave how can a fine be levied against them?
| EU?
| orwin wrote:
| Yes, sorry i wasn't clear, but consumer protection laws
| spawns across all EU (i think it's more than that, even
| Switzerland is in that agreement), so if Tesla do not
| respect Swedish warranties, Tesla would be at risk in the
| whole EU.
|
| And Eu is not the US. Some young people might like and
| follow Musk and his venture a lot, but most people just
| do not care about him, and when it comes to consumer
| laws, EU do not joke around. If you have to trust EU to
| agree on one thing, it's consumer protection. More than
| market integrity, for sure (hence what is allowed to
| happen in Ireland: if you do not import consumer grade
| product or food, the irish sea border basically isn't
| enforced). So unless Tesla is far more popular accross EU
| than the Uk, Tesla will have to bend.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _he will have to do the same with norway_
|
| It seems to be gaining regional momentum [1].
|
| [1] https://www.transportarbetaren.se/brett-stod-i-tesla-
| konflik...
| Hikikomori wrote:
| Currently the 5th biggest market for Tesla.
| bjornasm wrote:
| Only the 5th largest country, ans by doing so they might
| shut down their 4th largest country, Norway, as well.
| contrarian1234 wrote:
| Are they on strike though? Are they refusing to come in to
| work and not being paid?
|
| From the blurb it sounds like they're choosing to not deliver
| mail to one particular person/company .. which sounds
| absurd.. I assume postal workers can't on their own decide to
| not deliver mail to people/companies they don't like as long
| as it's framed as a protest
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| I think they probably have the power to not cross a picket
| line, or even a full blown sympathy strike if they want. In
| this case, the union who wants Tesla to accept the sectoral
| contract is striking, so the postal union is refusing to
| cross the picket line by doing business with Tesla.
| contrarian1234 wrote:
| That doesn't make sense. It says they're refusing to
| allow Tesla to pick up the license plates as well. And in
| any case, is a picket line a legally protected entity
| now?
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| Just going by what's been reported, so let me clarify I'm
| totally ignorant of the actual facts of Swedish law. But
| it appears that Tesla can't pick the plates up due to a
| law on the books stating that plates must be sent via
| mail.
|
| I'm using the word "picket line" informally to describe a
| strike / labor action, which I would guess is a legally
| protected and regulated thing in Sweden, as indeed in the
| US.
| bjornasm wrote:
| It doesn't make sense? How so? They are supporting the
| strike by boycotting Tesla.
| papichulo2023 wrote:
| This could be more expensive for Sweden if the US gov decides
| to retaliate (current or next one) or companies watching this
| and considering entering their market or not.
| rsynnott wrote:
| I mean, this is hardly the first time this has happened; US
| and other foreign companies have incurred the wrath of the
| unions in the Nordics before. Why would the US _government_
| retaliate against the Swedish _government_ for a dispute
| between the Swedish unions and a company? What form would
| this retaliation take? Bear in mind that, for practical
| purposes, even if for some reason it wanted to (and again,
| why would it?) the US couldn't really impose trade
| sanctions on Sweden without starting a trade war with the
| Common Market as a whole.
|
| As for other companies entering the market, like, this is a
| thing companies know about the market before going in. This
| isn't something new.
| yterdy wrote:
| _> Why would the US _government_ retaliate against the
| Swedish _government_ for a dispute between the Swedish
| unions and a company?_
|
| If you want to go down a fun rabbit hole, look into
| conspiracy theories about how many things Tesla's (and
| Amazon's and Apple's and Microsoft's and-) stock price is
| propping up.
| Dah00n wrote:
| US officials have done so lots of times. Go to any
| official political meeting between countries and US
| businesses are participating together with state
| officials. Like in US China meetings.
|
| Xi Jinping just met with Tim Cook, Elon Musk, etc.
| Hamuko wrote:
| I feel like this is more performative and/or grasping at
| straws, kinda like the recent X Corp v Media Matters suit.
| toxik wrote:
| Clearly performative IMO. The likely outcome is that the
| 100-odd employees Tesla have in Sweden are transferred to
| some other organization (with a union agreement) and Tesla
| proper just does not do business directly in Sweden.
| belltaco wrote:
| Clearly performative?
|
| The court just ordered the agency to hand over the license
| plates to Tesla within a week.
|
| https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/domstol-teslas-
| registreri...
| toxik wrote:
| First, this will not be decided by the tingsratt, second,
| the context is wider than this single issue. The
| "performative" is why doesn't Tesla just sign a union
| agreement, that is performative.
| HenryBemis wrote:
| On the "what is the legal basis for..." I think Tesla is
| beginning a process to have their hinds (and stock price)
| protected. A businessman will not just raise his hands up in
| the air in despair and say "ok I will not proceed". No,
| he/Tesla is suing as they have every right to and if
| local/top Swedish court says "oops can't do anything" then
| they can easily escalate to a higher court (EU) will solve it
| for them. Meanwhile a higher court can slap Sweden with a
| beautiful fine i.e. "after 1/1/2025 you will be paying EUR1m
| per week until you resolve this.
|
| There are many solutions to this problem, and Swedish post
| office being a sympathetic dick is not (imho) the right way.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Sounds like an extremely optimistic timeline for this suit
| to have gone through the Swedish administrative court, the
| Swedish administrative court of appeal, the Swedish Supreme
| Administrative Court, the EU legal system and have the EU
| legal system impose a penalty payment in 400 days.
|
| If Tesla has to do this, I'm guessing their cars are not
| going to have license plates for quite some time.
| belltaco wrote:
| Wrong. The longer it takes the better for Tesla because
| they just won an interim decision in court.
|
| https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/domstol-teslas-
| registreri...
| tuukkah wrote:
| It's not the post office, it's its employees. Being a dick
| must be culture-dependent as I don't think many Swedes will
| consider someone being a dick for protecting their nation's
| social contract.
| martin8412 wrote:
| The EU doesn't have a say in this matter.
| HenryBemis wrote:
| It will if they go to court, Tesla loses and escalates
| each time. After the supreme court of Sweden you can take
| things to the EU court.
| belltaco wrote:
| The court just ordered the transport agency to hand over the
| license plates to Tesla within a week.
|
| https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/domstol-teslas-
| registreri...
| Dah00n wrote:
| For now. And why do you copy and paste this comment?
