Allowing the government owned post office to pick and choose who gets mail just seems like a step too far.

But even then the court wasn't forcing them to deliver mail, just allowing that mail to be picked up. And now that's blocked?

I just don't understand how one entity can have this much power, in this case they essentially are the government they could demand whatever the hell they wanted. Your choice is to leave the country or agree to the demands of the postal service.

People hate tesla and Musk right now so they'll by and large support this, but eventually the post office will realize how much power they weild and use it for some other gain.

And how is this not similar to the post office choosing not to deliver tax documents, forcing an entity to eventually become delinquent? The government agency responsible for sending license plates only uses the government owned mail provider (makes sense) but that provider can pick and choose who it delivers mail to?

>I just don't understand how one entity can have this much power, in this case they essentially are the government they could demand whatever the hell they wanted.

When you zoom out and look at the actors involved, this isn't all that strange. This is a strike - if the citizens of a country don't want to do business with a certain entity isn't that how the government, ideally, should work? Citizens should be able to demand whatever the hell they wanted; otherwise who does the government work for?

One union in Norway and one union in Denmark do not equal the "citizens" of Norway and Denmark.

The nordic countries, Norway, Denmark and Sweden have unionization rates in excess of 50% - to almost 70% in Sweden. The nordic countries have always shown solidarity when it comes to union negotiations all the way down to the rank and file. To pretend that this isn't desire of the electorate in those countries is willful ignorance.

It's absolutely bizarre to claim that self-determining nation has too much power against a foreign corporation.

I'd say we the citizens are largely in agreement and want Tesla (and Musk) to stop waging war on our model. The US having an antagonistic relationship with unions is not how we operate. Unions negotiate with our blessing and employers are by and large happy to deal with them.

So please consider that other models are possible that are cooperative not antagonistic.

They pretty much do in Denmark. It's the largest union that is in turn in union with the other large unions.

> don't understand how one entity can have this much power...choice is to leave the country or agree to the demands of the postal service...eventually the post office will realize how much power they weild and use it for some other gain

It's fairly constrained. They have leverage because the law gives Postnord a monopoly on delivering license plates.

If they abuse that narrow power, it's trivial to take it away without triggering any broader impacts. The fact that this is outside the political Overton window should say something about Tesla's public support.

> The only reason they have leverage is the law that gives Postnord a monopoly on delivering license plates

Is that a law or an exclusive contract between the government and PostNord, given after bidding and a tender process as they call it in Europe and Asian countries?

I think it's a contract, and contracts have exclusions in cases of forces majeures like strikes. Since the Transport Agency is required by law to provide plates for properly registered cars, I would think they would be required to let Tesla pick them up, or use a different carrier for Tesla plates.

Lots of guessing here.

There is an exclusive contract between the Swedish state and the postal company. There is also a contract that forbids the plate manufacturer from sending plates by any other means than post.

Transportstyrelsen does not agree that the current strike counts as a force majeure. This is (essentially) what the court case is about. Lower court agreed with you and allowed them to pick up plates themselves but the appeal court repelled that decision earlier today.

> Transportstyrelsen does not agree that the current strike counts as a force majeure

That's interesting, I wonder what their reasoning is, I thought strikes were included in the definition of force majeure in the law.

> There is an exclusive contract between the Swedish state and the postal company. There is also a contract that forbids the plate manufacturer from sending plates by any other means than post.

Isn't there a law that states the transport agency must provide lawfully registered plates? Usually laws trump contracts.

There is indeed such a law. There’s also a law saying that the state must provide me with a passport after I apply for one, but if their distribution system breaks down for whatever reason I cannot just show up at the passport making factory and demand my passport.

I think it’s obvious that Tesla will be allowed to get their plates sooner or later, and Transportstyrelsen does not seem to be of the view that they shouldn’t be. They are more concerned about the practicality and legality of letting them pick up the plates from the factory.

> contracts have exclusions in cases of forces majeures like strikes

Tesla can't call force majeure on a contract it isn't party to. If the Swedish government wanted to break the strike, it can--trivially. There is simply zero political will to do so.

> Tesla can't call force majeure on a contract it isn't party to

Yet Scandinavian workers seem to be able to join in on disputes they aren't party to.

> Yet Scandinavian workers seem to be able to join in on disputes they aren't party to

Yes, there is a difference between association and a legal contract. (As well as not doing something versus forcing someone to.)

The Swedish Transport Agency is required by law to provide plates. If it cannot fulfil its duties because of a force majeur event then it would be expected to explore alternatives like allowing plates to be picked up at the factory, which is not forbidden by law. It might be forbidden by the contract with PostNord, but PostNord is undergoing a force majeure so it cannot object to it.

> If the Swedish government wanted to break the strike, it can--trivially. There is simply zero political will to do so.

That won't be breaking the strike if plates are allowed to be picked up. If the government does not want to follow Swedish law and their duties, then the courts should force it to do so.

> If it cannot fulfil its duties because of a force majeur event then it would be expected to explore alternatives

I don’t know Swedish law. But this certainly isn’t the case in America.

The Swedish Transport Agency has already done their job. The plates are in transit.

Yes, Tesla can do exactly that. It's a standard clause in Nordic contracts. They're not liable if they have had even remotely competent council do their contracts.

My Visa card has a clause that the bank isn't liable if it stops working due to industrial action.

> a standard clause in Nordic contracts

What contract is Tesla party to that they would invoke this on? OP suggested Transport Agency invoking force majeure, which makes sense.

> has a clause that the bank isn't liable if it stops working due to industrial action

Who is suggesting liability for Tesla?

Its a law

Given that PostNord is jointly owned by the Swedish and Danish governments but is not a government agency, it's strange that there would be a law that exclusively forces the Swedish government to use PostNord.

There's also nothing in the law that states that plates have to be mailed and cannot be picked up, that's a operational decision by the Transport Agency. It's required by law to provide plates so it will be interesting to see how this turns out.

