If Tesla refuses to sign a collective agreement with the labor unions I hope they leave the Swedish labor market. Refusing to sign a collective agreement is a completely tone-deaf approach to conducting a business in Sweden.
For instance, Sweden does not have a legal minimum wage - this is all done by collective agreements. Nine out of ten employees work under a collective agreement.
American union are bad in a very particular way. While unions in other countries can have issues, Americans can safely assume that they cannot map their experience with unions to other countries.
perhaps i can shed some light. our union helps us negotiate for health insurance, dental, life insurance and a 401k contribution from our employer. in the first year we had it, we negotiated other things too. we de-gendered our shop floor bathrooms, made the company replace burned out overhead lights and exit sign "stickers" with real, light up exit signs. we made sure the break room was well lit (formerly all the lights were burned out) and there was a way to get our money back from the vending machines which were basicaly one armed bandits. we changed the way our facilities maintenance teams work to make sure they put down warning signs if theyve mopped and made sure the bathrooms got serviced once a day. we made a 2 year plan to provide functional safety guards on all the older equipment (met and done in 8 months by our awesome machine shop!) and finally fix the parking lot lights so employees felt safe going home on second shift.
these changes were also affected to non-union employees, mostly as a hold-the-line tactic to keep them from ever unionizing, but in the long run the company had to spend significant amounts of money on things that were traditionally deemed "non-essential" like toilet paper or exit signs.
Just about every American union is very much about
a) Years at job = pay. Absolutely no pay increase or decrease for working harder or being better than average.
b) You are near impossible to fire unless you do something really dumb (caught watching porn at work multiple times, punch someone). You can be far below average and kinda sorta do your factory job and keep it for life.
Both are 1000000% against every fiber in my being, and would make me 100% never want to work at this kind of union. This is how like the autoworker and Police and teachers unions work.
There is no reason say a programmer union couldn't exist with different tools. And it could totally allow merit based pay and all of that. So by absolutely no means do I say that all unions are bad. I just know the standard American Union does not get along with my life goals.
I spent quite a few years working for a company unionized under the Communications Workers of America (700,000 members). Neither of these claims were true then or are true now.
A specific job title would have a wage tied to the agreement, that increased based on years in the title and other negotiated increases. There were absolutely performance bonuses... as per the agreement, not at the whim of management.
Management gets to set a wide scope of performance requirements, and those he cannot meet them lose their jobs.
What I do see is that unions do a good job at preventing arbitrary abuses by management... and management really hates that.
This is a very tired trope of propaganda against unions.
Unions don't dictate your pay, they set a range and the company pays in that range for performance. It's no different than what your employer does to you today, except with a Union the ranges are known and negotiated collectively instead of the company dictating them.
Unions don't prevent people from being fired, they just require cause. Because the flip side of this is corporate firing people without cause days before the qualify for 401k matching, pension plan, or another stock vest or other such nonsense. You want to fire Bob because you don't like him? Tough luck, we're not here to be friends, we're here to work. Union says show evidence Bob isn't doing his job, then you can fire him.
I think some of this perception is due to many people on HNs primary experience with union jobs is through government employed unions (e.g. public school staff) where there is essentially zero wiggle room for pay; it's a simple algebraic formula that you can calculate yourself. They also seem to be loath to fire people at all, to a degree I haven't seen in e.g. factory union jobs; I think the whole "If the guy next to me fucks up, I could end up injured" helps in those cases.
People try to say that it's hard to fire teachers because of unions, but they never mention the massive teacher shortage we have. It's really hard to fire someone in an essential job when you know that no one wants to take their place.
Unions don't set pay-levels, just minimum pay and percentage pay increases, generally.
Furthermore, just look here in California to multiple successful white-collar unions: the WGA (writers), the DGA (directors), and SAG (actors). If you're bad at your job or people don't like to work with you, you won't get hired, yet meanwhile, the unions guarantee everything from health insurance to minimum pay to pension to residuals and therefore allow much greater mobility between studios, jobs, and shows.