| belltaco wrote:
| The court just ordered the agency to hand over the license
| plates to Tesla within a week.
|
| https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/domstol-teslas-registreri...
| defrost wrote:
| From the article linked: "This confiscation of
| license plates constitutes a discriminatory attack without any
| support in law directed at Tesla," the American electric car
| giant wrote in documents submitted to the Norrkoping district
| court on Monday seen by the Dagens industri newspaper.
|
| From the European Public Service Union _The right to strike in
| [..] Sweden_ : Blockades and boycotts are
| widely used by trade unions in sympathy strikes or secondary
| action. Pursuant to the Co-determination Act, any sympathy strike
| undertaken in support of lawful primary collective action is also
| considered lawful.
|
| https://www.epsu.org/sites/default/files/article/files/Swede...
|
| Dockworkers and postal workers in both Sweden and Norway are
| refusing service to Tesla because Tesla has refused to discuss
| collective bargaining for five years.
| kmlx wrote:
| while this comment is true, not sure what it has to do with the
| article.
|
| from my understanding tesla is actually suing the state because
| there's a law saying license plates can only be delivered via
| post. and the postal workers refuse to deliver anything to
| tesla (which seems a bit crazy considering there are laws about
| using the postal services).
|
| but maybe i misunderstood something, so someone can correct me
| if i'm wrong.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The point is that the law explicitly permits the postal union
| to do this. Tesla's suit is probably going nowhere.
| Pungsnigel wrote:
| It's unclear though? There are also laws regarding mail
| services I believe.
| cypress66 wrote:
| Tesla isn't demanding the postal union to ship them the
| plates, they are demanding to be allowed to pick up the
| plates by themselves.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Pick up the plates _from whom_?
|
| They don't just teleport into a stack in the parking lot
| of the post office on their own. A pickup would involve
| _employees_. Who are members of the _union_.
| vasvae3 wrote:
| Whatever the equivalent of the DMV in Sweden is?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I'd presume those plates get from the license plate
| factory to the DMV offices somehow. I'd presume that
| method isn't carrier pigeon.
| Jensson wrote:
| Tesla said they would want to pick it up at the factory.
| The factory is putting them in nice packages to be
| delivered.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The factory says they can't do this.
|
| > According to the Transport Agency, current regulations
| mean it is only able to distribute number plates using
| Postnord.
| Thorrez wrote:
| I think the purpose of this lawsuit is to get that
| regulation changed.
| Hikikomori wrote:
| Then the factory workers might refuse to hand out plates
| to Tesla as they're also part of a union.
| Jensson wrote:
| But they aren't. Also unions can't push these sympathy
| strikes too far, by doing targeted denial of government
| services they are really making it easy for the current
| right wing government in Sweden to add regulations to
| prevent unions from denying government services via
| sympathy strikes in the future. There are already such
| laws for healthcare etc.
| Hikikomori wrote:
| They aren't because the situation doesn't require it yet?
| If the rules/regulations regarding delivery of plates
| changes union action will change to address that. If the
| government does something to curb union power (in a non
| life and death situation) they'll likely lose the next
| election.
| Jensson wrote:
| > If the government does something to curb union power
| (in a non life and death situation) they'll likely lose
| the next election.
|
| No they wont, if they do something like: "Sympathy
| strikes is not a valid reason to refuse to deliver mail"
| nobody who currently votes right will think that is bad.
| Post workers can then still strike for better conditions
| for themselves, but they can't shut down the postal
| system for companies they don't like.
|
| Mail is necessary for many government functions, it isn't
| some optional thing that you can work around.
|
| Edit: Seems like the courts agrees that this is a
| necessary function so they have to give them to Tesla via
| alternate means:
|
| https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/domstol-teslas-
| registreri...
| Hikikomori wrote:
| If they do something they would have to change the law as
| the Swedish system does not use Ministerial governance
| for individual cases like this.
|
| So far only Tesla has been heard in court, Judge ordered
| temporary relief as Tesla argued that their business
| would be hurt short term, it's not a final decision.
| Workers at the factory are also part of a union, so they
| may refuse to hand any plates out.
| belltaco wrote:
| The district court just ordered the Transport Agency to
| hand over the plates to Tesla within a week, Postnord be
| damned.
|
| https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/domstol-teslas-
| registreri...
| ceejayoz wrote:
| As a temporary injunction, yes.
| Jensson wrote:
| The department is still making the plates, it is only the
| postal employees that are refusing to deliver them.
| RandomLensman wrote:
| If that is allowed under the law now, why don't they? If
| is not permitted under current law, not sure how easy it
| is to change law with a suit.
| bjornsing wrote:
| As I understand it: The law is that the government agency
| must make new license plates "available" to Tesla. They
| tried to argue in court that it was sufficient for them
| to put license plates in the mail. But the court sided
| with Tesla, at least in the interim. So it's definitely
| not open-and-shut case for the unions.
| brandonagr2 wrote:
| https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/27/sweden-sides-with-tesla-
| sa...
|
| "Norrkoping district court said the agency must find a way
| to get the plates to Tesla within seven days or pay a fine
| of 1 million Swedish crowns (~$96,000)."
| ceejayoz wrote:
| That's a temporary injunction while things are litigated.
| bjornsing wrote:
| But there are obviously also other laws in Sweden. For (an
| obvious) example, the police union can't decline to
| investigate crimes against Tesla owners.
| piva00 wrote:
| > and the postal workers refuse to deliver anything to tesla
| (which seems a bit crazy considering there are laws about
| using the postal services).
|
| It's not crazy when you understand the Swedish model: labour
| laws are minimal, setting just a very basic framework which
| is then taken to employers + employees negotiations to set
| the other terms of employment for an industry, in that it's a
| pretty free labour market. The counterpoint is that it's
| required that employers and employees collaborate to set the
| minimum arrangements for employment.
|
| Tesla is refusing to abide by this model, in the Swedish
| model sympathy strikes are legal since that's one way that
| employees from other industries can support other workers in
| their struggles, the employees of PostNord decided to take
| sympathy action against Tesla for what they consider an
| attack to the whole model of employment and labour in the
| nation.
|
| What is crazy is a company trying to subjugate a whole
| nation's system of employment for their own benefit, for that
| Tesla is being collectively punished by workers in other
| industries for trying to undermine the labour market as a
| whole.