You may well think that, and i agree with you, but that is how the regulation is, afaik. The plates have to be distributed by mail and Postnord has to be used for it.

The deal is that whoever gets the contract has to deliver to all of the nation, not just where it's profitable. UPS, GPS, DPD etc won't commit to that because they don't earn enough money on that. PostNord is the only one who does, and therefore they're the only ones who can win the contract.

> Allowing the government owned post office to pick and choose who gets mail just seems like a step too far.

The government isn't doing this, workers are.

Wouldn't it be more problematic if the government stepped in and forced the hand against their workers, and in favour of a private company like Tesla?

No, it's not a problem when government employees are required to do their job.

Required by who? What is this entity that compels government employees to work? Is it Tesla? If so why? Or is it their citizens, who are by and large supportive of this movement?

> What is this entity that compels government employees to work?

Typically the entity that compels employees to to their job (or be fired) is their employer. That is, in fact, the defining relationship between employees and employers.

The employer here is the government. That's why they are _government employees_. Last I checked, Sweden wasn't under a dictatorship. So again, if the citizenry largely support the strike, what is this shadow entity that is requiring them work?

Government employees do not work for the nebulous collective will of the population. They work for the government, which is a structured entity.

This distinction is meaningless. The motivations of the "structured entity" is defined by the nebulous collective will of the population. If the elected members of the "structured entity" feel as though the best course of action is for those employees not work, then they don't have to work. I don't know why the needs to Tesla should have higher weight than those of electorate.

If PostNord was a private, shareholder owned company, sure those shareholders may value revenue over social cohesion.

> This distinction is meaningless.

Only if you subscribe to the most naive grade-school model of democracy. A government isn't actually the will of the people made manifest; it's an organization made up of people, processes, and constraints. Just like a corporation isn't actually the will of the shareholders made manifest.

> The motivations of the "structured entity" is defined by the nebulous collective will of the population.

Once again, this is an absurdly naive view of how governments function. There is a voting mechanism in place which usually does a sort of OK job of keeping the government's behavior in line with the population's preferences, but this breaks down all the time and even in equilibrium doesn't work very well.

I suggest reading Bueno de Mesquita's _The Logic of Political Survival_ if you're interested in developing a realistic model for how government behavior emerges.

No, the employer here is not the government. Please stop repeating this.

It is illegal to fire employees who are participating in lawful strike.

I would classify striking and not delivering to a specific entity as different things.

The latter is more easily able to be used for extortion.

Similar to cops deciding not to police a region populated by a certain tribe. Or, in the same vein, over policing a certain region/tribe.

Well, your classification truly does not matter in the slightest. This is legal in the Nordics. You know how you make it illegal? By signing the CBA, which if you're already providing better terms, doesn't change anything.

Almost all of the comments on this forum, or any online forum do not matter in the slightest. But perhaps we can use forums to discuss ideas.

Perhaps the world needs fewer Americans that speak so confidently about labour relations in other countries. As usual, 90% of what’s being said on this matter is utterly ill-informed back and forth by Americans that despite their best efforts can’t hide that they’ve bought in to the longstanding American anti-unionist culture.

Discussing ideas and making up hypotheticals are two distinct activities.

> Similar to cops deciding not to police a region populated by a certain tribe. Or, in the same vein, over policing a certain region/tribe.

You should have gone with firefighters.

Cops famously never act in solidarity with other workers. In fact, they actively work against workers' rights.

Cops "over policing", or more accurately, "targeting", most certainly violates certain fundamental rights. A mailman not delivering packages to some company offices does not.

Sure, use firefighters not putting out certain fires.

I would classify use of infrastructure as a right. Like if a toll booth operator refused to take money from certain people.

Also, in this case, it sounds like the workers are also not allowing anyone else to deliver the packages, so it is not just "a mailman not delivering packages to some company offices".

> I would classify use of infrastructure as a right. Like if a toll booth operator refused to take money from certain people.

We aren't talking about people here. Corporations don't have that kind of consideration in most of Europe.

Call it a "boycott". It's perfectly legal and obviously not comparable to cops targeting people in the slightest.

That may be the case, but that's not germane to our discussion, which concerns whether it's bad to fire people who don't do their job. This is a normative discussion, not a descriptive one.

The employees of PostNord are union. They presumably have protection from being fired.

These workers have rights, among them the right to strike.

Why would the government purposely try to restrict their rights, to appeal to a foreign company?

> Your choice is to leave the country or agree to the demands [of the government]

That's how all business works.

This isn't an agency-level decision. It's large numbers of individual postal workers not going to Tesla addresses.

> I just don't understand how one entity can have this much power, in this case they essentially are the government

In Sweden the unions own the government. Nordic countries can not be compared to modern republics such as the USA. There is little separation of powers.

Another way to say this is that people own the government.

No, the unions. That's definitely the case in Sweden but it's no longer quite the case in Denmark.

The interests of the people and the interests of the union don't overlap much.

You may want to substantiate the claims, as is this reads as far-right union-busting rhetoric.

The unions don't own the goverment. Or do you also belive that the nordics is full of socialists? And I'd much rather be a modern nordic country as compared to the USA where democracy is constantly threatened and bribing politicians is perfectly legal as long as you call it lobbying, the name a few modern examples

> Or do you also belive that the nordics is full of socialists?

Well, yes. Although the world is a lot more complicated than left vs right, the socialist parties have generally been the largest parties in Nordic countries, and the "conservative" parties do not rock the boat too much when they're in power. Because the voters wouldn't accept that.

> compared to the USA

It's a matter of taste and of values, but directly comparing these very different societies doesn't work well.

The unions "own" the government in the extent that they where tightly connected to the Socialist Democratic party that ruled Sweden for decades and are responsible for much of today's legislation. If you were a member of a union, they would on your behalf sign you up as a member of the Socialist Democratic party, until 1991.