I really appreciate this comment because it gets to the root of my unease with unions in the US. It's good for society, the individual, and the employer when people have room to grow/work harder/contribute more and be rewarded for it. When I hear pro-union talk around me, it does come packaged with "working any harder than the minimum is evil" vibe that I find disruptive on whatever level it is accepted.
IE - if you accept "work the least possible" as an individual, you yourself will do poorly. If the organization is forced to accept it, it will decline against other domestic competitors. If the country is forced to accept it, it will decline against international competitors.
My union representative is currently working with my boss to get rid of an employee that isn't pulling their weight. It is harming both the company and colleagues when someone doesn't fulfill their duties. In the Nordic countries it is quite easy to get rid of workers, as the welfare state is supposed care for people til they find other work. It makes for a quite flexible labor market.
This is the missing link that I've rarely if ever seen in the USA - the Union needs to "police itself" so that they are guaranteeing a certain "value of labor".
In the US the biggest group complaining about lazy union employees are the other union employees.
"According to the Economic Policy Institute, wage theft costs U.S. workers as much as $50 billion per year — a number far higher than all robberies, burglaries and motor vehicle thefts combined"
Privileged Americans will do anything to steal labour and instead make the hard working people seem like the criminal. But the managers who steal money are completely safe and never accused by the privileged.
Only one of the reasons why unions are essential in US.
>In the Nordic countries it is quite easy to get rid of workers
What, where? In Sweden it's definitely not easy to get rid of workers. If you're doing layoffs rather than firing an individual you can't even pick and choose who to fire, you need to follow LIFO.
You're allowed to have a "trial period" for new employees though, during which it's easy to fire them.
> It's good for society, the individual, and the employer when people have room to grow/work harder/contribute more and be rewarded for it.
Rewards are distributed based off of seniority. If you do more than what’s “expected”, there’s no guarantee it will lead to promotion. It’s more likely that you’ll just be given more work
I agree with you when you say that hard work is good for people, but doing this for your employer (as opposed to for FOSS or personal learning) will just screw you over in the long run
There's no "guarantee" but there's an increased probability, coupled with a good employee's ability to move to an employer that values someone like them.
In the union mindset, there's no chance to do better - it's all been traded away for the chance to do "no worse than" which by definition benefits the less good/productive and hurts the best people.
> There's no "guarantee" but there's an increased probability
This is part of the problem. If you work hard but don’t benefit, you’ve essentially fucked yourself because then you’ll get assigned more, you’ll be stuck carrying a bunch of people. Even if you factor in comp increases, how do you know there’s a net benefit to working hard? (specifically for your employer, on your own time is a different story)
It isn’t blind “probability”, it essentially turns into this little psychological game where management dangles promotions in front of people to manipulate them into doing more than is needed
> coupled with a good employee's ability to move to an employer that values someone like them.
// then you’ll get assigned more, you’ll be stuck carrying a bunch of people.
Ok so on a personal level, if this happened to me, my sequence of response would be (1) talk to my management to fix the situation (2) failing that, look for another place to work (3) failing that, dial down my level of engagement.
Right now, #3 is the worst case. With a union, #3 is the default case since the system is designed to prevent you from being rewarded.
> Absolutely no pay increase or decrease for working harder or being better than average.
To a certain extent, this is an explicit goal of unions. Where "working harder" means things like "unpaid overtime" and "taking shortcuts that risk your safety" we consider that a good thing.
Where "working harder" means "actually doing your job" we consider that a bad thing. Of course working 16 hours a day used to mean "actually doing your job" so there's considerable grey area here.
> a) Years at job = pay. Absolutely no pay increase or decrease for working harder or being better than average.
It’s already like this
> b) You are near impossible to fire unless you do something really dumb (caught watching porn at work multiple times, punch someone). You can be far below average and kinda sorta do your factory job and keep it for life.
Good, the bullshit takes less time and leaves more time for foss or family life or whatever else
American unions have an incredibly adversarial relationship with their employers in a way that European unions do not.