| Pungsnigel wrote:
| Lots of companies work without collective agreements in
| Sweden though. Under law it's completely free if you want
| to do so or not. You could as well say that the unions are
| threatening the Swedish model due to taking this to such
| extreme levels. Especially as it doesn't seem most
| employees at Tesla want the unions involved.
| piva00 wrote:
| They do while conditions are ok, it seems like conditions
| are not ok for these workers hence they pushing for a
| CBA.
|
| And while lots of companies work without a CBA here in
| Sweden, 90% of employees are covered by CBAs, so the vast
| majority are covered by one and Tesla fighting this by
| bringing scabs (a huge, huge no-no in here) is quite
| stupid. If they thought a CBA would be bad for business
| then strikes are even worse, it's their choice now to
| sign one or not with all the costs associated on not
| having one.
| Pungsnigel wrote:
| Most employees don't seem to be in support of the unions
| at this point though? It's a bit hard to tell as there
| are no official numbers, but from what I've seen it seems
| like ~90% or so of employees at Tesla remain at work. And
| there is a high demand for their services, so they could
| _easily_ go to other companies for work if conditions are
| bad.
| Hikikomori wrote:
| Not all workers have joined the union and wouldn't get
| paid by the union to strike. But unions use sympathy
| strikes against companies that might retaliate against
| their workers if they strike, Tesla has already made
| threats. So going by how many of the workers at Tesla are
| striking or not is not a good measurement.
| bjornsing wrote:
| The union is offering free memberships and 130% of normal
| pay. Tesla employees still don't want to strike [1]. This
| is why the unions are using these extreme tactics.
|
| 1. https://teknikensvarld.expressen.se/nyheter/bilbransch
| en/tes...
| Stranger43 wrote:
| The way unions work in scandinavia is that they are
| decentralized but supportive of each other.
|
| IE as long as the workers don't form an local chapter
| everything is fine the problem if that when such a
| chapter forms and the company ignores it every other
| union chapter is allowed to refuse to deliver work in
| support of an company that choose to refuse/fight
| unionization.
|
| So for there to be an conflict there have to be an
| meaningful chapter formed within tesla's employee base
| that tesla refuses to acknowledge.
|
| Now again remember that this system is core to the
| "flexsecurity" systems employed by all of the nordic
| countries which is generally based on fair negotiations
| between equal parties(union and company) if Tesla manage
| to break that model they force the bureaucracy and state
| to take over and set highly rules without any concerns
| for local details they way it typically happens in France
| which is going to hit their profitability far harder then
| allowing unionization.
| soco wrote:
| I work for a US company and I can tell that US management
| doesn't give a rat's ass on local customs until it bites
| them. You can raise and escalate and whatnot, they will
| still push the locals to implement the
| illegal/unacceptable stuff if not immediately then
| boiling the frog - anything goes until some agency or
| legal suit says whoa stop.
| Stranger43 wrote:
| They are engaging lawyers and engaging with some of
| Sweden's most popular and powerful NGO's that's not doing
| nothing that's actively throwing money into a fight
| that's both hard to win and where the worst outcome might
| actually be for Tesla to "win".
|
| Again the "laizes faire" no labor protections of America
| just don't exist in Europe the question is weather you
| negotiate with an equal partner made up from your own
| employee's or have the state bureaucracy micromanage
| local details.
| throw310822 wrote:
| What I don't get is: a strike is a protest in which workers
| refuse to work but also pay by renouncing their salary for
| the days they didn't work. If post employees selectively
| decide to not deliver to a specific client or address, what
| cost are they sustaining? Is their salary impacted?
| defrost wrote:
| Nordic unions underwrite the cost of strike action and
| pay workers any lost wages that result.
|
| There's a statement by IF Metals (the central
| metalworking union whose ~130 odd members are being
| refused a collective agreement by Tesla) that they'll
| support their workers through this. I would image that
| postal and dockworkers see similar support from their
| unions (although they are working on every item save
| those that go to/fro Tesla and are not affected to the
| same degree).
| kmlx wrote:
| > It's not crazy when you understand the Swedish model
|
| the only thing i'm questioning is the idea that the postal
| company is allowed to not deliver mail. it just looks very
| wrong to me.
| salawat wrote:
| Yet you think tying people's hands and forcing them into
| furthering the interests of a foreign business venture's
| goals at the expense of the locality is okay?
|
| Ask yourself, why is that okay? Why is it more wrong for
| a locality to refuse to cooperate with an uncooperative
| outsider than for an uncooperative outsider to act in a
| highly disruptive manner to the sensibilities of a
| foreign locale in the first place?
|
| What would you do if it was you in their position?
| xhubin wrote:
| Think of it this way instead, the people working there
| have their own rights to refuse to do so. They the people
| aren't "Postnord" the company, they are individuals who
| are free to act on their own, they aren't slaves to their
| company.
| pw378 wrote:
| Striking is one thing, but targeting an individual
| company is another. They are not striking, they are
| selectively denying a critical service to force
| submission.
|
| It is not hard to imagine scenarios where this is
| weaponized with horrifying outcomes.
| jjgreen wrote:
| Interesting to compare the Swedish model to the UK's. Here,
| employers can do whatever they like, unions need a full
| postal ballot to fart.
| Pungsnigel wrote:
| No, you got it quite right I think. The government agency in
| question has a deal with Postnord (owned mainly by the
| Swedish state) to utilise them for all mail services. License
| plates has to be sent by mail. Postnord employees refuses to
| do so to Tesla. I believe they've also said they'd refuse to
| hand them out to Tesla should they come asking for them. In
| effect, not legal way for Tesla to sell cars in Sweden at
| this point.
| Stranger43 wrote:
| At least not directly, if they sell via a
| dealership/importer who employs unionized labor they have
| no problem it's only direct from Tesla sales that's
| impacted but then again a big part of Tesla's model is of
| cause that they don't use franchised dealerships as
| middlemen.
| r0ckarong wrote:
| Looks like the counter to "fuck your rules" has always been: "ok
| so no more commerce with you".
| TheChaplain wrote:
| Rules? Collective agreements are entirely voluntary, by law.
|
| What is happening is that the union is using connected
| companies to force Tesla to sign a collective agreement.
|
| Employees are not prohibited from joining the union themselves,
| they are protected by law and Tesla can not stop them nor fire
| them for it.
