Companies are totally entitled to stick to the law, but they also need to then deal with the fact that narrow compliance with the law might bring them into conflict with parts of society (who in turn might stick to the law in dealing with them).

That said, we already have determined that generally just "sticking to the law" isn't a great defense in all situations anyway.

In a free society based on the rule of law, you cannot demand that anyone goes beyond the law. That's a key principle.

Now, as mentioned, in business other parties can also use their legal rights to bring about negotiations, but let's not depict Tesla as horrible for simply staying within the law...

We have long determined that the rule of law is only one component of a functioning society. There is a lot of stuff beyond the rule of law that makes things work. Anyone not understanding that will have trouble in any society.

And mob rule is a recipe for a nasty society...

How is that in any way mob rule? Is having care and consideration for your fellow citizens mob rule, for example?

What you want is much closer to mob rule, as seen by societies using the law for horrible purposes. Narrow legalistic views allow for the most horrible atrocities.

The proper term is "democracy" when the mob is the majority of a society.

In a democracy you pass laws and those laws are applied uniformly, and again noone can demand that anyone else goes beyond the law.

This is a complete misunderstanding of what the purpose of a law is and how society works.

Everyone always makes demands that go far above the law. Your legal demand to those around you is "don't murder me, vandalize my things and steal the remains". Your full demand also involves amongst others respectful treatment and consideration, and you don't socialize with those you who treat your poorly even though such treatment was perfectly legal.

The law sets the bar for criminal liability. Society as a whole and its individuals freely set the bar for cooperation. A unionized work force is a social group that has formalized in advance the bar to cooperate with them.

People can and do demand that - no sure why that is so difficult to understand. And there could be consequences for legal but nasty behavior and those consequences would also not violate any laws. Societies are more than just narrow legalistic machines and checking completely out of broader society is tough/comes with consequences.

Would you be happy in a society where everybody lies to you all the time? Lying isn't illegal (except under oath), but it would make for a really shitty society.

You can absolutely expect people to do more than just obey the law. Everybody does. Tesla does not, and that may lead Tesla's employees to use their perfectly legal right to strike. And by your standards, you can't demand that they don't strike, because it's legal.

But it's a shitty basis for a relationship. If Tesla wants its workers to do good work for them, they need to listen to their workers.

> you cannot demand that anyone goes beyond the law

Sure you can — "sign this contract to get this result" — just so long as you yourself aren't breaking the law in making the demand.

It is true that is not the law, but it is an agreement between unions and employer organizations in Sweden going back at least to 1938 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saltsj%C3%B6baden_Agreement).

Following the law is a very low bar because of that, since employers and unions are supposed to be able to sort things out between themselves. If companies begin to just "stick to the law" the system will break down obviously and a new system will have to replace it.

Yes. That also smacks of corporatism and "old boys club" probably in part because Sweden is a small country and, I imagine, everyone used to know everyone else in business and political circles.

Internationalisation is putting this to the test.

Solely sticking to the law means paying minimum wage with maximum hours for any work type with no benefits. Negotiation and better terms are not part of the law, but I'm pretty sure you don't want to do without. Union agreements are the standard way to do this here, and refusing to negotiate with unions means refusing to cooperate with the work force market.

They can disagree with unions and the people within the law, just as they can fail as a business from making enemies of the whole country within the law. Civil customs and agreements are not meant to be law.

There is no minimum wage in sweden, because in central european labour fashion they expect labour and companies to cooperate and come to a mutually agreeable and socially beneficial rate.

Although germany recently ended up introducing a legal minimum wage because an other US corp was being too shit about it (I don’t remember if it was amazon or something like walmart).

Actually, the EU is pushing for minimum wages in all countries but Sweden is pushing back because their system apparently does not need it...

Sweden does not have a minimum wage because unions are more efficient at ensuring livable wages than legislation and setting a legal minimum wage in this scenario would only benefit the bargaining position of employers by giving them a low-ball reference value.

This is very different from the neoliberal argument against minimum wages which boils down to "if we need to pay workers a livable wage our profit margins would be tighter" or more charitably "if we need to pay workers a livable wage some jobs would become unprofitable and we'd have to lay those people off" (which only holds true when the jobs are non-essential to the company in such a way that laying people off doesn't mean outsourcing them - a lot of low-paying jobs are absolutely essential to business operations but are seen as cost centers because they don't directly contribute to revenue).

The reason the EU is "pushing for minimum wages" is that the EU pushed for the liberalisation of markets in EU countries some twenty years ago (and its various extensions thereof) and that led to an increase in wealth gaps, a loss of income security, gutting of social welfare systems and the proliferation of temp work agencies (which e.g. in Germany were illegal up to that point and offer an easy way to sidestep unions). Minimum wage is a bandaid for the gashing wound left by market liberalisation.

