Tesla union strike fails in Sweden as workers refused to walk out | Hacker News Reader

Tesla union strike fails in Sweden as workers refused to walk out

teslarati.com

50 pointsjustrealist65 comments

Worth keeping in mind, is that it seems like Tesla was threatening employees in case they participated in the strike, according to SVT:

> The strike at Tesla's Swedish operations continues. According to the union, several employees have been threatened by the company if they go on strike. There have also been reports of strikebreaking.

> "We have members who confirm this. Tesla managers 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 Säikkälä.

https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/orebro/facket-strejkande-p...

If the report is true, no wonder people still continue going to work like nothing is happening.

Also, there is a lot of conflicted reporting on the whole Tesla vs Unions in Sweden story, not sure what sources one could trust or not.

Is that even legal in Sweden? I can imagine the unions will do some solidarity strikes if true.

I don't think strikebreaking is illegal by law in Sweden (but long time I lived in Sweden and was more involved, maybe I remember things wrong or things have changed). But definitely wildly frowned upon, so if the article I linked before is true, then there will be solidarity strikes for sure.

I think threatening with layoffs if striking is also not illegal? But historically, with the Scandinavian union model, you’re in for a ride. E.g. with union-supported class actions from fired employees.

The company firing all previous employees is a risk of a strike. Striking is a negotiating tactic. Tesla's response is hostile negotiation but it appears that the employees agree that what they have is better than whatever else they could get.

> Tesla's response is hostile negotiation but it appears that the employees agree that what they have is better than whatever else they could get.

If you're being threatened of being fired for even negotiating ("striking"), would you continue to "negotiate"? Might be that they don't agree they have it better than elsewhere, but the alternative is being fired, so they'll just be fine with the situation as-is.

If they are going to fire everyone who strikes the rational choice is to find a new job while continuing to work then quit without notice, preferably in mass.

Expecting a company to just bow to all demands from unions is unreasonable. Losing your job is a risk of striking. That should be known going in. If you aren't willing to lose your job by striking you shouldn't be striking.

Threats are negotiation. The union threatened to strike. The company let the union know what their response would be.

I'm not sure how familiar you are with employment laws in Sweden, but you cannot just fire people willy-nilly, you need to have "Objective grounds for dismissal" in order to fire someone. For example, you are not allowed to fire someone because they're participating in a union, as a employer you'd be setting up yourself to get sued if you do this.

Question is, what "participating" actually refers to. One could make the case that striking is just a part of normal participation in the union, while one could also make the opposite case of course. In the end, seems it'd be up to the courts to decide.

There is a right to strike in the Swedish law as well. As long as the strike is legal (has to be a union involved and follow certain procedures) the employer definitely can not fire anyone. And the union in a case like this is paying all the employees 100% of their salaries while it is ongoing, for however long it will take.

In Sweden, the union can blockade a company that they are "negotiating" with.

That means that all other unions will refuse to work with that company, and this goes for both suppliers and customers of the blockaded company. No more transportation services, buying parts, getting service people to show up when your equipment is broken, delivering your goods to customers, etc.

So, being blockaded is a risk which should be known going in.

Sweden isn't the USA. You can't just fire people like that, especially not for exercising one of their fundamental rights.

Of course you can fire them, as long as you can afford it.

No, you can't. The courts would annul such termination.

Which will make the managers bully them until they leave.

Luckily, union membership is widespread in Sweden and they'll most definitely help you with this.

Fun fact: managers have their own union in Sweden as well! ("ledarna", literal translation: "leaders") And as the other commentator mentioned, you'd most probably lose your position as the company if you participate in bullying, and if your union finds out, you'll most likely get kicked out of the union as well.

This is called mobbing and you will get removed from manager position ASAP if someone can collect slightest proof (in EU)

Not happening. Not unless said manager wants to be in a whole lot of trouble.

Just curious, how does that work out usually. Seems there would be a loss of trust between employee and employer that would make continuing that relationship untenable for one side or the other.