So the unions are intertwined with the government in Nordic countries to an extent that is very unfamiliar to peopler from some other countries.

Another example is the government church in all the nordic countries, which is not much talked about, but indeed strange to people from other backgrounds.

> Because the voters wouldn't accept that.

So in other words the unions don't own the government so much as they own the voters (or is it the other way around)? I'd call a decision that voters agree on democracy.

> The unions "own" the government in the extent that they where tightly connected to the Socialist Democratic party that ruled Sweden for decades and are responsible for much of today's legislation. If you were a member of a union, they would on your behalf sign you up as a member of the Socialist Democratic party, until 1991.

Another explanation could be that both sides of the political spectrum agrees and thinks that the power re: labor decisions such as this _should_ lie with the unions, regardless of left/right lean. Even the "right" parties in Sweden are pro unions.

> Another example is the government church in all the nordic countries, which is not much talked about, but indeed strange to people from other backgrounds.

Huh? This hasn't been the case on paper since the year 2000 in Sweden, but in practice far longer than that. The church might still be called "Church of Sweden", but it has nothing to do with the government.

> So in other words the unions don't own the government so much as they own the voters (or is it the other way around)?

Yes, that's a good way to put it. Although memberships are rapidly decreasing in later years. The reasons for that can be saved for another discussion.

> Another explanation could be that both sides of the political spectrum agrees and thinks that the power re: labor decisions such as this _should_ lie with the unions, regardless of left/right lean. Even the "right" parties in Sweden are pro unions.

There really isn't any "both sides" of the political spectrum in Nordic countries when it comes to labour. The way the "right wing" parties can get elected at all is to say "We promise we're not going to do things differently than the left wing, but we'll give you a $100 more per year in tax deductions".

> Huh? This hasn't been the case on paper since the year 2000 in Sweden, but in practice far longer than that. The church might still be called "Church of Sweden", but it has nothing to do with the government.

It is still the case in Finland, Norway and Denmark. These countries have a government church, that performs government functions, and levies taxes to the church from your salary. You still have to fill in a form if you want to exit the government church. The year 2000 is not so far away, compared to when other nations separated church and state.

And AFAIK the former state church of Sweden (along with neighbouring countries) is still controlled by secular political parties, whose candidates are elected by church members. The largest church party by a huge margin being the Socialist Democrat party.

> There really isn't any "both sides" of the political spectrum in Nordic countries when it comes to labour. The way the "right wing" parties can get elected at all is to say "We promise we're not going to do things differently than the left wing, but we'll give you a $100 more per year in tax deductions".

That's exactly my point. I think we're in general agreement about the state of things, but perhaps not in the reasons behind it. I see a rational consensus and belief in a system. I don't believe that these parties pretend something simply to gain votes, and then, after gaining power, do nothing to further this alleged political agenda.

> It is still the case in Finland, Norway and Denmark. These countries have a government church, that performs government functions, and levies taxes to the church from your salary. You still have to fill in a form if you want to exit the government church.

The church tax still exists in Sweden, and is opt-out in a similar way as you describe for the other Nordic countries. The tax is used for things like church weddings, burial costs, etc. I agree that this is a little strange, but the fact of the matter is that this system (at least in Sweden) doesn't apply only to the Church of Sweden. If you are a member of another religious communities, the fee can instead go to this entity. (In Swedish: https://www.skatteverket.se/privat/skatter/arbeteochinkomst/...)

> The year 2000 is not so far away, compared to when other nations separated church and state.

Be that as it may, the time span wasn't really part of the initial discussion. And people living day-to-day up here knows that the church has little to no say in anything in society. It has been like that for a long time. I think if anything people coming from elsewhere might be surprised how secular Swedish people/Scandinavians are. I don't think anyone that moved here (or even grows up here) would ever think about the fact that there was a "state church" not even 25 years ago.

if the union cannot sympathize it's pathetic and useless and this not a union.

Post Nord is not government run. It’s a private company which serves multiple countries. People seem to have very confused ideas about Swedish institutions.

PostNord is a private company owned by the Swedish and Danish government and who has won a tender with the Swedish transport authority to carry out the deliveries for them.

Private workers for a private company exercising their union protected rights.

I thought Americans loved private companies? But apparently not when it’s a postal service and it affects a treasure like Tesla?

That's wild! As a (pseudo-) government agency, it seems like the postal service shouldn't be legally allowed to pick and choose whose mail to deliver and whose to withhold.

They're not allowed to pick and choose themselves. Why and when you can strike and sympathy strike is clearly defined, if you take action outside this framework it would be an illegal strike.

And just to add, the postal service in question is private and works like a private company, though the states of Sweden and Denmark fully owns it. Employees are not state employees.

> the postal service in question is private and works like a private company, though the states of Sweden and Denmark fully owns it.

A "private company" that is fully owned by the government is private company in name only; hence my calling it a pseudo-government agency. Especially for a legally-privileged function that is serving postal mail.

The government isn't meddling in the daily operation of Postnord. They can, via the board, replace the CEO. A blunt tool. The privileged function that is serving mail is clearly defined by law, but the right to strike is also clearly defined in law.

Doesn’t matter. Even when you’re fully owned by a government, unionization allows you to do this.

This is what unionization is, protects the worker regardless of your employer.

Unionization shouldn't be there to disrupt another company. It should be there so you can bargain against your employer. This seems really inappropriate.

> Unionization shouldn't be there to disrupt another company. It should be there so you can bargain against your employer.

That's what Tesla's employees are doing.

The point of a sympathetic strike is so that a small country's workforce can stand up to the likes of Tesla. Tesla can always withdraw from the Nordic market if they don't like the rules (which never changed). They don't want to do that because there is something there worth negotiating for.

But it's not a sympathetic strike. They're refusing to deliver Tesla's mail. They aren't striking against their employer.