(many) European unions are collaborative with their employers and act like they fundamentally want to help the business grow so there's more to share. American unions, even when they are not outright corrupt mafia-eque organizations (ie, longshoresmen), are purely extractive.
I'd characterize it as employers being extremely adversarial to unions because their goal is exploitation of workers. Unions have to be aggressive in response.
Sure, I'll agree that our union system is not great, but I place the blame for this situation on employers.
I would argue you are correct in fact, but wrong in detail. The European unions were absolutely ball busters and they won. That’s why they’re not adversarial, they don’t need to be. Employers who don’t go along find them self with no labor force.
It's very obvious now that unionized workers are better off than non-unionized workers in the same industry, and far far better off than contract workers.
Calling Americans unions purely extractive is not accurate. American unions fight for employee rights, including fair wages, time off, fair treatment, and employee safety. Unions do not want to bankrupt their employers, they just want to be treated fairly.
What you're describing is extractive. They do not factor into their negotiations "is this an ask that is good for the employer in the long-term". They are not attempting to balance those constraints. They are attempting to extract as much as the labor market can support.
It's OK to think that this is a good thing but this is not the same as a collaborative relationship, like you would have with coworkers or another team at a (non-dysfunctional) company.
> They do not factor into their negotiations "is this an ask that is good for the employer in the long-term".
Of course, it would be preposterous for workers to be elevating the needs of management over their own needs. After all, no one is looking out for them but them.
> They are attempting to extract as much as the labor market can support.
And what, precisely, do you think companies are doing?
> Of course, it would be preposterous for workers to be elevating the needs of management over their own needs. After all, no one is looking out for them but them.
In Europe it is often the case that companies and unions have a genuinely collaborative relationship where the unions will take the company's needs into consideration, and the company will take the worker's needs into consideration. It doesn't always work out, and each party has their own priorities of course. But it is often not nearly so adversarial as it is in the US. That it is like this is to a large extent a cultural peculiarity of the US rather than an immutable truth.
IF people (incl. those representing companies) were economically rational beings out to maximise their own short-term gain then that would be what would happen. But real people are not, and are often able to see that it creates a poorer, lower-trust society overall if they try to push for their immediate material needs too strongly.
This is of course all backed up by the legal and political systems (which will step in if either side oversteps the mark too far), and a long history in which these norms were established.
You're asserting this, but actual large strikes are quite rare. For instance the recent automakes strike only involved a few hundred actual strikers.
Meanwhile you read about "All transit workers in <EU Country>" going on strike and causing widespread chaos (because no one else can get to work either) every 6 months or so. Usually, but not always, France.
I think a lot of it might be the overall weaker EU labor market.
US unions can extract short-term benefits if the workers can hop to a comparable employer easily when the employer collapses. If workers in the EU are bound to an employer for 20 years, you need a long time-view.
Of course if it’s not good for the employers long term to treat their employees fairly, then achieving that would be “extractive”. But if that’s the case, there’s more wrong with the business than just its relationship with its employees.
North American style unions are radically different than Nordic style. Nordic ones are trade-specific more often than not, where as in North American they are predominantly company specific, with some exceptions like Electricians Unions in Canada. For example, the Engineer's Union (Verkfræðingafélag) has employees across the board. When you change jobs, you retain your union as long as you meet the criteria.
I'm a bit confused by this. I've never worked a union job, so I'm not entirely familiar with it. But I thought a lot of the unions in the US were cross-company. United Auto Workers. International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Screen Actors Guild. Service Employees International Union. International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. National Education Association. American Federation of Teachers. Teamsters. United Food and Commercial Workers. Air Line Pilots Association. All of these are cross-company unions, and they're the ones I hear the most about.
> where as in North American they are predominantly company specific...
Why do you think that? I'm fairly certain this is incorrect.
AFAIK, North American unions are not generally company specific. They are trade specific in most cases, and in the case of auto-workers it's mostly the UWA.