The employer pays up according to some schedule. And then you're free to go to work elsewhere. Or they can take you back (but that would happen very rarely).

Correct. The courts can annul a baseless termination.

But the employer can then still refuse to take the employee back. In that case the employer owes the employee 6-32 months pay in damages, and the employment contract becomes legally terminated.

Source: The Swedish law on employment protection, paragraph 39:

"Where an employer refuses to comply with a judgement by which a court has annulled a dismissal or redundancy or has declared a fixed-term contract to be of indefinite duration, the employment relationship shall be deemed to have been terminated. The employer shall pay damages to the employee for his refusal in accordance with the following provisions."

https://lagen.nu/1982:80#P39S1

Even in the USA i think it might be illegal?

https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/em....

Now is that when the ocean snails begin walking widdershins or during the vernal-republican equinox? If a corporate regulation falls in the forest and no one is around to enforce it, does it make a sound?

Threatened… or informed them about what would happen? What’s the difference?

> If the report is true, no wonder people still continue going to work like nothing is happening.

Firing people for striking is legal in Sweden if the strike is too long, the reason the strike failed is that the workers didn't care enough not that the employer did something bad. If Tesla want to operate in Sweden without support from the unions they are allowed to do so, but that will hurt them a lot as well, not many companies choose to fight with the unions.

This article has a very naïve take on a complex issue. It does seem like not all mechanics are on strike, but also appears quite obvious that there is some number of them on strike. Not sure if the author knows much about Swedish unions and how strikes tend to work here.

The transport workers union has announced a sympathy strike, stopping all loading and unloading of Teslas in Swedish harbors, so regardless of one's opinion on the matter, the strike is far from over.

https://da.se/2023/10/splittrat-stod-for-teslastrejken-parti...

https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/fackets-hot-stopp-for-tesla...

This is a brutally biased source that is known for twisting the truth to support the reader's feelings. I absolutely ensure that this is not the full story at all and it all reads as union busting fear to me.

And thats with me owning a Model 3.

I checked their source (Börskollen), and they quote Tesla Club Sweden [0], which, unsurprisingly, is quite biased as well.

It absolutely looks like a hit piece to me.

[0] https://teslaclubsweden.se/strejken-som-inte-fanns/

> And thats with me owning a Model 3.

I just wanted to reply here and say we need to disentangle these concepts from one another. This "vote with your dollars" stuff is bad on a number of fronts (Reducing all manner of political actions and statements down to consuming products; Vote with your dollars inherently means those with more dollars get more votes, which is not how voting should work) but far more importantly, it makes people add caveats and statements like this to their speech as though this makes their point better or worse in some way, and it shouldn't.

This person owns a Tesla, and he at least seems to disagree with Tesla's politics regarding unions. This is fair. These are not opposing viewpoints because you didn't buy a Tesla because you love Tesla as a corporate entity and you love Elon Musk and you want to support that: you bought a Tesla because you wanted a Tesla, likely at least in part to solve the problem of requiring personal transportation, of an electric variety, and you thought this was the best solution to that problem for you. That is 100% valid and should not inherently be construed with supporting Tesla's union busting tactics here and elsewhere.

And I say this because we all own products that are made by corporations that are up to all kinds of tom-fuckery all over the world, and we're never going to improve any of this if our arguments degrade into pointless finger wagging at one another because so and so owns a Tesla, therefore they're okay with union busting, or I own an iPhone, therefore I'm okay with suicide nets, or anyone who owns any battery powered device at all is okay with children in lithium mines, on and on. We end up in these nonproductive arguments trying to out soapbox one another while the people actually responsible continue burning the planet to a crisp.

Now, you are free as a person to optimize your required consumption to fit your moral and political views, of course. Buying fair trade coffee is demonstrably better than not. Not buying fast fashion is pretty solidly a better choice. But for a lot of products the choice is murky at best and basically all of them have their problematic aspects, and chiding one another for that as though we control it in the slightest and aren't holding our own closet of skeletons is not productive, and also worth noting, those less-impactful consumption decisions very often come with higher price tags, meaning that the ability to do that is oftentimes gated behind a certain level of privilege.