I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the definition of "sympathetic strike".

> it's not a sympathetic strike...They aren't striking against their employer.

You're defining a sympathetic strike.

I don't have a view on whether this is justified. What I'll contest is that it was unforeseeable. It was obvious a refusal to negotiate would infuriate--it's happened dozens of times, almost always with American companies, and it's close to an element of national and regional pride at this point. It wasn't a certainty, but there was a definite risk of it escalating across Sweden. And from there it was and is a virtual certainty that it would spread across Scandinavia, and from there will across the Nordic countries and eventually Northern Europe.

This is a stupid molehill to die on for Tesla. They should bite the bullet and devolve Swedish operations to a local franchise who can enter into a collective-bargaing agreement .

Probably, yes they should. Clearly Elon Musk has never seen The Godfather!

Or can't decide which role he's playing. :-)

Their refusal to deliver mail can be viewed as a partial strike I guess

They are increasing the pressure on a company which is not treating their workers well and fairly.

These workers are friends, wives, husbands, relatives…

It’s more than justified.

You're missing the point. I'm not debating the validity of whether people should leave Tesla and go work somewhere else. I'm saying that it's not a strike if you're just refusing service to a customer.

A strike - whether because of your circumstances or another's - is you downing tools and stopping working.

> it's not a strike if you're just refusing service to a customer...a strike...is you downing tools and stopping working

This hasn't been what a strike has meant in Scandinavia for a century.

I'm American. I broadly think unions are ineffective and corrupt. But it's ridiculous to claim this strike is unprecedented. Even the pattern of an American company being flummoxed by it is deeply precedented.

If you want to do business in the Nordic countries, you respect the collective-bargaining process. That doesn't capitulation. It doesn't even mean you must enter into one. But you can't blow it off, and at that so dismissively.

> If you want to do business in the Nordic countries, you respect the collective-bargaining process.

And if you want to do business in many other countries, you have to pay bribes -- or campaign contributions or hire someone's incompetent nephew or hire people with the right "discriminated against" skin colour. That's not legal, either.

Are you seriously comparing collective bargaining with bribing officials?

No, I’m not. I’m on mobile, and failed to convey my message.

What I tried to say is, postal workers are increasing pressure on a company which is treating their workers unfairly, and these workers are connected to the postal workers in a way.

So, what postal workers are doing is justified.

I'm not saying that employees shouldn't do certain things if they really don't like a company. Don't buy their products. Post opinions publically. Actually go on strike at your own employer.

I'm saying I don't think that refusing individual service to a customer is a good idea. It seems highly prone to groupthink and as it comes at zero cost to the striking party, prone to misuse as well. Actual striking is moderately balanced because it's limited and comes at a cost to both parties.

It seems simpler to just not work for the company. My understanding is they aren't treating their employees unfairly; they just aren't entering into the union merry-go-round. Their current employees all agreed to employment under the current situation, and now seem to be changing their minds once they've secured employment. But I could be wrong on that last part - perhaps this was promised and that was withdrawn.

> seems highly prone to groupthink and as it comes at zero cost to the striking party

In most cases, there is an alternative service provider. In this case there isn't, but there is also zero public will to change that due to the facts and circumstances of the dispute. Were those different, Postnord would be risking its monopoly on license-plate delivery.

I mean, in this case this is both their legal right and higher court ruled that it’s legal and doable.

So, who are we to judge? It’s their country and their laws. I just stated that, their laws and the way of action they took resonates with me. That’s all.

> I'm saying that it's not a strike if you're just refusing service to a customer.

> is you downing tools and stopping working.

These aren't exclusive, it's just they've downed tools and stopped working for the customer the strike is against. People don't join unions for their employer, they join unions for their industry. Therefore a union can strike against an employer while maintaining working for those not breaking collective agreements.

Tesla isn't breaking a collective agreement.

This is true and I upvoted your comment.

Tesla, welcome to a free country where the state doesn't interfere. Truly a Rand-ian paradise. ;-)

Pretty sure Rand would say that if you join a company on a certain employment basis, you shouldn't then decide it's suddenly not good enough. But I haven't read any of her books, so I won't claim that very strongly!

You're right, I didn't write my original point very well. I'll blame it on Covid and rambling from bed lol.

A strike has a legal definition which is not open for debate.

Perhaps you are thinking of a general strike? This is a solidarity strike.

On the contrary, it's a crucial part of collective bargaining. You have to be large enough to bargain effectively.

Companies in the Nordics aren't alone either, they have employers' organizations where a whole sector of employers band together to bargain with the unions. These discussions then produce collective agreements that bind the whole sector for a given timespan.

It might sound alien to some, but it has guaranteed stable work conditions and a dedicated workforce for a century already.

I'm not saying they shouldn't go on strike. I'm saying that they aren't on strike, as they're still working. Refusing to service one customer isn't striking.

It's just one company that doesn't play ball so a full strike wouldn't be appropriate reaction, especially as employers' organization apparently isn't a participant here. Say, striking dockworkers can paralyze the whole economy, all sectors. It's not a step to be taken lightly.

It's not just one company "not playing ball". Spotify, with ten times as many affected employees in Sweden, also doesn't have an agreement.

> It's not a step to be taken lightly.

Well, there's no balancing downside to doing it this way. Workers still get paid. So they can do this pretty lightly, assuming their employers allow them to just discriminate against certain customers.

> Well, there's no balancing downside to doing it this way.

With the dockworkers example there is a massive downside: you mess up all industries doing any export or import. You really need a large buy-in before doing something that can mess up all unrelated industries, and thus potentially employment. In a small country no union operates in a vacuum, you'd quickly lose all goodwill.

Edit: I think I answered off your point, which was about the specific company. Yes I don't think there's any big downside now, but if Tesla was playing by the book they would have the industry behind them. They are just choosing a more difficult way.

