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Comment by SwedishExpat | Hacker News Reader

This article uses the words "workers' decision" several times which sounds like individual workers are deciding to not deliver to Tesla. The truth is that a sympathy strike involves a union deciding to take industrial action against an organisation to support another unions industrial action. So these workers are legally striking against Tesla too, it's not just an ad hoc decision made by individuals.

PostNord employees could not just decide to stop sending parcels to a company without it being part of a directed strike.

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We say "voters" when we mean their representatives too so this doesn't strike me as surprising even if you could argue that it's not really their decision if it's a representative system rather than one of delegation (where each delegate represents one or more people directly who can at any time withdraw their vote from them and vote directly or choose a different delegate). I don't know how Swedish unions are structured though.

But yes, this is a solidarity strike and should be described as such to avoid confusion or ambiguity. It's interesting to see this play out as solidarity strikes are explicitly forbidden by law in my country (Germany) and while strikes and unions are granted many legal protections (e.g. a company under strike is not allowed to hire temporary strike breakers to substitute the striking workers, though they can use their existing non-striking workers), the law also explicitly restricts strikes to the company the workers are employed by. This is presumably meant to "tame" unions and prevent larger organized action, solidarity strikes or even a general strike (which would not be placing demands on the employer but e.g. the government).

The point I wanted to clarify is that if I worked at PostNord I couldn't decide to stop sending post to a company I disagree with, or a political party I dislike, etc. This is union-led industrial action. I saw some confusion in other posts on the topic where people thought this was individual action.

In Sweden it’d be illegal if there was a collective bargaining agreement in place and the strike wasn’t aligned with the terms set out therein. The law explicitly doesn’t extend the same protections for companies that don’t sign a CBA.

> We say "voters" when we mean their representatives too

Not to say that this kind of decision tends to be non-biding and decided by vote. So all the influences the representatives have is deciding what vote to call; it's the workers casting the votes and deciding to follow them.

Saying the workers are doing it is more than fair.

Doesn't the union have a vote to decide these things. So it is "workers decision" and that's actually very important as far as I can tell for the legal dispute. PostNord says it can't force it's workers to do something. So if it's not the workers decision it's PostNord's decision and that is very different.

> Doesn't the union have a vote to decide these things

This was decided by Seko's union board, the union that covers most PostNord and other delivery companies employees

> PostNord says it can't force it's workers to do something

It is illegal to prevent a strike, yes

> So if it's not the workers decision it's PostNord's decision and that is very different

It's the unions decision

https://www-seko-se.translate.goog/press-och-aktuellt/nyhete...

https://www.seko.se/siteassets/pdf-seko.se/avtal/konflikt/fa...

So what you're saying is the union is forcing them to not deliver to Tesla?

The union doesn't force anyone, it's a collective action, the workers are the union, they've decided to not deliver to Tesla because Tesla is infringing on the most fundamental labour right in Sweden.

Stop thinking about Nordic unions as a boogeyman, a mafia, or whatever other "oppressive" figure you want to make them out to be, the way unions work here is different than what you are probably used to. It's a cornerstone on how the labour market functions in the Nordics...

>The union doesn't force anyone, it's a collective action, the workers are the union, they've decided to not deliver to Tesla because Tesla is infringing on the most fundamental labour right in Sweden.

That's a strange way of putting it. Is the us federal government notification not "forcing" anyone to pay taxes, or not smoke weed, because the us is a democracy and therefore it's "collective action"?

What? I really do not understand the analogy, would be good to expand on how it relates to the current situation.

If you support taxes (or striking) and the government (or the union) forces you to pay taxes (or strike), you're not being "forced". So far so good. But what if you don't support taxes (or striking)? You might think taxes are a good thing and are necessary for a functioning society, but it's still pretty clear that for someone that doesn't want to pay taxes, they're forced to pay taxes.

>If [...] the government [...] forces you to pay taxes [...], you're not being "forced". So far so good.

Wat? In a discussion about if someone is being forced to take an action, consider not overloading the string "forced" with several meanings.

Saying something isn't "forced" is the opposite of "overloading the string "forced" with several meanings". Also, in the broader context of this argument, I'm for an more expansive definition of "forced" and replying to someone who thinks whatever the union is doing isn't "forcing" anyone. Therefore I'm actually granting my opponent some leeway. If you think the above circumstance also counts as "forced", that actually supports my claim that whatever the union is doing is "forcing" people.

Sorry, that also doesn't parse into a comprehensible argument shrugs

If you don't want to strike, then don't strike. What is the issue here?

I'm under the impression that the strikes are being enforced by the union. In other words if you're a union member, and the union voted to strike, you can't unilaterally decide to continue working. Is this not the case?