Could be entirely wrong, but that was my understanding from unionisation votes in companies, and discussions about forming unions at companies. How does it work in North America? There's a catch-all union in Iceland that everyone who is not trade specific falls into.
Once again, I've never been in a union so I could be wrong, but that's for those locations to unionize and join one of these nation-wide unions.
Depending on the place, its not even always company-wide votes. For instance, there was a push for a few Amazon warehouses to join a union. If those votes had passed, it would have been the workers at that location then represented by the union.
And on top of that, its often only particular jobs that would fall under that union, not all jobs at that facility. That's why the auto companies are doing other layoffs these days, as there are other jobs at the factories that are not a part of the United Auto Workers and are not a part of the strike, but depend on the union workers working for their jobs to not pile up outputs or have no incoming tasks. Its not like all Ford or GM employees are a part of the United Auto Workers.
Uh, no? You have UAW, IBEW, UA, California has a Cashier's union, those are just the ones I know about off the top of my head, and I'm in a non-union state.
That's very interesting! I had never thought that the state could delegate stuff like minimum wage to unions, but that's actually a pretty decent idea.
Minimum wage is only one point among many for decent working conditions. Dealing with (some) employment conditions through a union seems so much more efficient than dealing with it through the state.
Having a strong union means that you can share their resources such as 100% of your wages being paid during a strike; a legal representative being provided for you by the union (for free).
Whenever you want, you can talk to your local union representative to inform you of your rights. And you may even choose, if you want, to have a union representative, i.e. a labor rights expert, present when you negotiate salary or resolve a conflict with your employer.
Everyone acts a lot nicer to each other when the power dynamic is balanced!
Depends though, because in theory you could then have wildly different employment conditions depending on which union / industry you work for.
Of course, if another industry has better conditions, you can always vote with your feet. Competing for employees benefits the employees, in theory.
This is why I don't understand the "we can't find staff" thing. No, you can't afford staff, there's a difference. Offer me more money and a training program and I'll change my career. It's that simple.
> Depends though, because in theory you could then have wildly different employment conditions depending on which union / industry you work for.
> Of course, if another industry has better conditions, you can always vote with your feet. Competing for employees benefits the employees, in theory.
There's an interesting dynamic there though that you mention that a particular union may affect the employment conditions across a whole industry. So, theoretically an employer in an industry with a bad dominant union might be be hamstrung even if they wish to improve employment conditions but the core issues stem from a bad union (I'll note this question is from the perspective of an American, with limited and generally poor interactions with unions, who wishes things were better here).
Would enough people in Sweeden just not buy Teslas?
I don't doubt it is "tone-deaf" but I see that mentioned a lot and PR spats seem to result in very little.
I find it hard to gauge these kinds of things, lots of PR disasters are declared but I'm not sure many matter, even highly publicized gaffs don't seem to change much.
Not exactly. Here is the story of what happened, when McDonald's
opened in Denmark (similar system to Sweden) - and thought they could avoid an agreement with the union.
That's not how it works in Sweden. A few years ago a restaurant tried to hire only non unionized workers. When the restaurant union found out, they showed up and prevented customers from entering the restaurant. Don't mess with unions in Sweden. If Tesla don't sign they might find a big trucks on my front of their service location literally blocking the entrance.
I'm surprised that you describe mob rule as something good. Would you like someone to park a bunch of big trucks in front of place because they won't pay you protection money? It's extortion and should not be held as some ideal. If you want to protest to let customers know something that's fine - the minute you harass or stop customers/business you've crossed the line.
Well this mob rule has ensured some of the best working conditions in the world for the Nordic countries. While having very flexible industries, with less labor conflicts than most countries. Why is it okay for an individual to get what is theirs, but not a collective?
> did you know the nordic countries are among the happiest and have some of the strongest social benefits in the world while still being wealthy?
I do wonder how much of this is due to cultural homogeneity and the benefits that follow. Will this remain the case in the presence of a larger proportion of immigrants? I don't think its a fair comparison, when people contrast Nordic countries with the US.