To be clear: they are playing by the book. This is a power play to get them to set up a locally-owned subsidiary that runs things. It happens in various places. In China it's even more strongly enforced.

Well, while it's completely legal, it's not entirely by the book. It starts to get a bit of a gray area when you reach a certain size.

The unions, including the employer unions (NB!), have during the past century kept the country's lawmakers mostly out of regulating workforce agreements, including things like minimum pay, workplace insurance, and large parts of the pension system. These things are regulated by sector, and the regulations are re-bargained on a set schedule by these parties alone.

You can't stay out of these agreements for too long once you reach a certain size. The unions are trusted to handle this by their own. That is mostly done by sweetening the deal until it is accepted, usually by signing away the fundamental right to strike. It is not obvious if such fundamental rights really are bound to contract, especially not with the European Court, but it has resulted in a society where strikes are almost unheard of. Calling a strike without the backing of a union is pretty ineffective anyway, and the unions have their self interest in strong companies that can compete internationally and provide new jobs for the workforce.

The only times strikes are called are when some company will not present a counterparty to a contract negotiation, which is what this situation is. That happens once every decade and when it happens the unions all move in unison with several decades of money saved up, to show their might in order to make the affair as swift as possible. It's something that is often rehearsed often and seldom practiced.

Solidarity strikes are expected as a show of force. Things will escalate from there. While the part about an offer you can't refuse clearly has some similarities with mafia operations, the boundaries are clearly defined by law. There are lawyers specializing in this their entire careers.

Comparing this with the Chinese system misses the point by a mile.

The unions don't go after companies that provide better than CBA to all employees. I don't know if that's the case with Spotify though.

Sorry - what's CBA?

It will be interesting to see how long Spotify keeps operating without an agreement given recent news.

And protection against that is one of the things a company gains by making a collective agreement with a union. Without such an agreement, it is a grand melee between companies and unions.

The problem is exactly that Tesla refuses to bargain with the union. Once you are dealing with the unions you will be safe from sympathetic strikes.

It seems like the people of the country were willing to do business with Tesla, but elmu refused to negotiate the terms under which the business would be done. No negotiation = no terms = no business.

If this is what elmu wants, so be it. The people of the country will continue deciding how to run their country without this particular arrogant rich narcissist.

I don't understand - haven't the people to do the work already been hired? Wasn't business already being done? This is a post-hoc change to the agreed terms of employment by the employees.

I would be happy to help you understand. Two concepts at play here, which are important to understand, are sympathy strikes (I'll leave it to you to check out the term and read up on the logic behind the action) and precedent setting (the people of the country don't wish to set a precedent of employers refusing to collectively bargain with workers).

We should unioninze the military.

See https://euromil.org/our-members/ for the European military unions.

We had the same conversation the last time it was posted. It’s exhausting.

Sweden is not the USA.

You'd be (rightfully) treated as a conspiracy nut if you said even half the things in this comment chain in Scandinavia.

Postnord is a bit of a red herring. If the tender to distribute the registration plates had gone to UPS instead, Tesla would have had exactly the same problem with UPS workers.

Don't know why this was downvoted.. This is not Postnord's decision, it's the workers, and the same workers at UPS or any other postal delivery service could do the same.

In theory that would not absolve the government from providing core services. For example, teachers can go on strike but children are guaranteed a primary education. It'd be the government's responsibility, not the individual citizen or business, to ensure core services enshrined in law are properly staffed.

Yea.. And a car is a privilege, so not even remotely comparable.

Agree, I don't know what Transportstyrelsen has to say about the interruption in their service this provides. My guess is that they do have the contract with PostNord and are just pretty hesitant to break that and rather wait and see if the problem goes away. The government wouldn't get involved just for a few weeks of postal problems for newly registered very expensive cars, it's not like a crucial service to the people.

Yeah so basically they're complaining they've got a court approved government sanction. They're technically free to whine like North Korea does, as they see fit, I guess.

Fully owned by the state, not the government.

That's simply another pedantic distinction to justify state-owned and state-mandated organizations not providing core government services.

These terms usually mean the same thing. Do you want to explain the difference you're trying to highlight?

On this side of the atlantic at least, the government tends to just mean the prime minister / head of government and their cabinet (and to an extent the associated political parties in charge).

Ok so what is a general term for your courts, your legislature, your bodies responsible for defense and foreign policy, your securities and banking, your monetary policy, etc? It's all government.

The state? Government just isn't used as a term for that here, except as an encroaching americanism.

In amareicanese the government is called the administration.

> And just to add, the postal service in question is private and works like a private company, though the states of Sweden and Denmark fully owns it. Employees are not state employees.

I don't think you understand how a private company works. You can't say it is a private company owned by the state - if that is the case, it is a public government agency, no matter how you want it not to be. So in short, a government agency chooses if it wants to work or not...

SOEs are extremely common even in the US.

Why would you say that? It's clearly not a government agency. It is a company.

It's not something one can have an opinion on. It is a fact, and an important one for the people working there. Being a government worker comes with certain rights and responsibilities, neither of which is the case here.

But even if it had been a government agency, government workers have the fundamental human right to strike too. There are a few exceptions, and then there are special laws for times of war, but none that are applicable now.

Right, and they don’t. The workers do.

Should a mail worker be able to decide who gets their mail and who don't?

For example as a mail worker should I be able to opt out from delivering mail to politicians whose political statements I find deplorable?

You wouldn't have the right to do that by Swedish law. You only have the right to strike.

Posnord isn't striking. They are doing everything else and except servicing tesla.

It’s the same thing as delivery drivers refusing to cross a picket line. You stand in solidarity with fellow striking workers, because their wellbeing is directly related to your own.

It’s collective action and should be praised in an age where opaque corporations and oligarchs run everything.

Completely independent of if you think it is good or bad, it is clear that that the postnord sympathy action is not a strike or walkout.

