Sweden’s Tesla blockade is spreading — Starting Friday, dockworkers in all Swedish ports will refuse to offload Teslas, cleaning crews will no longer clean showrooms, and mechanics won’t fix chargi…::Starting Friday, dockworkers in all Swedish ports will refuse to offload Teslas, cleaning crews will no longer clean showrooms, and mechanics won’t fix charging points as the labor dispute rages on.
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The kind of class solidarity I can only dream of as a yank
Solidarity
Autocorrect got me, thanks
There’s a joke in here somewhere. As a ‘yank’ your keyboard won’t even allow you to write the word solidarity without changing it. 🤔
You really need to get the unions going.
Domn Salitaire
Salame
There are three battles wise men know not to fight:
- A land war in Asia
- The Finns in winter
- Swedish Unions
Napoleon learned the hard way
For context: Finns won war against entire USSR.
The Finnish still had to cede territory to the USSR but in protecting their country they did wipe the floor with the Soviets.
Yeah they even handed over more territory than the Soviets initially demanded, but they got to retain their sovereignty and reputation. It also led Hitler to underestimate the Soviets, leading to their hard won victory in WW2 against the Nazis, who had willingly opened themselves to war on two fronts.
So it’s a potential hinge point in that if the Soviets didn’t suck so bad in the Winter War or didn’t go through with it, Hitler might not have made what was debatably the biggest strategic error of the war.
Nope. They lost, but inflicted heavy casualties
Three days later, on November 20, the Seko union, which represents postal workers, will stop delivering letters, spare parts, and pallets to all of Tesla’s addresses in Sweden. “Tesla is trying to gain competitive advantages by giving the workers worse wages and conditions than they would have with a collective agreement,” said Seko’s union president, Gabriella Lavecchia, in a statement. “It is of course completely unacceptable.”
Interesting that it is legal to withhold mail. In many countries that would be a crime.
There are many ways to legally do this. They may just adhere to regulations more strictly. Where before they would bend the rules to help out.
They might just schedule Tesla’s mail for the end of the day and be extra “careful” that day. Oops, there wasn’t enough time to deliver their mail! Maybe after a few days of a customer’s mail building up, there’s a rule saying the customer has to come in and get it themselves. Following all the rules exactly will fuck up any system because they are rarely created with overall productivity in mind.
“This parcel is kinda sus and looks like bomb parts. Regulations says to fill form A123 and wait for ministry that no longer exists fill form B456. Whatever, regulation says so.”
Probably pretty hard to punish your entire work force. Next they could start boycotting you for punishing them. Or maybe their tariff contract may also cover this as legal strike action.
I wonder if the difference is in refusing to deliver, but allowing pickup
But who will pick up, if nobody want to work at tesla?
Elmo can come pick it up himself.
They don’t withhold, they just don’t deliver.
Maybe Tesla even can send their employee to pick up letters and stuff. Right, nobody want to work at Tesla. Well, tough luck.
Sorry but what’s the difference between intentionally not delivering and withholding? Semantics?
To me it seems pretty clear: withholding means you don’t get your mail delivered and cannot fetch it yourself at the post office, while “not delivering” means just that: you don’t get your mail delivered.
It’s still available to pick up from a post office, they just don’t do last mile delivery
I think if you don’t open the mail and only withhold it from being delivered, so not destroying it, it’s morally fine. That doesn’t say anything about laws though ^^
Worker solidarity is lovely to see. Good luck Sweden!
Thank you! We will strangle them out!
As a Dane I’m bloody embarrassed if Danish unionised workers are unloading the cars there. They should bloody strike with their Nordic brothers and sisters.
How does Tesla treat their workers and wages in Denmark? Are they bellow par?
I don’t live in Denmark so I don’t know. But I don’t think Tesla has signed a deal with any union, globally, so it’s probably the same there. I’d personally love to see the Space Baby brought to heel. Growing up with unions as a natural fabric of society, and indeed with unions on the boards of most business in Denmark, it’s never appeared as an adversarial thing to me until I moved to an Anglo-Saxon country.
Norwegian dock workers are joining the swedes at least. Even though Tesla in Norway is unionized
Proud to be a member of the Swedish metalworkers union!
Black metal or death metal workers? 🤘🤘
We are music agnostic, need to keep our eyes on the ball and not descend into the madness that is metal genre debates.
as long as it’s kult, right?
Obviously not dead metal workers, they have the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work
Nice
Like Ironworkers, steelworkers or tinbenders? They are all separate unions here in the US though all three are AFL-CIO.
If anyone is wondering, Ironworkers are erectors, steelworkers work in foundries and steel mills and tinbenders are sheet metal guys. Roughly.
We are quite diverse and do not conform to the old guilds.
Everything from miners, autobody, forgeworkers to locksmiths and metal shops.
That’s the way it should be and would be here in the US but for a suite of historical and socio-political influences that have tended to fracture the skilled trade unions into different specialties.