Many studies have found that social trust is higher and easier to maintain in homogeneous societies.
Exactly. As soon as immigration increased, crime and disorder increased. It's easy to maintain utopia when everyone looks and behaves exactly like you.
Unions are mob rule in that sense. If you want to work and the union doesn't want you to, you obey your union boss. Wherever you put power, it will sometimes be abused, even if it's worth it overall for you.
In Sweden there is no requirement to be in a union to work at a company with union agreement. A company cannot require (or forbid) union membership of employees. Also a union cannot require that you are member to be covered by their collective bargaining agreement.
How are the unions funded? In the US it's a slice of the member's pay which means that even if you aren't in the union you still pay that - if the union instead negotiated its payment direct from the company I think a lot of anti-union complaints would go away.
Because that's the agreement many of the unions have with the company - in a "union shop" you have to pay dues, even if you're not a member of the union. So of course everyone joins the union.
The difference between this being done legitimately and illegitimately is not one I can put into words[0], but I would note that there are ways this can be legitimate in any society — the police, in a democracy (sometimes described as fancy mob rule), where the protection money is normally called "taxes" — and that quite a lot of countries are stopping people from doing business with Russia right now as part of a protest against what they're doing in Ukraine.
Unions have whatever powers they've been allowed to have by the country they operate in, just as do corporations and police forces.
[0] Where you put the line between balancing the powers of unions vs. corporations is one of the major political dividing lines for the last 175 years, I'm not going to do it justice.
I think the post you're replying to didn't say it's good or bad, they merely reported some facts about unions in Sweden (not sure they're if accurate or not, but I have no specific reason to doubt them).
The alternative to this “mob rule” is government mandated minimum wage. And, ehm, I mean, have you seen what the government will do to get their way? They stop businesses and harass people, and then some.
showed up and prevented customers from entering the restaurant
Well no. They showed up and discouraged people from entering by generally being a nuisance and creating an uncomfortable atmosphere where you wouldn't feel like eating lunch. Had they physically blocked people from entering that would have been illegal.
Does that not count as illegal harassment? If a bunch of teenagers were angry at a restaurateur for some reason and did the same, the police would likely disperse and/or arrest them where I live.
It's one thing to discourage people from engaging with a business because of their labour practices, it's another thing entirely to actively prevent them from doing so.
If a murder is multiple crows, then a union is multiple thugs.
To be clear I don’t mind if some group of people employs collective bargaining as a negotiation strategy, but the described behavior should be swiftly punished with fines, reparations and possibly light prison sentences. Alas, many unions are somehow above the law in matters of harassment.
This is similar to the way things work here except the unions here are reactive to their own needs only. I doubt another auto unions workers would try to block a Tesla plant, they would try to block their own plants only.
Nobody was technically trespassing. Large groups people from the union stood outside the restaurant and tried to convince people not enter, but since none of them physically blocked anybody that wanted to enter from entering, there was nothing illegal about it.
Other unions will deny services to Tesla in Sweden, strikers at one company are not alone. If they can operate without relying on another unionized company for anything they can still do it, and likely pay the same or more anyway as it will be in the media so many people will not take jobs there.
There is a concept called Solidarity, which Swedes take very seriously. If one employer chooses to not play fair by the rules of the labor market (which include negotiating with unions in Sweden) then other unions will show Solidarity with the one striking. The unions act with the mandate from the workers. They are not dictatorships.
Historically solidarity between workers is the reason why you only work 8 (instead of 16) hour days. Why workers have vacation days, sick pay, pensions and maternity leave etc.
On the labour market they are allowed. Unions typically negotiate with employer’s organizations with most businesses as members. Also, labour conflicts are adjudicated in a special court made up by representatives from unions and employer organisations. Kind of like arbitration, but it’s sanctioned by law.
Why? We don’t trust the state to do it better. Neither employees nor employers do.