|
| From what I've read, the employees are quite happy as it is,
| and a collective agreement would actually make thing worse as
| it puts some restrictions on the relation between
| employer/employee.
|
| Also not that Sweden is not US, there are a bunch of laws that
| protects workers, no matter if they are in a union or not.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > What is happening is that the union is using connected
| companies to force Tesla to sign a collective agreement.
|
| Which the rules permit.
|
| Being stubborn and winding up in the middle of a multi-union
| sympathy strike is similarly "entirely voluntary, by law".
| TheChaplain wrote:
| Interesting choice of word.
|
| If the employees are not interested, the employer is not
| interested, yet they are forced to do something they do not
| want (and which is voluntary, again by law) then it's not
| being "stubborn".
| Hikikomori wrote:
| The union is doing this because they have members working
| for Tesla which has refused to sign a collective
| agreement for 5 years. Not all workers there have to want
| it, not even a majority.
| piva00 wrote:
| > Employees are not prohibited from joining the union
| themselves, they are protected by law and Tesla can not stop
| them nor fire them for it.
|
| Joining an union does not equate to having a CBA.
|
| > From what I've read, the employees are quite happy as it
| is, and a collective agreement would actually make thing
| worse as it puts some restrictions on the relation between
| employer/employee.
|
| What restrictions? Collective bargaining agreements set the
| _minimum_ bar of the employment relationship, if Tesla
| already has better terms there 's no reason to not sign one.
| They aren't forbidden to provide anything that is better than
| the agreement, they are only forbidden to go lower than the
| agreement.
| xhubin wrote:
| >and a collective agreement would actually make thing worse
| as it puts some restrictions on the relation between
| employer/employee.
|
| The collective agreement puts 0 restrictions, it's
| essentially just a form of safeguard to protect employees
| from abuse. They can still have higher salaries, bonuses,
| longer vacations etc.
| tyingq wrote:
| I had wondered whether "sympathy strikes" would have some effect
| here about a month ago[1]. Looks like it did. Though I wouldn't
| have guessed this pretty genius angle of blocking the only
| contractual way to get number plates.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37916074
| abc123abc123 wrote:
| 3 Chapter 1:st paragraph in the law concering postal delivery in
| sweden.
|
| Postnord has an obligation to deliver mail.
|
| Interesting to see what will rank higher in court. The postal law
| or the right to strikes.
| danpalmer wrote:
| Seems very likely the strike action will win out, otherwise
| there's no effective route to strike action from postal
| workers. Whether they aren't allowed to strike or Postnord is
| allowed to bring in non-union workers, both would neutralise
| any strike effectiveness, and given Sweden's strong labour laws
| it seems unlikely that would be the case.
|
| Another way of looking at it is that Postnord is not refusing
| as a policy to deliver mail, and that's probably what the legal
| obligation is around. It's just that their employees are
| striking so mail isn't currently being delivered. The same
| happens in the UK, Royal Mail are obligated to deliver to every
| address, but that doesn't stop there being strikes.
| Jensson wrote:
| > and given Sweden's strong labour laws it seems unlikely
| that would be the case
|
| Sweden doesn't have strong labour laws, Sweden just doesn't
| regulate union power that much. Unions are extremely powerful
| entities with no regulations so you have to limit it a bit,
| just like you have to limit the power of private
| corporations.
|
| If a private corporation could block your access to essential
| government services then that would be a big problem, the
| same applies to unions. The government is supposed to be
| impartial in this case, a union shouldn't be allowed to block
| essential government services.
| LegitShady wrote:
| It depends on whats actually in the lawsuit. The regulations
| may say that about the mail in general, but Tesla might just
| argue the government MUST supply a non Postnord method of
| distribution if Postnord doesn't have to do it.
|
| Also, Postnord as an organization is different than a trade
| union in postnord, etc.
|
| The law is not a "the writing says this so its always this".
| Saying "postal law vs right to strikes" is a false dilemma. It
| might just mean "the government must allow an alternate
| distribution method for basic services if postnord has no
| obligation to deliver mail."
| abc123abc123 wrote:
| Good point. Delivery of mail and packages is critical
| infrastructure which the government should ensure. Therefore
| I would argue strikes within that field should be limited. I
| am certain doctors, police and military have limitations when
| it comes to strikes.
|
| I like your interpretation as a work around. Postal workers,
| please go ahead and strike, but then the government/postnord
| have to provide alternative means to deliver mail and
| packages.
| sakjur wrote:
| It's possible PTS approves blockades as "exceptional
| circumstances" and exempts PostNord from their obligation to
| deliver mail to Tesla?
| martin8412 wrote:
| It's a standard clause in contracts in Scandinavia. All
| obligations are suspended in case of industrial action.
| bux93 wrote:
| The suit isn't even targeting Postnord, but targeting the
| Swedish Transport Agency instead. So Tesla's lawyers aren't
| even trying.
|
| If the Transport Agency is directed to get the plates to Tesla
| in some other way, whatever party then needs to follow up on
| that (unionized Transport Agency personnel?) may also decide to
| strike, so it's questionable if this strategy is a good one.
|
| Well, I mean, it's obviously a bad strategy to antagonize
| organized labor in a country with rule of law that observes its
| international obligations under ILO conventions, but, you know,
| given the circumstances.
| abc123abc123 wrote:
| Apparently the tesla lawyers are reading hackernews. Now they
| are. ;)
| scottyah wrote:
| I think Tesla's workers have issues with the law stating that
| all license plates must be delivered through Postnord. Tesla
| has tried to pick them up themselves, but since that is not
| allowed, and the strike is, it's basically state sanctioned
| theft.
|
| If Postnord doesn't want to deliver, that's fine- but there
| should be a way to take possession of property.
| martin8412 wrote:
| It's force majeure. The liberalisation of the postal service in
| the early 2000s gave workers the right to strike. When it was a
| monopoly, the workers didn't have the right to strike.
| karles wrote:
| Welcome to Scandinavia!
|
| We hope you enjoy your stay.
| jjgreen wrote:
| Tack!
| belltaco wrote:
| They're enjoying the stay, they just won in court.
|
| The court just ordered the agency to hand over the license
| plates to Tesla within a week.
|
| https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/domstol-teslas-registreri...