What is it then?

Simply denying service.

If Starbucks workers go to work all day and serve every customer but Bob, that's not a strike or walkout. Those terms have real definitions.

That doesn't mean it isn't a union activity.

Seems like if the reason for it is within the law regulating worker action, it is, in fact, union activity, and is, in fact, a strike against Bob, according to some Nordic countries.

Is your sole problem with the fact that people are calling something a strike, and you personally don't think they should, according to your possibly single-country-centric view of the term, or is there a substantive objection?

Postnord isn't striking but workers are.

And then you can strike by selectively refusing to deliver mail for _one_ entity?

I mean, call it whatever you want, but it is a selective strike and a government agency shouldn’t have the right to do that. You either don’t deliver _any_ mail, or you deliver it all.

Btw I can totally empathize with the reason of the autoworkers strike, yet not agree with this.

A key element of a strike is that you don't get paid.

However, it appears the striking mail workers are being paid, even though they are not delivering mail to Tesla.

That in turn gives them a lot of power, because they can keep this strike going for as long as they like with no cost to themselves.

I honestly don't see what so bad about the union action here. Would honestly love to understand what you don't like about this.

You don’t see anything wrong with public workers selectively punishing _one_ entity of their arbitrary choosing?

Unchecked power is bad. Doesn’t matter if it’s a government, a company or a union.

They're not public workers anymore after the liberalisation in the early 2000s. They didn't have the right to strike before that. Because it's a private company, they can strike. Who owns the shares is irrelevant in that context.

From your previous comment, you’re stating you are okay if the union declined to deliver everyone’s mail, which sounds like you’re fine with unchecked power that expresses itself without discrimination.

Correct. I’m not contesting the power to strike, I’m contesting the power to selectively target entities in such strikes.

I don’t know if you thought there was a contradiction there, but I don’t see it.

It doesn’t make sense to consider indiscriminate withholding of services through a strike not “unchecked power,” while selecting specific targets (which is far less disruptive to the market as a whole) as such.

It’s also not an arbitrary choice. It’s a business that’s clearly in dispute with another union, that this union has decided to intervene on behalf of. It’s not like they’re striking against a company that was just minding its own business.

Perhaps there can be labor relations boards and anti-discrimination regulation and such to prevent abuse of selective striking, but this is obviously a situation where everyone is a player and knows what game they’re playing.

There’s nothing arbitrary about it. A worker can’t just declare a strike, that’s illegal. The company the postal company works for, also agreed to these terms.

They've laid it out pretty well. A strike is downing tools and not showing up to work. Not doing your work, but neglecting certain customers.

…according to you:) This is a so called sympathy strike: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarity_action

The only example of this exact thing in there is...the exact thing against Tesla we're talking about. Everything else is striking against a related company to one's employer's company.

Well, its wikipedia. Im not sure what you are arguing against. Sympathy strikes are guaranteed by the Swedish constitution.

> Well, its wikipedia

What does that mean?

Wikipedia still has some ways to go when it comes to the history of various smaller countries, I guess. And in even in English it has some gaps.

Yes, but they're the ones citing it. I don't understand their response in light of that.

Now you made me read the link. :-D

It defines the concept pretty well, which is somewhat valuable, but has few citations, which is unfortunate.

The only clear citation of this definition of "sympathy strikes" is... the current Tesla issue :)

Yes.

* and the strike must be lawful, to strike. You couldn’t arbitrarily strike and stop delivering mail to Trump for example.

Sorry if I am obtuse, but what's the difference between Trump and a specific company? That one is a legal entity?

If the plates were to be delivered not to Tesla, but to an individual, then they wouldn't be allowed not to deliver them?

I probably shouldn't have complicated things by mentioning an individual, I really don't know if that could even be possible. Imagine I said Republican Party.

The key thing is that for a strike to be declared it has to be called for by the union, it would be unprecedented to call a strike for political action against a party.

>it would be unprecedented

And is there a precedent for what's happening now?

You'd have to a) convince a majority of your coworkers, and b) have some associated, relevant labor demand. A strike isn't just "I don't want to do this."

It is not a question of what is allowed. The company delivering parcels must fulfill their contracts, but the contracts clearly have stipulations for force majeure. Which a strike is, by the very definition.

What is not clear here? Sweden has very few strikes, but this is a textbook example of one. The postal worker's union have called for their members to refuse to carry out a specific work. This is well within their rights to do. The union calls for this as part of a collective action for their fellow workers.

The company delivering the parcels could call for their employer's union to lock out the workers on strike. But why would they want to escalate the conflict? They too prefer their collective bargaining agreements respected. And they are clearly not in violation of any of their contracts as this is a legal strike.

There are plenty of gray areas within worker's rights, but this is as simple as it could be.

Absolutely not! But that isn't what is happening here.

Compare and contrast the reception Swedish mail workers are getting for their behavior, versus Kim Davis, who refused to issue an otherwise non-problematic marriage license(which was part of her job).

Even Davis was ultimately allowed to refuse to issue licenses personally; she just couldn't forbid the deputy clerks from doing it (only one of whom, her son, also refused). She also had an elected position with an oath of office, not an employment contract.

Actually, the judge ordered that the deputy clerks must issue the marriage licenses(save for her son), unless they wanted to be held in contempt of court.

I'm not sure how the path matters much. It contains language along the lines of "I will faithfully execute, to the best of my ability, the office of...."

I'm imagining having religious qualms about certain behaviors would fall under "best of my abilities"

> For example as a mail worker should I be able to opt out from delivering mail to politicians whose political statements I find deplorable?

Ironically, I think this would be illegal in Sweden but might be legal in the US under Title VII exemptions.

I find it insane that the workers of the state-owned postal office can decide what mail to deliver based on their personal views.

What's next, the mass transit drivers refusing to stop near Tesla's offices? Court workers refusing to accept Tesla's lawsuits? Firemen refusing to put out fire on Tesla's properties?

