‘We can’t let Tesla get away with this’: why Swedish unions are fighting Musk | Hacker News Reader

‘We can’t let Tesla get away with this’: why Swedish unions are fighting Musk

theguardian.com

56 pointsannabyrd50 comments

> “I just don’t like anything which creates a lords and peasants kind of thing.”

~ literally the richest guy in the world

That was shortly before making verification a paid endeavor, right?

Sweden has a population of 10 million. Only 120 workers are covered. Tesla is not prioritizing resources well by fighting this battle. They should subcontract these jobs like Amazon does, encourage Tesla owners to go to Denmark for service, or simply build cars that require less service.

The article says that the unions want Tesla to sign on to a collective agreement. Tesla could just do that and give workers their place at the table. That would end the strikes.

It’s so simple. But if they want to do some convoluted things like you have described to avoid being a part of the social contract, at some point they deserve to suffer from it.

There are no products without the workers who labor to make them, transport them, service them. Capital cannot will them into existence. Workers deserve representation.

The contrast in the speed and level of disruption between SE (120 workers) and the DE (workforce of 11,000) is super interesting. Power of public policy, compliance and network effect wrapped up in an IRL use case.

> A month into its strike, IF Metall is firmly dug in for the long haul. Striking workers are being fully compensated for lost pay.

This idea of striking for ever and getting paid for striking is insanity.

Europe is brutal to businesses.

It's no wonder the economies here stagnate and there is no growth anymore.

This isn't sustainable nor is it good.

We can't treat businesses like they're expendable.

As if one fails, it's ok, the next will grow in its place. These are not sustainable ideas - it causes huge waste and destruction and then oversea's companies (from China, India, etc) grow in their place.

People don't want to start companies in Europe (the numbers are seriously decreasing) because they're hardly profitable anymore (because of taxes) and then its just endless fighting with employees and from above through bureaucracy.

Employees want to get paid without having to contribute in a meaningful way. Governments get elected on the promises of protecting employees.

Governments in Europe treats businesses like they're filthy rich snobs who desired to be punished. Laws are brutal tough. Business auditors and tax auditors are extremely tough and unfair.

This isn't sustainable, nor is it good.

It’s been sustainable for Sweden for a century.

Tesla needs to adapt to the Swedish model if they want to do business in Sweden, and otherwise they are free to not do so. This is true for a Swedish company that wants to do business in the US, so why would the opposite be unimaginable?

Tesla is not special. They would do fine, and pass whatever costs this incurs on to the consumers, like literally every company.

Sustainable, maybe, but this feels that it is time to put things into law.

Clearly what's happening with Tesla shows that some things which are not legal obligations are still in fact compulsory or you simply can't do business in Sweden.

IMHO it would clarify things and avoid conflicts like the one we're seeing to have the coherence to make what's de facto compulsory into law.

Sweden's stance has been that there’s no reason to believe that politicians will do a better job than the parties involved that have an actual stake in the particular situation.

A union that operates lucidly will optimize for the longevity of the company as well as for the workers, since the health of one is deeply tied to the health of the other. Theoretically, the particular union and company can take into consideration particulars that a politician can’t, since when codifying in law, the perspective is much more general.

I guess we’ll see if it holds up, but IMO the Swedish model is at least not obviously worse than the “utopian” alternatives of fully centrally controlled, and fully unregulated.

That completely ignores the point of my previous comment...

We're seeing that this is not just a particular union within a particular company. Tesla is being hounded down from everywhere at once. So this shows that, actually, the 'rules' that Tesla is not following ought to be law. Same result, much less aggravation.

But it looks like the Swedes are extremely stubborn: Apparently Tesla definitely cannot do what they are attempting to do but there is also absolutely no need to make it the law...

Extra legal expectations of a course of action are what are creating the issue here, IMHO.

“It’s been sustainable for a century” is not a very convincing argument and is kind of the whole point

It's sustainable until the union is out of money, supposedly

At which point the "problem" deals with itself... no? Either the workers capitulate or Tesla ceases operations

Just reading the thread... the sustainability argument seems totally backwards.