So yeah, sorry for the side tangent, but I wanted to comment on this.

Indeed, I wouldn't trust a word on this topic from this source.

Note that if it is true that Tesla has been threatening employees that might strike that that will have some pretty hefty consequences, the right to strike is quite well established and a fundamental right to the point that any sane employer would steer well away from violating that right.

Seems like the workers are happy with the status quo (no doubt due to the insane rally in the stock in the last few years)

> They also appreciated the fact that they were issued stock options from the company, some of whom have reportedly seen an increase of several hundred percent to date. What is interesting is that IF Metall and the Tesla workers in Sweden had actually met several times in the past. The employees, however, were reportedly unimpressed with what the union was offering.

It's a bit worrisome that people tie in the "I'm getting stocks" benefit with "I don't need the union". There is no reason for people to not getting stock options just because they're part of the union, but someone they Tesla employees seems to be under that impression? Why?

Perhaps because the workers feel that their work benefits and compensation as negotiated with Tesla directly are good and would not benefit from introducing the union into that negotiation? You may disagree but it’s not like it’s a completely inconceivable notion (in my opinion)

Another not completely inconceivable notion is that Tesla threatened to remove the possibility of getting stock options if the employee participated in any strikes (as reported by SVT https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/orebro/facket-strejkande-p...), so people feel like it's better for their own interest not to participate in any strikes, as you might lose your job/stock options.

Not a lot of room for negotiating in that case.

It may be more that they believe that a union at Tesla would make the stock options they already own less valuable.

The union may start as an organization that serves the workers who pay it, but will eventually, as with all bureaucracies, morph into an organization whose function is to protect and enrich itself and the people operating it.

It also adds another layer of management between the workers and those paying them.

Those are both things that you should want to avoid, and if the company is treating people well, they probably don't see a compelling need to spite themselves by enacting extra management layers and costs.

A workforce that thinks a union is dumb (sans campaigning) is the ideal state of workforce.

Your comment might apply for unions elsewhere (maybe even specifically the US), but the situation on the ground in Sweden is very different, and it seems you might be missing the context that this is happening in Sweden.

> A workforce that thinks a union is dumb (sans campaigning) is the ideal state of workforce.

So about 70% of the workforce is Sweden is not "in ideal state" according to you, as about 70% is part of a union?

>So about 70% of the workforce is Sweden is not "in ideal state" according to you, as about 70% is part of a union?

Probably. I'm not sure why that would seem far-fetched. But, like you said, my comment is based on a US American understanding of unions, and Sweden may be different enough for this story to have other interesting dimensions.

From my somewhat limited perspective, unions in the US and in Sweden are two completely different things.

I've heard some horror stories in Sweden about small local unions that act like the US ones, but that's pretty rare.

Sweden has a system that is based mainly on negotiations between the employers and the unions. This has worked fairly well for 90 years now.

When the big Swedish companies like Volvo, Ericsson, Skanska, SAAB etc have to make drastic cuts, this is normally done with the union on board and few strikes.

> There is no reason for people to not getting stock options just because they're part of the union

Stock based compensation is not allowed for UAW so yes, they are very much under that impression because it literally true.

This does not apply for other potential countries of course, but at least in the US and Canada this isn't gone happen.

You mean it's not allowed _by_ UAW. It's allowed by law but the union refuses to put a provision allowing it into their "master contract" which is agreed to by the companies.

Yes so effectively its not possible right now unless massive changes happen at UAW.

So there's effectively a bidding war between the union and the company, and in this case the company won? To the extent that the union is about helping the employees the union just won too.

> Some younger employees also reportedly stated that their salary and career paths are much better at Tesla as compared to other automakers. They also appreciated the fact that they were issued stock options from the company, some of whom have reportedly seen an increase of several hundred percent to date.

