Danish union joins strike action against Tesla by Swedish workers | Hacker News Reader

Danish union joins strike action against Tesla by Swedish workers

bloomberg.com

32 pointsbelltaco17 comments

It sounds like calling it a "strike" is kind of misleading, because the workers who are "striking" aren't Tesla employees, they're employers for _other organizations_ who are refusing to do their jobs (for those other organizations) in order to sabotage Tesla. I don't think there's a plausible claim, here, that these unions are acting in the best interests of Tesla's workers; rather, they're working to maximize the power of _the unions themselves_.

Historically many unions striked in support of other unions. It's not something you really see in the US as far as I know, but the US is just one of many different economic and legal systems out there.

I realize that this is an American site rooted in American culture, just like Elon himself.

As a Danish person, most of Elon't claim sound ridiculous. He is basically saying, that because the American unions negotiate special elevators for senior staff then Scandinavian unions are an issue.

I would recommend all Americans (and in particular Elon) to use this situation as an excuse to study the Scandinavian social model.

If Elon calls it insane then I'll support it.

I'd like him to qualify "insane". What's insane about it?

I find it insanely cool that Nordic workers have that level of solidarity and that capitalists haven't been able to legally hobble labor with absurd legal restrictions on the ability to strike like they have in most other countries.

its "insane" people are actually demanding a fair share of the pie...

I read on HN a week or so ago that the majority of workers at the swedish Tesla factory aren't striking because they prefer the stock options offered by Tesla to what the union is offering. But apparently the company offering a more attractive deal than the union is considered "union busting" or something. Sweden sounds weird.

The unions are not "offering" any alternative compensation to the workers, than what Tesla are. There are certain minimums in a collective bargaining agreement, with regard to salary and insurance cover, but as far as I know Tesla at least mostly meets that minimum standard.

What conflict is mostly about, and which a large proportion of the workers don't care about (at Tesla and elsewhere for that matter) is a mutually binding framework for how terms of employment are negotiated.

Tesla (obviously) prefer to retain the possibility to dictate all terms unilaterally, the unions want the worker collective to have a say and the possibility to negotiate. It is a very basic, classic and boring conflict in that sense.

The Swedish model for labour relations is mostly working quite well, both now and for the past 100 years. It works well enough that 90+% of people have no idea about what it is the unions do. In order for the model to work it needs a large part of businesses/unions to participate.

What we are seeing now is an interesting test of the conflict escalation toolbox. I'm not at all sure how it will end. If the unions fail, it might be the start of a general move to a US-style "everyone-fends-for-themselves" labour market, with minimum wages etc regulated by law. (Sweden does not have a minimum wage by law, for example).

The Swedish model works so well that the majority of Telsa workers in Sweden aren't striking...

If they did they'd bring Tesla to the negotiating table in an instant because there would be no way for Tesla to continue doing business otherwise. They'd have a choice between negotiate with the unions or have empty factories with no workers, which is no choice at all.

To evaluate the model, you need to look at millions of people over multiple decades.

How well the model works (or doesn't) has no bearing on the enthusiasm for striking at a particular workplace.

As I wrote in my comment, it is not surprising at all that there is meagre participation from Tesla employees. The conflict is not between the employees and their managers. The conflict is between the Tesla enterprise and a handful of national labour organizations.

(There could very well be tangible upsides for Tesla employees, if the unions succeed. Or maybe none. It is not really relevant and I am not familiar with the details).

>The Swedish model works so well that the majority of Telsa workers in Sweden aren't striking...

Strikes isn't organized as a per company basis, so this doesn't make any sense at all.

The workers don't strike because they've been threatened to lose their stock options if they do. Aka blackmail. Hence why other workers strike for them.

I think you should try to be more critical of what you read, the union isn't offering any deals to the workers.

They probably should try that then.

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