How would that work with basic human rights such as the freedom of association? And how could it be enforced, under civil law?

Of course you are free to break the strike or whatever feels right for you. But it might not be compatible with membership in the union, so they may well exercise their right to not keep you around as a member if you are actively trying to sabotage their work.

You can work, you can't be part of the union. Not being a member doesn't remove any benefits the union might negotiate with the employer, you just don't have access to the perks of the union (higher income insurance is usually the most important one).

I suggest learning more about the Swedish model before spouting opinions on how things work here, you don't understand the system but feels entitled to argue on your assumptions.

Can you realistically have a vote to stop paying taxes or to smoke weed?

Because Seko could have a vote to deliver to Tesla if they wanted, but ultimately the Unions are on the employees side so we're okay with their decisions.

> Can you realistically have a vote to stop paying taxes or to smoke weed?

This is inevitably going to turn into a quibble about whether representation and/or the electoral college constitutes "true" democracy, so I'm going to head that off by amending my previous comment to be at the state level (rather than the federal level). There's several states that had ballot measures on tax increases and/or marijuana legalization, and failed, for example:

https://ballotpedia.org/Arizona_Marijuana_Legalization,_Prop...

https://ballotpedia.org/Missouri_Proposition_C,_Medical_Mari...

https://ballotpedia.org/Nevada_Marijuana_Initiative,_Questio...

In those cases it would be strange to characterize the dissenters as not being "forced" into anything, even if it was a collective decision.

> In those cases it would be strange to characterize the dissenters as not being "forced" into anything, even if it was a collective decision.

Okay, I see, but then you could also leave your Union for zero cost. You could leave your US citizenship too, I guess, by moving. But my point is I think forcing is far too strong a word for the union meanings here. Why wouldn't you support this if you benefit from the Swedish model?

>Okay, I see, but then you could also leave your Union for zero cost.

Clearly it's not as simple or cheap as "zero cost", otherwise Tesla would have bribed some workers $1000 (or whatever) to defect, rather than hiring a bunch of expensive lawyers.

>But my point is I think forcing is far too strong a word for the union meanings here. Why wouldn't you support this if you benefit from the Swedish model?

Whether you benefit from something is irrelevant to whether it's "forced" or not. I think taxes are a net positive for everyone in society, but I'm under no illusions that everyone's forced to pay it.

> Clearly it's not as simple or cheap as "zero cost"

It really is! To leave a union you just leave. You'll miss out on some perks like topping up your unemployment insurance though.

> Whether you benefit from something is irrelevant to whether it's "forced" or not.

You can get most of the perks without being a member, because membership is anonymous within companies and unions have argued that everyone receives the benefits due to this! So you can have most of the perks of a union without paying "taxes", but I think it's fair to chip into the pot.

> otherwise Tesla would have bribed some workers $1000 (or whatever) to defect,

Tesla is doing exactly this. It was the first thing they did. (The exact amount however is not public.)

It's called "breaking the strike" and has been used for over a century. It's par for the game and every union trains to expects it.

As difficult as it might be to wrap our heads around it, no, there's no forcing, but it's the workers' collective decision as a union to not deliver to Tesla. A union is not some god-given abstract concept, it's a assembly of elected members of the workers which collectively voted to proceed this way. So the only "forcing" you could talk about is Tesla forcing them to accept unacceptable conditions, and even this wouldn't be really "forcing" - as we can see there are two parties negotiating their rights, all within their powers.

As difficult as it is to wrap our heads around. If no one is forcing them not to do it, it is their decision not to. So when they say employees decision it's true.

Collectively, not individually.

Forcing is a strong word here.

If you're a member of a union and the union says please don't do X, and you're aligned with the union, then you will be happy to not do X. This isn't a forceful action nor is it the workers decision, it's this greyish thing between the black and white. The members of the union could have a vote and change direction to do X if they wanted, but why would workers defend a company trying to get around a model that's resulted in one of the best working environments in the world?

The whole point as that no one is forced. Just like strike breakers worked for tesla, they could work for postnord.

Of course, postnord is free to not accept strike breakers.

There is a lot of guessing among the comments in these threads.

It is not PostNord's decision. Striking is a constituional right in Sweden and it would be illegal for PostNord to prevent it.

Tesla is invited to the Storting (the Norwegian parliament) for an introduction to the rules of the Norwegian labor market.

https://e24.no/naeringsliv/i/zEpyow/arbeiderpartiet-hasteinn... (in Norwegian).

I don’t know why you’re being downvoted, that sounds absolutely right to me. This isn’t a decision by PostNord.