| Hikikomori wrote:
| Judge ordered temporary relief, it's not a final decision.
| Workers at the factory are also part of a union, so they may
| refuse to hand any plates out.
|
| EDIT: And only Teslas side has been heard in court.
| alistairSH wrote:
| License plates go to the manufacturer only? How does that work
| when a used car is sold between individuals?
|
| In the US, I don't need the manufacturer (or dealer) to get a
| plate - I just go to the DMV on my own.
| Hamuko wrote:
| You don't need to deal with license plates when you buy a used
| car? If the car is registered for road traffic, it'll have a
| set of plates with it.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Not in the US - plates stay with the owner (or get returned
| to the local DMV) when a car is sold.
|
| Sounds like Sweden is the opposite - plates move with the
| car. Which sort of makes more sense to me.
|
| Except most of the cars I've owned have come from out-of-
| state, so I'd need new plates anyways (plates are issued at
| the state level, not national in the US).
| yencabulator wrote:
| For what it's worth, plates go with the car in many US
| states too.
| piva00 wrote:
| You don't own the plates and transfer them between cars in
| Sweden, they are sold with the licence plates, and they will be
| on the car until it gets scrapped.
|
| The only exception is for "personal plates" which are
| customised plates that work as an alias to the car's registered
| plate (the one attached to the car's VIN), those can be moved
| to a new car when its VIN is registered to a normal
| registration plate.
| dajoh wrote:
| Why is this article at rank 324 (page 11) on the front page when
| it was posted 1 hour ago, has 33 points, and 70 comments
| currently.
|
| There's stuff on page 1 of the frontpage with 25 points, posted 8
| hours ago, and has 5 comments.
| robin_reala wrote:
| There's a ratio of comments to upvotes that triggers a flamewar
| nerf. In this case, there are double as may comments as
| upvotes.
| yread wrote:
| People are tired of Tesla articles so they more often flag
| them. Flags bring articles down. These articles do often lead
| to flames so it's not without merit.
| matsemann wrote:
| SV / VCs dont like unionization talk.
| tmikaeld wrote:
| What if Tesla just pulled out of the country?
|
| Who's worst off?
|
| Sweden:
|
| - Loss of jobs, I don't know how many. (But the workers would
| prob. be quite bitter, they earned more with Tesla shops than
| standard shops)
|
| - May be bad for Swedish investments, since a union deal would
| now be mandatory.
|
| - Less electric cars, less good for the environment.
|
| - EUR ~100M/year in tax lost from sales.
|
| Tesla:
|
| - Loosing EUR ~350M/year (10K Sold cars/year, most sold Model 3)
| mort96 wrote:
| > - Who'd in their right mind would do business in Sweden
| without a union deal now? No one.
|
| That's the point?
| tmikaeld wrote:
| Did I say it wasn't?
| mort96 wrote:
| I thought you listed it as a negative effect. If that
| wasn't the point, I apologize, I misinterpreted.
| tmikaeld wrote:
| Now that I read it again I can see that interpretation
| (Updated).
|
| I mean it could be bad for Swedish investments, so kind
| of bad?
| piva00 wrote:
| It hasn't been bad so far, similar regulations have been
| around since 1938 and updated in 74; Sweden punches way
| above its size in economic output, the country's labour
| market was built on this foundation and it's worked
| pretty damn well.
|
| I think Sweden will be absolutely fine if Tesla packs up
| and leaves, it's not like the market disappears because
| they left, there's just more space for competitors to
| take over Tesla's marketshare.
| Hikikomori wrote:
| You don't think Tesla owners would seek reimbursement if they
| cannot service their cars anymore? The government would likely
| get involved to avoid Tesla car e-waste, either to force car
| returns and repayment or to allow 3rd party mechanics to work
| on their cars.
| tmikaeld wrote:
| If the company is no longer a legal entity in the country any
| more, I think it would be very hard to sue for it or get
| anything out of it.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Most contracts got exemptions when breaches, delays, non-
| service etc. are due to strikes.
| Dah00n wrote:
| > or to allow 3rd party mechanics to work on their cars.
|
| EU law state you can use whatever shop you want to service
| you car and it will still be under warranty. I have never
| once in my life used the dealer for repairs or service unless
| it was warranty/recall.
| rsynnott wrote:
| > Less electric cars, less good for the environment.
|
| > EUR ~100M/year in tax lost from sales.
|
| How's that work? Like, there are other manufacturers; you'd
| assume VW/Hyundai/BYD would just pick up the slack.
| tmikaeld wrote:
| You'd have hundreds of thousands of unused cars.
|
| But sure, replacement of sales is probable.
| Dah00n wrote:
| Then they'll likely need to pull out of all of Scandinavia.
| There's already talk of sympathy strikes in both Norway and
| Denmark.
| Hikikomori wrote:
| The Nordic federation of transport unions has announced their
| support of IF Metall, the sympathy strikes could spread to other
| countries
|
| https://www.transportarbetaren.se/brett-stod-i-tesla-konflik...
| atoav wrote:
| Lol. What. I am not _that_ familiar with workers rights in
| Sweden, but it would surprise me if this would be able to go
| anywhere meaningful.
|
| Sounds more like somebody is butthurt that the typical "downgrade
| your workers rights or I'll move my business elsewhere"-strat
| didn't work out.
| jacquesm wrote:
| The hubris is just off the scale. How about you simply follow the
| law. How hard can it be, if the Chinese can manufacture cars in
| Sweden then so can Americans.
| parl_match wrote:
| Tesla is not breaking the law. This is a labor action, and
| considering Europe's general tenor on labor relations, this
| lawsuit is going to be a hilarious mistake.
| jacquesm wrote:
| They _are_ breaking the law. They have (repeatedly)
| threatened strikers that they would take away their options
| which is how they managed to match compensation to begin with
| so this is very much a legal issue as well.
|
| That's why so many sympathy strikes broke out. What Tesla
| execs need to realize is that the world isn't North America
| and that different countries have different relationships
| between labor and management. If they don't want that they
| should move their manufacturing out of the EU and live with
| the tariffs.
|
| edit: apparently it's worse than just stock:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/comments/17l46ho/c.
| ..
|
| Also mentioned is holidays and insurance. It would be nice to
| find the original Swedish article.