For those in the "shut up and get to work camp", this seems ideal

Tesla has more money and is managed by a person who is physically incapable of abandoning an idea

Sustainable here is with regards to the model as a whole (politicians stay away; unions and companies settle things amongst themselves), and in the economic and political sense, not eg. the environmental sense.

Ah I see, I quite enjoy that model as someone from the US. Someone mentioned familiarity with the industry being key - this is so true

We have decisions made by those who are actively not informed, but rather, biased

Even if we disregard the history of the labour market in the country, it’s far from the whole point. There are also several other points, some of which I mentioned along with the statement you took issue with.

Every other company seems to be able to deal with it; it’s just Elmo struggling. You can see that Sweden wouldn’t be keen to rearrange society to suit one company that employs a whole 120 people.

It’s fine to say that companies should comply with local laws. It’s also fine to say that the laws may be leading a country to long term economic decline even if it’s temporarily ok.

Okay, but what leads you to believe that this system (it’s not a law, as such, though it is implied by the law) is doing that? Like, just this incident?

GDP trends over the past couple decades (2008 being the common comparison Point for US:Europe) and just general observations of business trends mostly. A lot of Europeans speak proudly of their economic laws as “dignified” versus what you get in America. And perhaps that is true. But if this leads to lower and lower economic opportunity for Europeans, what will future generations say? Will they be glad their grandparents had such dignified rights? Or will they call them entitled pricks who squandered it?

Europe is in a tough place. The US is going to eat its economic opportunities up due to the war in Ukraine AND make a killing selling them natural gas. This is probably the bigger driver of things right now than the business environment and that sucks. But it all plays a part.

I don’t care about this particular incident. European unions are better than our unions because you get to choose which you want to be a part of. Sweden appears to do even better than average per the article on lost days to strikes.

... Do you have any particular reason to think that Swedish economic growth is restricted by its labour system? I think it's really difficult to make that argument just looking at the numbers; it has generally outperformed the far less worker-friendly southern EU states, say (except possibly Spain). To explain the 21st century US/EU growth gap, I'd personally probably be looking at fiscal policy and the aging population (while this is a problem in both blocs, the EU is further down the rabbit hole), not _labour law_.

The labor system is one of many components of the European business environment that makes it difficult to innovate.

The aging population and how it is financially supported is a factor. Immigration as well. Which is in turn driven by economic activity.

Not really something to be summed up here in detail.

Exactly. Though, I definitely don't think economic decline is ok at this moment in our society especially while we burn through as much resources as we do.

Tesla is not special, but letting it build infrastructure and start business there with certain assumptions, which are entirely reasonable (there's no MANDATE in Sweden to unionize workers) and then suddenly IF Metall pulls workers to orchestrate a strike which forces Tesla into losses, is not exactly an honorable practice.

Just recently a judge in Sweden itself ruled that withholding license plates from Tesla was 100% illegal. The post is not delivering their mail. This is quite bizarre. And what do you think will employees gain here? They'll be paying union fees, and get a raise equivalent to the unions fees they pay. Tesla's pay in Sweden is not below industry average but ABOVE industry average. Meaning IF Metall didn't improve things at all in all other companies they have unionized.

Keep in mind the employees have little say here. They're threatened that if they don't comply, they'll never be able to find another job in this industry, which is largely controlled by IF Metal. So just like Tesla has the choice of "do business with IF Metall or leave Sweden" the employees are also told "do business with IF Metall or leave Sweden".

Let's not pretend like the union are the "good guys" here. Tesla is a big player globally, but locally in Sweden IF Metall are the big player, and they're leveraging this to gain power through any means possible.

Europe has given us many good things, but overall there's a reason why businesses here stagnate and there's no growth. A huge union abuses power the same like a huge corporation abuses power. There's no distinction here. The problem is the size. You don't want players to be too small (i.e. individual workers negotiating with a gigantic corporation) but you also don't want all corporations negotiating with one monopolistic "my way or the highway" union.

When either side in this transaction feels like they HAVE NO CHOICE, whether employee or employer, then the model is broken.