> a sympathy strike involves a union deciding to take industrial action against an organisation to support another unions industrial action

Interestingly that's not quite what's happening either. The workers in question are not in a union. IF Metall is the union being supported, and merely wants to represent them (more correctly, they don't want a non-union shop operating in their market).

Everyone is just nuts here. Tesla needs to just cut a deal here, but at the same time this kind of escalation, with all this economic disruption, all for the "benefit" of 160 (or whatever) unrepresented workers who aren't even part of the story and don't seem to be asking for union representation or higher wages or anything is just batshit.

Aggressive American union busting tactics don't go down well in Europe. This isn't the first time this type of thing has happened.

Walmart famously crashed and burned in Germany, for example, because they treated the German unions like uppity communists.

Exactly. This is about our entire model under threat. And it will be Tesla's Afghanistan. Membership in unions is the norm in Sweden. People want to be in unions. I want to be in my union. We feel good about them and employers (who respect our model) feel good about it too because it is cooperative.

For many reasons, the US has a model which is not cooperative but built on bitter enmity. This is repeated throughout the nation with e.g. cars vs bikes.

We do not have that here. This is Musk bringing all his prejudice to a bunch of countries he doesn't understand the norms and culture of.

>> don't go down well in Europe.

> Exactly. This is about our entire model under threat. And it will be Tesla's Afghanistan. Membership in unions is the norm in Sweden.

Unionization rates differ significantly across European countries. While the unionization rate in the Sweden is quite high at 65.2% (as of 2019), it is much lower in Germany at 16.3% and even lower in France at 8.9%.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1356735/labor-unions-mos...

I was specifically speaking about the Nordic Model of which I am a member and a citizen. I could have been more clear but by "my" I meant as a citizen of a country participating in the Nordic Model. What the rest of Europe does is up to them. Unions are foundational to our (Scandinavia's) way of life. This fight ends with Tesla either agreeing to our model or losing our entire market.

To put into context, Tesla only employs 120 people in Sweden.

There are enough other social norms that US companies can bloody their nose on in other European countries.

As for strikes in particular: France doesn't require a union vote to engage in a strike to do so with far-reaching protections (2 employees fighting for an employment-related change seem to suffice from my cursory reading), so the French can strike without needing to be unionized. And boy, do they strike...

The French system is not at all like the Nordic system. It is much closer to the American system, only with stronger unions.

The Swedish almost never go on strikes, with very few exceptions.

> Aggressive American union busting tactics don't go down well in Europe.

But... Tesla never even got that far. They just hired some people who apparently wanted the jobs? No one got fired or threatened, no bribes are alleged. It really seems like IF Metall fired first, no?

Tesla has refused to negotiate for over 5 years.

With who though? Not their workers. Can you cite coverage of the "union busting" activities you're talking about?

https://archive.is/gXGSn

There is nothing remotely like "union busting" alleged in that article (which is quite good, and largely supports my belief that this is an unreasonable escalation by Swedish labor; so much so that I maybe question if you actually read it?).

I linked to it because I thought you may not be familiar with this dispute.

I'm puzzled. Do you think when he flew in workers from other countries that this was not a strikebreaking tactic or are you saying that this did not happen?

Unreasonable may be in the eye of the beholder. It is however completely expected. If anything, they waited much longer than usual.

This is pretty much a school book example how labor conflicts go.

The next steps of the conflict are also expected and known well in advance. The only problem is that nobody seems to be willing to inform their higher ups at Tesla what is happening.

The union? I didn't respond on the busting part, just that Tesla refused to negotiate for 5 years. But from what I read Tesla brought in workers from elsewhere, does that count as union busting?

My understanding is that the various unions view Tesla’s actions as a threat to how labour works in Sweden. There apparently isn’t even a minimum wage in the country as everything is governed by these collective agreements. So if they let Tesla come in and not play by the rules it could open the floodgates for other large corporations to come in and do the same, slowly eroding the system.

> So if they let Tesla come in and not play by the rules

Tesla complies with the country's laws, no?

The other companies and unions are also complying with the country's laws, and they're exercising their choice to not do business with a company that is choosing to operate in a way that contradicts the existing social structures.

There are laws and there are norms. In Sweden, both are equally important and you'll get left out if you break either. It's sad in a lot of cases, as it removes some individuality, but it's how the country been operating for a long time.

Expecting to run a company against the norms in a culture that so heavily leans on norms is bound to create conflict, which is what we're seeing here.

And so do the unions. The law takes a hands off approach to regulating the conditions of workers, but that goes both ways. If Tesla avoids signing a collective bargaining agreement, the law won’t help the unions force them to, but it also won’t protect Tesla from the unions.