This hits on something that I've seen as a difference between American mindset and the Euro mindset. It seems that in Europe workers prefer more security and a steadier type of job, whereas in America there is a willingness to risk more for greater rewards.

This in my mind plays into part of the difference between how the tech space has grown on the two continents, as it seems being a temporarily embarrassed millionaire really motivates people to come up with something to sale, even if most of it is crap occasionally a good idea will pan out.

On the other hand, even if you fuck up really badly economically in Sweden, you have a lot of protections and safety nets that can catch you, so with that in mind, people should be more willing to take risks, as you'll still be able to afford going to the hospital and such.

But that doesn't seem to translate to reality, sadly.

I dont get it, what risks do you take when you work at tesla compared to volvo?

Being miserable everyday because you have a shitty job that might pay more in the end?

If you're at Volvo with a collective bargaining agreement that probably makes it harder for Volvo to lay you off or fire you.

If you're at Tesla without a collective bargaining agreement that probably makes it easier for Tesla to lay you off or fire you. Those are risks.

> If you're at Volvo with a collective bargaining agreement that probably makes it harder for Volvo to lay you off or fire you.

I've never seen that stop Volvo from mass layoffs when sales are bad?

But sure, unfounded firings seem to be rare.

I dont know swedish law, but from quick glance collective bargaining agreements may give longer notice period, but doesn't protect you from being fired?

Not an expert either. But I think you have fairly strong protections in the law from getting unjustly fired. The union agreement will give you extra protection on top of that, but I think the biggest thing in your favor is that the union lawyers will sue the company for you and represent you in court.

You can get fired for bad behavior or abysmal performance. Not easy for the company to do, takes a lot of documentation and warnings.

But layoffs is a completely different matter. If the sales go down, people will get laid off. Maybe they'll get better terms, but Sweden isn't France where the unions will force companies to keep tons of people they don't need.

That's something I've wondered about for a while. Why?

I think risk avoidance is just a cultural part of Sweden/Swedes. As a Swede I can definitely feel a difference in how Swedes approach life compared to other parts of the world. Slow, steady and "lagom" is usually the socially acceptable way.

In America the risk is forced on you as there's very few social safety nets and legal protections. So hell yeah, you'd better be showing me the money or I'm walking. If you're an American and don't have that mindset then you're just stupid. There's no security in America. Hell, we can't even go out for an evening without getting shot!

unions are a bit like political parties: the basic ideas of collaboration and joint action are sound, but the unintended consequence of creating an organization is that the organization has a will of its own (blame "leaders").

it's no surprise that members and nonmembers alike tend to hate both kinds of organizations.

>it's no surprise that members and nonmembers alike tend to hate both kinds of organizations.

This is the biggest lesson the modern UAW has learned. They are now entirely democratic, with nationally elected leaders where one member equals one vote. All contracts are agreed upon by the entire organization.

This is Sweden, not the USA.

The principal-agent problem is a fully general problem and is not unique to the USA.

It might be. However, GP's comment about "it's no surprise that members and nonmembers alike tend to hate both kinds of organizations" is not accurate for how Swedes generally see unions.

All this proves is the robust worker protections already in place in the Scandinavian countries. Unions aren't really necessary when the government protects labor from capital. Its why communism never really took off there or in the UK/France.

Yikes

Widespread union membership, collective bargaining and support from the union is the reason robust worker protections exists in Sweden and neighboring countries.

Sweden has no minimum wage even. Unions are absolutely necessary there - in fact like 90% of workers are unionized. The whole system relies on unions.

I'm comparing this to non-union auto workers in Alabama making $8/hr with zero benefits. Europe is in a completely different universe where the floor of acceptability is above our ceiling.

Unions are definitely needed, currently rightwing parties in Finland are planning to limit length of strikes while imposing fines to striking workers and unions.

They are also lowering unemployment benefits and giving rich people tax cuts.

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