---

And also you may consider my perspective to be tinted by Tesla and Elon Musk fandom, despite my best attempt to express myself neutrally. But I actually cheered for IF Metal when I heard about this story initially, as I know Musk has been treating his employees like disposable resources in both Tesla and SpaceX at times. He's not a good manager. And I am no fan of his ventures. But looking closer at IF Metall, I've changed my mind on the Sweden situation specifically.

This is a really fantastic summary. Thank you.

Thanks, blunts the pain of the downvotes, without anyone actually saying what they find so objectionable in what I said. It seems to me everyone has picked whose team they're on and the actual facts & reasoning are irrelevant.

It's disgraceful to me how somebody could downvote your comment. Like you said, it's an objectionable comment, not even a subjective one. The HN crowd has become brainwashed by Woke media. Anything that disagrees with their opinions are "oppressed" or rejected. Like how Woke media immediately labels people "misogynist" or "racist" and don't even listen to what's being said. Similarly how they just downvote and don't even comment why.

> Europe is brutal to businesses.

Almost: Europe is brutal to businesses who don't play by the rules.

But so is the US. Or China. Or almost every place that isn't so poor that they simply cannot afford to stand up for their rights anymore.

In Sweeden they should submit to Sweedish rules and conventions of doing business or externalize their services to contractors and move elsewhere.

Every Tesla employee is a share holder. What if this model is better?

No, they're not. They have the option to buy stock at a discounted price.

Not sure about Sweden but in the US Tesla does RSU grants in addition to the standard ESPP plans as well

The stock benefit could be written down in the collective bargaining agreement, or it could still be offered on top of it. Nothing prevents this. The whole "we offer better compensation than an agreement with the unions would" is always a lie that these companies tell. Klarna did the same. They've now signed a collective bargaining agreement and in 6 months they've forgotten this was ever an issue that they fought over, tooth and nail.

This is an attempt to import American work culture into European culture. Walmart tried it in Germany and it was a spectacular failure. Amazon tried it and they ended up subcontracting European company instead. Tesla is now trying it in Sweden and what a surprise, it does not work either.

I dunno, reading to the end the union rep guy sounds a little nervous. Are any Tesla workers on strike? What if people like Tesla’s benefits more than the union’s? Didn’t a lot of Tesla workers do well with equity compensation?

Except businesses are - or should be - expendable. They are just managerial structures built on top of actually useful resources like people. Businesses only use those resources; they don’t create them.

Obviously striking workers are not paid by their employer. However, large, cross-companies unions have the resources to compensate striking workers at one company.

I believe that this practice exists in the US as well.

And where do these unions get their money from?

In Germany you give 1% of your salary to the union if you belong to one.

Union dues

In sweden being an Union member is not free, dues are about ~220kr per month(20 euros) depending on your salary(this is what it used to be for unionen not sure about other ones, but probably similar). It's fairly common to be a member of a union since it also has some nice advantages and swedes like unions. You can imagine the strike-warchest get nicely filled this way :) .

> This idea of striking for ever and getting paid for striking is insanity.

Just to be clear: they're getting paid, because they and their colleagues saved up for it. It's not that their employer or the public at large is paying for it.

Can you show me a link to this? I don't believe that.

That's how striking works though. When you join a union you pay a recurring fee, the money is used to pay workers when they strike. Why is it hard to believe?

Ok, perhaps it's true. But in Germany, almost all social programs or union-type programs are funded somehow through taxes. Perhaps though Unions are different.

I don't know what "social programs or union-type programs" are, but the compensation people get while striking works exactly the same way in Germany: https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streikgeld

Social programs and "union-type programs" are not the same thing. You're comparing government provided social security / healthcare with a union while the two are completely different.

Strikes are paid for by the union, not the employer.

Ok, I'm wrong, sorry. But my point original still holds. See @3cats-in-a-coat for more details.

From the article:

  Striking workers are being fully compensated for lost pay. With a strike fund worth an estimated £1bn, the union says it can cover the cost of industrial action for decades if need be

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