Laws upheld by the state are the worst good way to maintain order.

A much better way is to have the parties play nice with each other, build trust, and negotiate as equals. This allows for much better and more detailed agreements, for quicker reactions if market conditions changes, and for more flexibility within each economic sector. The fact that the Nordic countries operate in such a way no doubt contributes to these countries both having great standards of living, and being among the best in the world to start and run businesses in.

Tesla doesn't play nice. They don't build trust, and they don't try to negotiate as equals.

True, it is not illegal. It doesn't need to be. We have other ways to keep hostile actors from misbehaving.

Strikes are one of those ways.

Sweden has a small government approach to labour, the idea is that Unions are more agile and closer to the market so they are given the power to negotiate. The legislation is basically "there are no laws, speak to the Unions and sign the agreement". So yes you're correct they aren't breaking any laws, but neither are the Unions for not working for companies without a collective bargaining agreement.

This system has worked well for a hundred years with Sweden ranking highly across most metrics for work satisfaction, happiness, etc... however every now and then an American company comes over and tries to challenge it. These companies get sympathy striked into the ground, sign a collective agreement, and live happily ever after.

What apparently a lot of commenters don’t know is that in Sweden a lot of things that in other countries are regulated by laws are regulate by agreements between the unions and corresponding organisations for the employers. This an order that both parties prefer, instead of legislations that none of them might be happy with.

It has been like this in Sweden since 1938 (if I remember correctly), and it is unlikely that any American company will be allowed to come in and change that order. I think the last one that tried and failed was Amazon, and before that Toys R Us.

This is one of the fundamental things about Sweden which is really quite weird when you come from the outside. Much of Swedish society runs on "recommendations" (or norms as someone else put it), so technically you don't have to abide by them (i.e. under the thread of the government monopoly on violence, how we enforce laws), but everyone just does it anyway.

This was an interesting experience for me during COVID, where lots of other countries put lots of rules/laws in place, while Sweden just had "recommendations" (and lax ones at that). The way I understood it, it would have been even incredibly difficult/legally impossible for the government to impose some of the same restrictions as in other countries.

It's actually fascinating how well the Swedish society functions without these laws.

They are.

Then again, so are the unions.

Tesla just chose the most expensive way possible to solve the matter. That's well within their rights, of course.

Yeah I think that's correct. The unions here are not acting as representatives of Tesla workers to negotiate with Tesla, but rather as cartels trying to prevent two willing parties (Tesla and its employees) from doing business without cutting in the union.

I had no idea that unions could operate like this. I thought unions were tools to gain workers leverage against their employers, which I obviously support. I find this cartel action repulsive and I don't see how it could be done here in the US without violating anti trust.

So you support workers gaining leverage with the help of unions, but when the workers actually try gaining leverage with the help of unions, you call them names. That's not exactly showing "support" is it?

> The unions here are not acting as representatives of Tesla workers to negotiate with Tesla, but rather as cartels trying to prevent two willing parties (Tesla and its employees) from doing business without cutting in the union.

Out of interest, how are the unions trying to cut in? And what exactly are they "cutting in"?

So if union do stuff, they should be targeted by anti trust but if companies do it, nothing should happen?

My God, so many people have been taught to have themselves. It's just sad at this point.

Tesla brought that unto themselves when they brought in scabs. That's the most egregious act against labour in the Nordics, from that moment they destroyed any chance to be seen as coming into negotiations on a equal footing. You don't do that here, period.

> but at the same time this kind of escalation, with all this economic disruption

What is the economic disruption? There's no "economic disruption" because of Tesla in Sweden, it's negligible for the overall Swedish economy, stop that...

Tesla fucked around, now it's finding out.

> The workers in question are not in a union

Some members of the Tesla servicing stations are members of a union but the numbers aren't public because an employer cannot ask who is in a union

> IF Metall is the union being supported and merely wants to represent them

Yes, IF Metall is the largest union for that type of work in Sweden. They do represent some employees.

> more correctly, they don't want a non-union shop operating in their market

Correct, no-one wants this because the entire labour system is built around collective agreements. Allowing companies to break these rules is bad.

> Tesla needs to just cut a deal here

Yep, or leave! Both works well, the only option that's not viable is to be allowed to break the Nordic/Swedish working model

> all for the "benefit" of 160 (or whatever) unrepresented workers

Some are represented

> who aren't even part of the story and don't seem to be asking for union representation or higher wages or anything

Again, Unions represent employees and all members of the company including non-union members can strike because it's illegal to ask or identify who is or isn't in a Union. Which is why this number of non-Union members is mostly made up rubbish by pro-Tesla sites, the number is unknown.

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