|
| The funny thing is that they may well win this suit and it
| will only backfire because it should have never come this
| far. So the workers will pick up even more sympathy. It's
| affecting their supply lines as well now.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> They are breaking the law. _
|
| Wait, I'm super confused by this. If they really are
| breaking the law why isn't the government shutting them
| down instead of the unions striking? Isn't that the job of
| the government, to make sure every company follows the law?
|
| In my country, if you don't follow the law, the government
| institutions don't even let you open up shop, the unions
| are only there to negociate yearly wage increases, but
| following the law is a must and a given from the start. If
| you're a company and don't follow the law you get
| inspections, lawsuits and fines from the state
| institutions.
|
| So how is Tesla even operation in Sweden without following
| the law in the first place? It feels like there's apiece of
| context missing here.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > I don't get this. If they really are breaking the law
| why isn't the government shutting them down instead of
| the unions playing hardball? Isn't that the job of the
| government?
|
| That's the tricky bit about worker/employer
| relationships: it would still require a worker to bring a
| complaint and that worker will then _surely_ be fired by
| Tesla because they 're pretty good at retaliation. That
| would still make it worse for Tesla but the worker than
| also has an issue. You'd have to be pretty principled to
| put your family through a thing like that. But it may
| well come to it if this keeps going on, Tesla doesn't
| really realize yet who has the power in this engagement.
| But they're about to find out.
|
| > In my country, if you don't follow the law, the
| government institutions don't even let you open up shop,
| the unions are only there to negociate yearly wage
| increases, but follwing the law is a given.
|
| In theory Sweden is no different. But they're not going
| to step in to this until the unions and Tesla have had
| their options exhausted and so far nobody got fired (as
| far as I know). The moment Tesla fires someone instead of
| just threatening to harm them financially the gloves will
| come off for sure.
|
| As it is Tesla may not realize it yet but they are
| already losing in the court of public opinion and this
| stuff is headline news all over Europe, I've seen two
| articles related to this in the Dutch press in the last
| week alone and the sentiment is 'you can't bully Swedish
| workers and expect to get away with it'. Time will tell
| if that is true and what it will do to Tesla brand
| perception in Europe.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> that worker will then surely be fired by Tesla because
| they're pretty good at retaliation._
|
| Fired how? I though you can't fire people just like that
| in Sweden.
|
| _> In theory Sweden is no different. But they're not
| going to step in to this until the unions and Tesla have
| had their options exhausted _
|
| This still doesn't make sense. The law is the law, and
| breaking it is just as bad with or without union
| discussion, no?
|
| Like if the law says you need to give your employees X,
| Y, Z and you haven't , the that's breaking the saw and
| the state should immediately intervine.
|
| _> Time will tell if that is true and what it will do to
| Tesla brand perception in Europe._
|
| I doubt it. VW reduced hundreds/thousands of collective
| years off our lifespan and their cars are still flying
| off she show floors so I doubt Europeans are gonna stop
| buying Teslas because of union disagreements in Sweden.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Of course you can fire someone. You then can be
| challenged, you have to show cause and what actions you
| took to build your case and there is a process to deal
| with that. And in the end if you got it wrong as the
| employer you have to pay up. But it's definitely possible
| to fire someone.
|
| Not like in the US though, without any controls or
| oversight. Sweden is in that sense probably one of the
| better countries to be an employee in.
|
| > This still doesn't make sense. The law is the law, and
| breaking it is just as bad with or without union
| discussion, no?
|
| Yes. But the problem with these allegations is that you
| need to prove them and that isn't all that easy.
|
| > Like if the law says you need to give your employees X,
| Y, Z and you haven't , the that's breaking the saw and
| the state should immediately intervine.
|
| I agree with you, but in practice that's not how I have
| found the world to work. For the state to intervene
| someone has to make a formal complaint first. Otherwise
| the authorities will not make a move.
| perbu wrote:
| Likely it isn't criminal code, so the legal process is
| typically very slow.
| xhubin wrote:
| Well according to the thread Tesla has threatened workers
| which is illegal but unless there is actual evidence of
| Tesla threatening there isn't much that can be done. This
| obviously isn't done yet so we'll see what happens but
| Tesla most likely will lose this battle and with so many
| people knowing about it, it could have a tremendous
| effect in other countries as well which is great!
| L-four wrote:
| I don't think the law works like that in any country. The
| law isn't a omnipresent Santa Claus. It's a slow
| bureaucracy, the unions can force the issue before the
| workers die of old age.
| flutas wrote:
| > edit: apparently it's worse than just stock:
|
| I'll wait for the original source. An anonymous comment on
| reddit with no source, does not a valid claim make.
|
| All I can find is (translated) claims that Tesla said they
| may remove the stock option program going forward and
| layoffs. [0] Which is a far cry from "holidays, bonuses,
| stock and insurance" or "stealing $7000"
|
| > There have also been reports that employees have felt
| threatened by the company if they go on strike and it has
| been stated that various benefits could be withdrawn.
|
| > - We have members who confirm this. Tesla executives have
| threatened layoffs. They have also threatened to withdraw
| the option program that Tesla has, where you get shares for
| a certain number of years," says IF Metall's contract
| secretary Veli-Pekka Saikkala.
|
| [0]: https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/orebro/facket-
| strejkande-p...
| jacquesm wrote:
| Yes, agreed.
|
| But that's a lot of smoke already, those reps would
| likely not say that if it wasn't something they could
| back up.
| flutas wrote:
| > But that's a lot of smoke already, those reps would
| likely not say that if it wasn't something they could
| back up.
|
| Agreed, but the reps would also clearly make the other
| claims as well, if they were valid claims that they could
| back up. The fact they didn't makes me think it's someone
| being overly dramatic with no actual knowledge. Or to put
| it another way, I don't think it's "a lot of smoke", I
| think it's a campfire that's being claimed as a forest
| fire.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Tesla has done _exactly_ that same thing before so it 's
| not as farfetched as it may seem, they may have simply
| not realized that doing that same thing in Europe is
| going to have a completely different effect than what
| happened the previous time in America.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| It is tremendous to watch a power hungry, emotionally
| unstable industrialist run head long into an entire nation
| state labor movement. Learn to be a partner and not a bully
| and entire cohorts won't come at you knives out. But he
| cannot [1], so oh well.
|
| _What do you mean I can 't just overpower them like I've
| done to anyone else who has gotten in my way historically?_
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38127745
| brandonagr2 wrote:
| Was it a mistake? They already won a preliminary injuction
| that the government must let them pick up the license plates
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/27/sweden-sides-with-tesla-
| sa...