I think you mean "effective".

This is beside the point of what a legal minimum wage is, orthogonal with negotiations through unions, and has nothing to do with liberalisation.

There is no reason for Sweden not to have a legal minimum wage. From an outsider's POV this really seems to be psycho-rigid stance "no our system does not need one!" when it actually does not hurt the system or negotiations through unions at all.

In a way, I think what's happening with Tesla is making noise because it's putting them on the spot. They are running around crying "but you can't do that!!" because the fact is that actually Tesla can and that's exposing the weakness of the whole system, which is actually informal and not backed by law at all.

That's not saying that Tesla won't back down and reach a deal with the unions, but they are only doing what they are entitled to do.

Literally everything you say in defense of Tesla and against the striking workers can be inversed without becoming any less true.

As others have pointed out, you seem to misunderstand what laws are and what they are for. They're not special and they're not magic, they're just slightly more rigid frames padded with layers of contracts and ultimately held together by good will.

To put it another way: a law can not stop me from killing you. Gun laws can make it more difficult for me to acquire a suitable weapon to do so, laws requiring the presence of an armed police officer at every corner may make it more difficult without having to deal with the police officer first, or immigration laws may make it more difficult to reach you, and murder being illegal means I'm very likely to suffer consequences after killing you (or after failing to do so if the attempt is illegal) but if I'm in front of you with a loaded gun in my hand, what's stopping me from killing you isn't the law.

I'm not saying Tesla can't do things differently as long as they operate within the law. I'm not even arguing whether its immoral for them to do so[0]. I'm just saying that laws are in the most real sense of the word socially constructed and they're an artefact of society, not the other way around. If laws are in conflict with a society's understanding of justice, eventually the laws will change, one way or another.

[0]: It is, although I appreciate that you seem to have constructed an ethical system that isn't built around reducing suffering and increasing happiness for everyone - which is fine, of course, in terms of it being possible for your ethical system to be internally consistent. It just makes me think less of you as a human.

Where did I say anything against striking workers?

I am only pointing out that this is not black and white, and that it is hypocritical to be outraged at Tesla when they are not doing anything illegal, especially when Sweden has historically refused to legislate. But I guess there is also a part of Elon-bashing here.

I don't "misunderstand what laws are", by the way, on the contrary. That's why I don't like mod rule and the replies on this here are actually worrying.

This whole thread is rather low quality, I am afraid to say... "Tesla bad" and that's it, basically.

> although I appreciate that you seem to have constructed an ethical system that isn't built around reducing suffering and increasing happiness for everyone

This has nothing to do with what I wrote and is no more than a thin-veiled ad hominem insult.

Well nothing in the law say you need to be polite, say hello, thank you and good bye. However good luck having decent collaboration and commercial entries if you yell at everyone and insult them.

Criticism is fine, but I think people should be careful not to conflate the two.

It’s fine to say “I think Tesla should pay more and not hire scabs”

The difference between law and opinion determines how this is enforced.

If actions are illegal, the government forces compliance.

If it is a matter of opinion, then it is up to the involved parties to sort it out themselves. This could be based on their negotiating leverage. Strikes, scabs, boycotts, and sympathy strikes are all fair game

> I'm a bit uncomfortable about companies being criticised for sticking to the law.

Are you serious? Should you only be allowed to criticise companies (and people?) when they break the law? That would be the end of free speech.

Obeying the law is not synonymous with doing good. The law is the very bottom line, but there's tons of shitty behaviour that's perfectly legal. That doesn't mean it's okay. There are tons of ways in which you can be an asshole without doing anything illegal. You won't go to prison, but people will criticise and avoid you.

Don't make the law your only basis for morality. Laws can be wrong, and they're certainly not enough. Because if you do that, you're basically demanding that every aspect of society be completely legislated, and that's a really bad idea.

Why so emotional?

There's different levels in criticism. Here Tesla seems to be hammered simply for sticking with the law. This is excessive, IMO: if what they are doing is so outrageous then that should not be allowed in law.

You're missing the point. Tesla gets hammered for treating their employees poorly and rejecting reasonable demands to fix the problem.

> Why so emotional?

I don't know. Ask Elon. He hasn't been very rational lately.

When it comes to ethics, the law should always be seen as the bare minimum, not the bar that we as society should actually expect people and companies to clear.

The problem is that what you call "ethics" is arbitrary. The law applied uniformly is actually a safety net to protect everyone against arbitrary actions.

That's why the rule of law has been so important in the struggle for free societies and liberty.