Fortunately most of the big unions fall under the AFL-CIO umbrella, but our laws are such that it’s not the case that AFL-CIO can negotiate as a single block.
And of course some of that is simply due to scale since what makes sense in one part of the US doesn’t necessarily make sense in another.
Will someone please give me the cliffs notes on how Tesla has pissed off the Swedes?
It didn’t sign a deal with the unions and tried to strongarm its way through it
I see, so another case of Americans thinking their rules apply everywhere.
To be fair, Tesla is owned by a South African who immigrated to Canada, then the US - and had apartheid slaves do the hard part of precious stone mining.
Much like the former cheetoh in chief, completely removed from the realities others face, and never had to deal with consequences.
It isn’t a solely American thing, though we may be the world champs at it.
Rupert Murdoch is another great example. Thanks Australia. Thanks a lot.
It’s funny how we all do that. You see it in immigrants that bring their best practices and learned culture to their new homes.
It’s a tale as old as time. We certainly did not abandon our European ways, and adopt the original American native lifestyle upon our arrival to the continent. It certainly affected our ways for survival but we certainly pushed our way of life without a doubt with its European economic and religious values.
So the circle of life now? 😇
And now they suffer the consequences, serves them right.
That seems unwise.
Reading the article, it seems they do not have basic minimum wages set federally and collective agreements are the basis in all workplaces.
I have to wonder if Tesla will just find other ways to get the product into the country instead. Unconfirmed local reports say that the cars are being unloaded in Danish ports then driven into Sweden.
Toys are Us refused to sign a collective agreement in the mid 90s but was convinced to sign after similar strike actions.
So it seems Sweden might still have a strong union environment and will be able to affect public sentiment about Tesla in the long term as they even mention people refusing services from Tesla based taxis.
The original trigger is that Tesla refused to negotiate with the union members for 5 years (IF Metall is the union, for industry workers), they haven’t recognized the unionization at all.
Would love to see this happen in the US. Would be a total shitshow but very entertaining to watch.
Not legal, unfortunately.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft–Hartley_Act
The Taft–Hartley Act amended the 1935 National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), adding new restrictions on union actions and designating new union-specific unfair labor practices. Among the practices prohibited by the Taft–Hartley act are jurisdictional strikes, wildcat strikes, solidarity or political strikes, secondary boycotts, secondary and mass picketing, closed shops, and monetary donations by unions to federal political campaigns.
That is disappointing, but not surprising.
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Isn’t unionizing a crime in some states or somesuch?
In some ways I’m surprised by the confusing name of right to work states which turns out to be really easy to fire states.
“Right to work” refers to the fact that in those states, unions cannot force membership or payment, or force you to participate in labor strikes. You can still have a union in those states, but it’s very difficult for them to be effective because most people will choose not to pay into it, and strikes have significantly less bargaining power if there’s no legal obligation for union members to follow through with a strike.
The result is that in such states, there are very few unions, and so very few protections against firing workers for arbitrary reasons.
I feel like there’s something more missing. We have “right to work” in Belgium. You can’t be forced to join a union or a strike, yet unions are strong here.
Propaganda is the key difference, would be my guess. American’s have had anti-union sentiments shoved down their throats for many many years now.
I grew up in a “right to work” and “at will” state working mostly retail, and I can confirm that most of the break rooms had a poster going over the negatives of unionization.
The “at will” part makes it so the boss can fire an employee for any reason they want, so anybody trying to unionize would be let go for some arbitrary reason if they were found out, anyways.
It is also the really easy to leave states. When my old company was taken over by new owners, a few years down the line someone was leaving to go work somewhere else. They gave their two weeks notice and was fired on the spot. Next guy that went to work elsewhere just quit without notice as they already knew they would not get their two weeks.
So they don’t have to pay out the notice? I think locally they can fire you but then have to pay severance which depending on length of employment can be many more weeks than 2.
No
Technically sure. But what can unions do? What actual power do they have that they matter?
You’re either uninformed or have been blinded by the anti union propaganda. There’s a severe power imbalance between a company and an individual worker. Even if you’re a highly skilled worker and have, according to the companies that push anti union propaganda, more bargaining power compared to the average worker you’re still very likely to get the short end of the stick.
But collectively workers have power. Why don’t we have companies that consist solely of shareholders and c suites? Because they produce no value without the workers. The value is generated by the workers and without the workers the company simply won’t do anything. But it’s hard to coordinate all workers to collectively use their power.
And that’s the purpose of unions, to represent the collective bargaining power of the workers. Unions are extremely powerful and that’s why companies love to lobby anti union propaganda. If you’re a worker you should always be in favor of unions (unless you go even more left in your political views and see unions as a compromise to maintain the capitalist system).
I’m more aiming at the fact that protesting, the thing unions do to make changes happen, is illegal in a couple of states. Just straight up.
Aside from that I do live in Europe, so I’m a little uninformed of current laws against protesting
Wow, that’s fucked up. Then there really not much unions can do, they’ve been effectively defanged.