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Under EU law mail has to be delivered to all addresses 5 days a
| week.
|
| I strongly suspect that what is going on with Tesla's mail is
| illegal.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Oh, no doubt. But this isn't a cause, it's a (minor) symptom
| at best and Tesla just threw a bunch of oil on the fire. This
| isn't going to end well if they keep bringing American strong
| arm tactics to the EU.
| rhcom2 wrote:
| I _almost_ respect that Tesla actually filed something instead of
| more empty Musk lawsuit threats.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| I am not familiar with Swedish law but I doubt it is legal to
| refuse to distribute mail whether at service provider level or at
| employee level.
|
| At employee level it would be for Postnord to take action but at
| service provider level (Postnord) then maybe (?) they have a
| point that the state/regulator should intervene.
|
| Now, if on the other hand what is happening is perfectly legal
| then perhaps the famed Swedish model has gone too far...
| uxp8u61q wrote:
| Well, next time you should probably get familiar with a topic
| before writing about it.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Are you telling me that refusing to distribute mail is legal
| in Sweden?
|
| In most, if not all EU countries that would not be on several
| levels as per my previous comment.
|
| So please at least _try_ to write something substantive...
|
| Edit:
|
| In fact it looks like this is indeed a breach of at least EU
| law:
|
| " _The universal service obligation (USO) is the core of the
| Postal Services Directive (97 /67/EC, amended by Directives
| 2002/39/EC and 2008/6/EC). This is the requirement that
| letters and parcels should be delivered to each home or
| business premises, on 5 days each week, throughout each EU
| country (with exemptions)._"
| 3np wrote:
| PostNord is prevented from fulfilling this obligation by
| the lawful strike carried out by workers. The right to
| strike would be practically meaningless if employers could
| just sidestep it by replacing strikers with non-unionized
| workers, so the laws have been constructed to prevent this.
|
| Think of it as force majeure.
| Manfred wrote:
| It's called "civil disobedience" and sometimes it's the
| only way for people to leverage some sort of power.
| brandonagr2 wrote:
| https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/27/sweden-sides-with-tesla-
| sa...
|
| "Norrkoping district court said the agency must find a way to
| get the plates to Tesla within seven days or pay a fine of 1
| million Swedish crowns (~$96,000)."
| xkbarkar wrote:
| Lawsuit is about the state telling postnord a mail delivery
| company, to not deliver licence plates in some weitd sympathy
| action. Tesla won the suit and the licence plates have to be
| delivered.
|
| https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/Mo0V85/tesla-far-ut-sin...
| mrpopo wrote:
| Tesla was granted a temporary measure to deliver the licence
| plates until the lawsuit*
| McDyver wrote:
| I suppose this is about the physical license plates, that
| can't be held at postnord - maybe very specific for being
| license plates.
|
| The next step will be at transportstyrelsen they will just
| strike and refuse to issue the license plates.
|
| No license plates issued, none to be delivered
| pcdevils wrote:
| Good. Let them make a fool of themselves in court. Tesla wont be
| happy till every country treats it's employees like disposable
| garbage, just like in the US.
| bjornsing wrote:
| And they won [1]! At least an interim decision forcing the
| government to let Tesla collect new license plates from the
| manufacturer.
|
| 1. https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/domstol-teslas-
| registreri...
| TheMagicHorsey wrote:
| On a related note, I think you have to consider very carefully
| whether or not you can manufacture in Sweden. For some companies
| like Teenage Engineering, Elektron, etc.,it can make a lot of
| sense as your labor cost is such a small fraction of the total
| value of the product. But if you are in some kind of competitive
| market where the labor cost has the potential to erase your
| margins (and therefore return on the project investment) then I
| don't think it makes sense in this globalized economy to base in
| Sweden.
|
| Where do electric vehicles fall on this spectrum? I don't know
| TBH. I would suspect the Model S and Model X it doesn't matter
| really ... but say for batteries or the Model 3 ... maybe Sweden
| is a bad choice. The Chinese are very smart about how they base
| their manufacturing. Tesla should be smarter too. You can't just
| get around 50 years of labor interests.
|
| And paying workers a lot is not enough ... labor interests want
| more than just high pay ... there's lots of other restrictions
| and controls on what you can do. You have to let them control how
| labor works in your plants. You can't just innovate on process
| however you like if you are at large scale. That's how Europe
| works. Everything is slow and deliberate with a pace that runs
| over decades or sometimes generations. You can't just
| fire/hire/automate/reconfigure on the fly as you evolve
| processes. Go to China or Texas if you need that.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Sweden has been making cars for almost 100 years now.
| eastbound wrote:
| You say decades, but we don't know whether it works over
| decades. For all I know, France is famous for strikes and we've
| lost all manufacturing. Almost all of Europe lost that, and
| it's not like we're good at startups either, we make some
| (heavily public-funded) and not even appear near the top #100
| startups.
|
| I don't even remember meeting a single factory worker for the
| last ten years. Even ports: All of Marseille went on hard-core
| strikes, now it's all done in Rotterdam. France is famous for
| the Saint Conges Payes in 1936, well, if we didn't dance that
| much, maybe the Germans wouldn't have invaded us like a walk in
| a park.
|
| We can't say that works over decades when all industries have
| fled (and I say fled, like one flees a socialist country, when
| factory managers were subdued into a cave and beaten up until
| they signed personnel agreements in the 1990).
| einr wrote:
| _But if you are in some kind of competitive market where the
| labor cost has the potential to erase your margins (and
| therefore return on the project investment) then I don 't think
| it makes sense in this globalized economy to base in Sweden.
|
| Where do electric vehicles fall on this spectrum? I don't know
| TBH. I would suspect the Model S and Model X it doesn't matter
| really ... but say for batteries or the Model 3 ... maybe
| Sweden is a bad choice._
|
| https://northvolt.com/manufacturing/ett/
| susano wrote:
| Not overly knowledgeable on Swedish law, but the idea that a
| public sector union can decide to block public services (in this
| case postal delivery of license plates) for a single company as a
| sympathy strike seems pretty nuts to me. Pretty sure Sweden would
| lose in European court at least (of course it would probably take
| a long time to percolate there).
