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.
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.
This is what unionization is, protects the worker regardless of 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.
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 .
These workers are friends, wives, husbands, relatives…
It’s more than justified.
A strike - whether because of your circumstances or another's - 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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
> 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, welcome to a free country where the state doesn't interfere. Truly a Rand-ian paradise. ;-)
Perhaps you are thinking of a general strike? This is a solidarity strike.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
Sweden is not the USA.
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...
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.
For example as a mail worker should I be able to opt out from delivering mail to politicians whose political statements I find deplorable?
It’s collective action and should be praised in an age where opaque corporations and oligarchs run everything.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Unchecked power is bad. Doesn’t matter if it’s a government, a company or a union.
I don’t know if you thought there was a contradiction there, but I don’t see it.
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.
What does that mean?
It defines the concept pretty well, which is somewhat valuable, but has few citations, which is unfortunate.
If the plates were to be delivered not to Tesla, but to an individual, then they wouldn't be allowed not to deliver them?
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.
And is there a precedent for what's happening now?
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.
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"
Ironically, I think this would be illegal in Sweden but might be legal in the US under Title VII exemptions.
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?
The thing is that government services must be provided to everyone or (if enough people are on strike) not at all.
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
Prevented, though, is harder. Prohibitions aren't always effective prevention.
Not everyone has state postal services like in the US
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
In my opinion, screw the Musk boy. There are other EV manufacturers.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I dunno much about Europe but if it's a private company, then rules and services are obviously different.
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.