It’s a strike. How could the workers be prohibited from deciding whether to strike?

By living and working in the U.S.. Most commenters here are wrongly assuming workers in Sweden have as little rights as they do, and probably just as exploited as well.

Well, you are the one wrongly assuming. I am from Slovakia, and we have strong labour laws and strikes all the time.

The thing is that government services must be provided to everyone or (if enough people are on strike) not at all.

I'm not sure when Slovakia entered the chat, but I was responding to the parent's question of how could the workers (in Sweden) be prohibited from deciding whether to strike, and was trying to make a point that US commenters go by US laws which do not apply here.

You were replying to a user who asked me a question and you were explaining my views to them…

The Swedish model makes it so that we rarely have large strikes, despite having strong unions, as typically companies work together with the unions rather than against the unions.

In a way the Swedish model has found an equilibrium between company powers and workers right that has been very productive.

Until an ignorant American enters the market and think he knows better than everyone else

Prohibited is easy. Just pass a law making it illegal for workers in that agency to strike, or to advocate, promote, discuss, etc., potential strikes (that may conflict with existing law, be politically difficult, etc., but the mechanism is clear.)

Prevented, though, is harder. Prohibitions aren't always effective prevention.

There are no agency workers who are participating in any strikes? Unlike the US we have a privatized postal service and the old postal service is now merged with the danish postal service and co-owned between the Swedish and Danish states and competing on an open market with other postal services.

Not everyone has state postal services like in the US

Are they on strike? I thought they were just refusing to provide services to single customer.

That would be a sympathy strike.

_Sympathy strikes_ only make sense when directed towards the target of the original strike.

If all sympathy strikes were to be total walkouts then it would result in a general strike and that doesn’t target any specific party and thus doesn’t put pressure on them

I would expect them to stop working at all instead of de facto stealing parcels belonging to a single customer.

They can't decide based on personal views. That is illegal. It's only legal during a strike.

I think the next one will be payment processing not being completed for Tesla. Mass transit drivers could do that. Court & Firemen must guarantee a minimum level of service on their strikes, so that’s unlikely.

I don’t know what I think, it’s not a normal situation in my country. Businesses sign the union agreement, because it is a collaborative process between the union and the employer. The whole system is predicated on good faith. Tesla is openly being adversarial and the union has now after years said enough, and declared a legal strike. Strikes are usually resolved long before this stage. Unions in Denmark and Norway don’t often go on sympathy strikes for Swedish unions.

In my opinion, screw the Musk boy. There are other EV manufacturers.

Firemen and police are unlikely to strike, but expect to see them to start losing bank service, office services, and trash services next. Then, expect neighboring countries to start doing the same.

Sweden has few strikes. In fact, hardly any. Worker's rights are generally by contract rather than by law. When the unions move in unison like this, they come prepared and expect to win.

It is an existential issue for them, in a literal sense. Should they lose, laws will be rewritten and trade agreements will have to be renegotiated.

I’m not sure what exactly the rules are in these foreign countries, but it doesn’t seem unbelievable that the state could end up bound by a contract with the union. In a good country, the state also follows rules and laws and makes contracts, after all.

Particularly, as you note, in the case of a pseudo-government agency like Postnord.

The only tricky bit, IMO, is the requirement that the plates must be delivered by Postnord. If it is a bit of law, it seems a little unfair that there should be a legal requirement to do business with Postnord.

I thought there’d been a story recently about some alternative arrangement where the plates were instead delivered to a dealership or something, and the people could pick them up… I wonder if that changed.

Please, if you want to call it pseudo-something, call it pseudo-state agency. The government own nothing except their personal stuff, hopefully.

Its owned by the State. Two of them even. One of them can call for a board meeting and fire the CEO (who does not have any right to force his employees). But it is not owned by the government.

Please continue the discussion,i just wanted it out.

That’s fair, I was just sticking to the language used in the comment I responded to.

Of course, it is an easy mistake for those of us in the US to make; we tend to use “government” more generally. I guess because we used the name “states” for our province-sized administrative unit thingies.

Yeah, it wasn't against you or your take, it was the nth post saying it and it bothered me. I also just wanted to disagree with some on the internet because I'm procrastinating.

I'm guessing that in this case enforcing that would break the right of government employees to strike.

UPS and FedEx are mail delivery companies that are completely unrelated to US Government.

I dunno much about Europe but if it's a private company, then rules and services are obviously different.

UPS and FedEx also arent allowed to touch your mailbox, and don't have their own law enforcement wing.

Swedish postal service is open to any private actor and does not have any law enforcement wing.

Lots of companies have access to the mail boxes. I know of at least three companies that deliver to my mailbox + one that delivers marketing materials to it.

Is it the employees or the agency that decided that?

At this point, I honestly just hope the standoff continues because I want to see how many moves each side has. This is really interesting to watch as somebody who isn't affected by it directly.

Government workers deciding not to provide services to specific entities or people they are in dispute with is a bridge that I can only assume should have some pretty serious consequences.

The sad truth is there is plenty of room for Musk to make things much worse. I imagine he can deny them SpaceX payloads. Starlink was just made available to them as well. He could throttle or deny their uplinks and downlinks.

Starlink is such a niche product in Sweden, it would be such a pointless move that would go by totally without notice. The vast majority of Sweden is covered by 4G and 90% 5G coverage is excpeted within a year. Broadband via fiber is ubiquitous and a lot cheaper than the USA (at least in the comparisons I've seen).

Can't speak about spacex not sure if any Swedish companies do business with them.

Sweden has to double down on Esrange I guess

Even worse than that, he could make fun of them on Twitter!

I hope he does, it would seriously incentivise someone to build a competing service!

Does Starlink matter at all in Sweden? I've always assumed they have robust Internet connectivity and 4G/5G like we do in Finland.