This is not true in any US state per the 1st amendment of the Constitution. What you may be thinking of are so-called “right to work” states which have effectively defanged unions by making it illegal to require union membership or payment of union dues as a condition of employment. (It’s actually a little more complicated than that, but you can easily look it up if you want the details.)
Anyhow, the end result is that in “right to work” states it’s almost impossible to unionize.
Short time shit show, long term benefit for everyone.
Things only happen when they are made happen. Also nothing begins big. there are probably at least small pockets of resistance everywhere, even if its just small groups of people or singular persons.
Please everyone get on board with this. Do not support greedy corporations!
Tesla, Amazon, Starbucks, are all trying to stop there workers from unionizing and giving them better life. You have other options, don’t give them money. This is because in todays world we vote with our money to make change happen.
their*
And yes, there are very few things most people aren’t able to get elsewhere from another company. It’s only a bit inconvenient at first, when you have to spend some time finding better alternatives but once you’ve done that it’s just as easy as before and you feel good about your choices.
I just try to act like these firms dont exist. I wont even open amazons website, but even if i did and couldn’t find something anywhere else, i would just consider that item to not be available for purchase anywhere. I also refuse to receive anything that I can see is related to companies like these even for free, if its reasonable to do so and even then reluctantly. Nestle is fucking annoying about this since they actively try to hide their name under other brands they have control over.
This is what happens when capitalism tries to fight with democracy. If government fucks over citizens, then citizens ignore government, but if government represents and helps citizens, citizens will do “Tesla, fuck you!”.
funny choice of an image because that guy and his product got completely fucked by capitalism. that’s why he’s so pissed off here.
How exactly did Linux get fucked by capitalism?
This image is of Linus torvalds giving nvidia the middle finger because they are absolutely terrible to work with, money aside.
Waiting for the “damn commies” comments.
If The Swedes are commies then just call me Comradesson!
- an American who collaborates with our office in Sweden.
Kamratsson in Swedish.
Fun fact: In Sweden it is common use the phrase “Work comrade” (arbetskamrat) to refer to your colleagues.
Dude what the actual fuck are you saying, almost the entirety of lemmys user base is extremely left and pro communism and socialism. In fact, certain parts are so communist, they got defederated. And you’ll see what people call “tankies” everywhere. Lemmy is the epitome of leftist thinking and ideals. What a silly comment to make, here, of all places. It would make sense on twitter
Edit: this comment would be legit on Facebook too
I woudn’t call simping for Putin or certain chinese capitalist as communism.
No, those are Tankies
TIL, thanks.
In fact, certain parts are so communist, they got defederated.
That’s kinda sad, as is an overwhelming majority leaning to one side alone. Now you’re making me wish there were some “damn commies” comments, i dislike echo chambers.
Don’t forget to breathe.
I also cant stand echo chambers, but without a shadow of a doubt, Lemmy is the worst with it. I thought reddit was bad…
Why do you think it’s so radically left wing/communist here? IDK if you’ve ever seen GAB, but it feels like that for liberals.
Linkedin is the utopia of liberal social media.
You’re compared to all your peers, in the entire industry #globalization
You’re never not applying for a new position. #gottagetthemgains
Work/life coaches with any influence have their followers looking like guppies, mouth open, pushing their way to the front, just waiting for their food. I’ve never seen boots licked to a polish before but got.damn. #trickledown
All in grindcore, no time off, work life balance? work IS life. #hereditarykneepads #itsnitslaveryifitsachoice
It’s all the worst parts of work and none of the fun of social media. I don’t know why anyone uses Linkedin at all. There are better ways at self-flagellation.
Nothing you listed is liberal or left wing about LinkedIn, I mean I do fucking hate it too and you’re kind of forced to use it if you want to reach the upper echelons of corporate America and some companies will straight up just make you one without your permission which in turn will make your personal information available to anyone with a search engine.
LinkedIn is used to get jobs and chat with former coworkers. You are just looking at the public posts. It’s like how Facebook is a cesspool publicly, but your private chats with your network may be normal.
Good
Please let it spread
Good
Teslas in Sweden are probably going to have a lot of flat tires in the near future.
Just the ones in the warehouses. Unions don’t get mad at the public. They get mad at shitty, oppressive, conservative employers.
The article does mention refusing Tesla based taxi service. Not sure how they are structured there but I do see individuals that own Tesla’s possibly being affected as a result.
conservative employers.
Depending on location and time, conservative might mean literal communists.
Or caveman, depending on how far back they want to conserve.
It’s Sweden, not France
Oh, you mean a mass movement of anarcho-communist activism would slash the tires of private cars?
No.
It’s even wilder. This is just normal people having a union.
I don’t think they were suggesting slashed tires, just that lentil bean sales are about to go up.
But yeah, targeting people who bought cars before the labor issue was widely known wouldn’t be productive.