| aaomidi wrote:
| This is actually democracy in action.
|
| Worker unions are a lot better at making the voices of workers
| heard and actuated on.
| david38 wrote:
| Not sure you know what democracy is.
|
| Tesla is required by law to use the post to get plates. This
| invalidates the whole premise.
| cinntaile wrote:
| What is undemocratic about a law in a democratic country?
| They can pick up their plates themselves for now, the
| lawsuit will decide what the law says.
| okr wrote:
| Maybe being able to pick any other company to make the
| plates? For god sake, it is just a plate. A simple piece
| of metal with some letters on it to make everyone happy
| with traceability.
| cinntaile wrote:
| Government contracts need to fulfill very specific rules
| to prevent conflicts of interest. This one company one
| that bid and is now responsible for that. If you want it
| any other way, the law needs to be changed and that is
| again a democratic process.
| frosting1337 wrote:
| You realise, of course, that if another company was able
| to deliver the plates, the same issue would still be
| occuring thanks to Swedish unions being in solidarity?
| sbuttgereit wrote:
| So gerrymandered districting exists as law in a
| democratic country, yet would you call that democratic?
| skitout wrote:
| Not sure you know what democracy is... Democracy is not
| just voting for your MP, it includes unions, strikes and
| collective agreement
|
| If Tesla agreed (like 99,9999% of companies) with the
| democratically designed collective agreement, there would
| be no targeted strike. Strikes are one of the main
| democratic bargaining tool employees and unions have...
| including on key point of businesses.
| letmevoteplease wrote:
| If a company is legally required to use PostNord and PostNord
| can legally refuse to deliver mail, it effectively gives
| PostNord the power to control any company that wants to
| continue receiving mail. Regardless of whether they are using
| that power for good or evil here, I don't think it's a power
| they should have.
| einr wrote:
| Postnord as a company is not refusing anything. _Some of
| the workers for Postnord are on strike._
| frosting1337 wrote:
| Why not? They're a private company. Isn't that usually what
| Americans are telling people, that corporations are free to
| serve who they please?
|
| But, more importantly, PostNord isn't doing anything - it's
| a unionised group of workers refusing to deliver Tesla
| products. That's how strikes work, and Musk's go-to course
| of action is to immediately proceed to legal action rather
| than negotiating and meeting the union's requirements.
| jltsiren wrote:
| PostNord is a private business owned by Sweden and Denmark.
| Unless there are specific laws to the contrary, its employees
| have the same right to strike as any other private sector
| employees.
|
| (More generally, postal services in the EU tend to be
| structured as businesses these days, because they are in direct
| competition with various courier and package delivery
| services.)
|
| Also, while the employees may be on strike, managers who rank
| high enough are not represented. If a company has particularly
| important obligations it needs to honor, it can always tell the
| managers to handle them personally.
| bjornsing wrote:
| > Also, while the employees may be on strike, managers who
| rank high enough are not represented. If a company has
| particularly important obligations it needs to honor, it can
| always tell the managers to handle them personally.
|
| You have to get _very_ high in the hierarchy before you find
| a manager that the unions will not represent. This is one of
| the major problems with the Nordic model I would say.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Refusing to distribute mail to a specific recipient does not
| sound like a 'strike' in the sense of labour dispute to me.
| In France (often used a reference when it comes to
| striking...) that wouldn't be a legal strike, but obviously
| every jurisdiction is different.
|
| In any case, this also probably breaches EU law related to
| universal postal service, which states that mail must be
| delivered to every address 5 days a week.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Personal postage and large commercial shipments seem
| unrelated to me. Moreso if the former is via a government
| delivery service and the latter is via a private company.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| To you perhaps, but not to universal postal service
| laws...
|
| " _" The universal service obligation (USO) is the core
| of the Postal Services Directive (97/67/EC, amended by
| Directives 2002/39/EC and 2008/6/EC). This is the
| requirement that letters and parcels should be delivered
| to each home or business premises, on 5 days each week,
| throughout each EU country (with exemptions)._"
|
| Tesla has a right to postal service in the same way as
| everyone else.
| einr wrote:
| Force majeure trumps all obligations. There is no law
| being broken here.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| What force majeure? Do you know what the term means?
| einr wrote:
| To answer in kind: yes, do you?
|
| https://da.se/2023/11/totalstopp-for-nya-telsabilar-far-
| elon...
|
| https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_majeure
|
| "Med force majeure avses vanligen krig, upplopp, brand,
| naturkatastrofer (som oversvamning, orkan, jordbavning),
| explosioner, _strejk,_ nya lagar som forbjuder
| fullfoljandet av avtalet, och liknande. "
|
| I'll assume you read Swedish since you seem to be an
| expert at the issue. If not, you can plug these into a
| translator yourself.
| Legogris wrote:
| Do you? Strikes are recognized as legitimate force
| majeure in general.
|
| You know how to find your way for that from Wikipedia, I
| assume. From PostNord:
|
| https://nitter.net/PostNordSverige/status/172767223321924
| 818...
|
| https://nitter.net/PostNordSverige/status/172773029292270
| 847...
| 3np wrote:
| Did you read the reply to your previous duplicate comment
| before copy-pasting your now moot point in the current
| top thread?
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38438450
| Spivak wrote:
| This is what sympathy strikes are, if you're a unionized
| commercial bakery who delivers to a unionized restaurant
| that's currently striking you don't go and strike against
| your own boss. That's silly. You refuse to cross the picket
| line and deliver goods and services to the business who's
| striking so they have a harder time operating.
|
| That's like the entire point. They're so effective lots of
| places ban them which like... take that for what it's
| worth.
| scottyah wrote:
| It screams corruption to me, this definitely sounds like one
| political group has infiltrated the governmental services and
| has gotten enough power to begin publicly target people/groups
| that they oppose.
| lock-the-spock wrote:
| I'm sorry but your claim does not make sense at all given the
| meaning of the words you are using
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| > Not overly knowledgeable on Swedish law
|
| I'm curious, are you familiar with Swedish law in any way?
| frosting1337 wrote:
| Maybe Tesla should consider actually meeting with unions and
| forming a collective agreement like the striking workers are
| trying to get them to do. It's a whacky concept to American tech-
| bros, but unions still work.
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