Not just in Sweden, but also the massive Norwegian and Maersk shipping businesses. I assume they already have it on many of the ships.

https://www.maersk.com/news/articles/2023/10/12/maersk-signs...

It does not, totally irrelevant product for most people, especially since it is way more expensive than uncaped 4G/5G and most people have a cheap and fast physical unlink at home.

Might be useful for some cabins way out in the wilderness or on an island. But maybe not even then, my grandparents cabin has fiber

Well, he can. But if he does then every other country that currently uses SpaceX for their payloads may end up thinking twice about giving the megalomaniac even more power.

Because: normal people just obey the laws of the countries where they do business.

Musk will end up self destructing over something like this sooner or later, the guy has no sense of when to back down and just keeps on taking on parties with power until he loses and when he loses it will be at a level that he won't be able to recover from. You pick your battles with care, and this is one that was utterly unnecessary. After all the damage the Tesla brand has suffered on account of his Twitter antics (I refuse to call it 'X') he really doesn't need more, especially not in a market that was so far a substantial plank in Tesla's strategy and a country with massive early adoption.

That will just get SpaceX sued for breach of contract.

They're almost all private workers exercising their right of association (or lack thereof) with a person who they believe is mistreating or trying to mistreat workers.

If a "customer" walks into a store and starts mistreating workers, it's totally reasonable for them to tell the customer to buzz off, and for their employer to support them. What kind of terrible boss or society would force workers to service their abuser?

If elmu wants to throw his money around to exploit and abuse workers, he can do it somewhere else. Few others seem to be having this issue, so it seems the root cause is him and his behavior. Whether or not he fixes himself, Sweden did and will do fine without this 1 rich narcissist with oppositional defiant disorder.

It’s fun to see Americans upset over private workers exercising their rights and the fact that Swedish postal service is a private business, must hurt to realize that the Nordics in many ways has less government overhead than the US :D

Eventually, Tesla Sweden will go bankrupt. IF Metall will go to the union for the financial industry at some point. That means no more financial services for Tesla Sweden. Then they can't sell cars(must be in SEK in Sweden), they can't pay suppliers and their workers. If they can't pay their workers, it triggers automatic bankruptcy proceedings where the courts start seizing things to ensure that the workers will be paid. They began the same process with Toys'r'us and the company immediately folded when they realised the consequences.

Don't worry, the courts aren't on strike against Tesla.

PostNord is experiencing a force majeure under Swedish law, i.e a strike. I would think that the govt Transport Agency's exclusive contract with them provides an out with them in cases of force majeure to use alternate means, like allowing Tesla to pick up the plates from the factory or use a different carrier to deliver plates, since plates are mandated by the state and the Transport Agency is required to provide them by law.

Also it's one thing to refuse pickup, but PostNord employees are picking up the plates from the factory and then storing them at PostNord. The plates are definitely not the property of PostNord, they are either the property of the state Transport Agency, Tesla or the car owners. Accepting the package and then holding someone else's property seems a bit strange, especially given that these are not even Tesla's striking employees. I wonder how strong property laws are in Sweden.

The factory is privately owned, and the workers there can just strike. Tesla isn't getting anything regardless.

It’s interesting because free speech has become very expensive speech for Musk.

I hope Elon gets the license plates delivered by courier, which really cannot be that expensive.

Then the unions have to figure out their next steps.

Get your popcorn

That card was attempted to be played and found illegal the first 5 minutes of this interesting tangle between Tesla and unions. :-)

Couriers can do absolutely the same)))

Wonder if the available couriers are all in the same union though? :)

Well there is only 1 courier available for legal reasons and none of the other couriers would deliver them either. :p

> People can and should fight for their rights

> Tesla cannot and shouldn't fight for their rights

Very logical and balanced position among other issues with your comment

Capital punishment for people who strike using the post office?

Easy. Should Tesla continue to play hardball, the next step is likely the union of bank workers cutting off their financial services.

There are few courier companies large enough to take their service, even in a scenario where the contract for license plate delivery can be breached (which it isn't, as this is force majeure by definition), but there are even fewer banks. And they're all unionized.

Not much need for popcorn. Refusing to negotiate is clearly not a winning strategy. And it's not supposed to be.

Wow, Scandinavia - Big Brother's Man Cave!

No substantial bad factory conditions or request for higher pay, "just agree to collective bargaining agreements, that's all."

I was a welder back in NY in 1997, and joined a company and I was told by the Union's lackey that joining the union was voluntary. At the end of my three months, the thug came looking for dues. He clarified, "it's voluntary, you can take another job." Since then, the taste of a mobster mentality has steered me away from unions for the rest of my life. They once served a purpose, but my opinion is they have become less important and do not really do what they advertise.

The Swedish Trade Unions are dropping due to the ratio of native workers vs. immigrant workers, so it is a matter of time before the homogeneity of the population goes down, and trade unions with it. They're partially isolated from the EU, but too dependent to not suffer the coming collapse of the EU economies. Musk could just say FU to them too. With over 125,000 global employees, and a lot of countries subsidizing EVs to hide their real costs, the 170 Swedish laborers would quickly be out of a lot of work, and Sweden can buy other EVs and deal with them. The Tesla is most popular in Sweden, then Norway, and finally Denmark. The people who have already bought them would know who was responsible for them not being able to get their Tesla's fixed - not Elon, but their own government and unions. See how many other businesses get cold feet doing business in Scandinavia from this.

Maybe we'll see graveyards of Teslas in Scandinavia like we do of EVs due to failed startups in China. No win for anyone.

> do not really do what they advertise.

Now there's a hot take in light of the largest worker gains in decades, entirely because of unions, just in the last couple years.

Unions are too adversarial in relation with business owners/managers for a Pareto efficency in most of modern economies. What they do mostly is forcing a price on labour due to their cartel like strenght, when they are not sitting on their asses.