Short answer is that all parties involved (the State, the Employers and the Employees) want this particular type of cartel to be treated differently from other cartels. The government could change that at any time by passing a law, but they don't because it would be wildly unpopular with everybody.
I upvoted you because you’re technically right. It’s permitted because it generally leads to good social outcomes at the expense of business profit. This isn’t cost-free, of course. Nothing is. It’s just that Sweden believes the costs are worth it. By the numbers, outcomes for citizens are very good, so I think they’re correct.
If they aren't operating in explicit coordination, no.
Cartel behavior requires coordination and collusion. If they are just following general social/business practices without having meetings about who to blacklist, then it doesn't meet most definitions.
This is another difference from the US. Certain forms of solidarity action are illegal in the US.
The TL;DR of US labor law is:
1. Companies do [very illegal under local law, up to and including murder] things to bust unions; they buy off the local authorities to get away with this.
2. The Federal government adds specific protections for unions -- many of which don't exist in various European countries.
3. Companies complain that #2 makes unions too powerful, so the Federal government adds specific restrictions on unions -- many of which don't exist in various European countries.
I'm curious about the history in Europe, since an equilibrium seems to have been found without steps #2 and #3.
I don’t know about Europe at a whole, but there are examples of unions also employing step 1). Like, announce a strike and then beat up or even murder people working anyway.
Also many unions did what business owners had done for centuries and went into politics. The social Democratic party in Sweden for example, is a part of the largest labour union. This is somewhat controversial in some circles, for sure, but changes the power dynamic for steps 2 and 3 a lot.
Not buy? That not what is going to happen. The union is going to block them. People will have a harder time physically showing up to work. Maybe trash, mail, etc. will not be delivered.
Nordic style unions mean that the company can't function. All union companies will refuse to service you. No mail service, no trash collection, no delivery of goods, etc. All union companies will refuse you. Tesla has essentially been shut down in Sweden, and no, they can't refuse to pay their employees.
Typically in Sweden the other unions will just shitlist the businesses in question. Hard to do business when you can't dispose of trash (trash union blockades you), nothing is delivered (transport union), etc
European workers are the tone deaf ones. Saab died. Volvo is dying and owned by China. Your working demands don’t meet the requirements of running a successful automotive company today. Enjoy your two months off per year and 36 hour work weeks. They won’t keep any future Swedish automotive companies afloat.
Are you suggesting that because some companies were mismanaged, people should suddenly allow themselves to be exploited in an effort to make it easier for companies to "not die"?
I'm legitimately curious if there are studies or any kind of evidence that backs up your claims. Specifically, evidence that shows causation between more vacation days and lower worker productivity leading to companies shutting down their businesses.
In manufacturing? What do you think happens when an employee doesn’t show up to the line because of high PTO or low working hours? Magic fairies run the assembly process for free?
Manufacturing does not work like software engineering. There is an extremely direct link between people showing up to the job and parts rolling off the line. The workers aren’t watching YouTube for half the day.
This is a vibes based argument though. I can make similar claims about how improved worker satisfaction will lead them to work harder, make less mistakes on the line, boost morale and have a multiplied effect on productivity as they not only work better themselves but the entire team works better if they're happier. There are even some studies to back up these claims, so I was just curious if there's evidence to the contrary.
Cheap labor and general low regard of your employees also mean that there is less incentive to improve your manufacturing with automation or simply by looking at what the factory workers struggle with and improving that part of the chain.
Let's say 1 worker works 40 hrs/week, but gets a day off every second week, i.e. 70 hrs/2weeks.
I need to hire a worker to keep productivity the same on that day off.
Now what if 9 other workers are staggered with their days off? My worker has a full time position (well, they need to have a day off too, but for the purpose of example.
"We need someone to work when people are off" being plugged by someone who is, implicitly, covering multiple people's days off keeps productivity exactly the same.
And if you make 100 widgets a day as a worker, you make 100 a day that you're working - we don't count your day off and say "Oh, you're only making 90/day now, worker productivity is lowered!"
There is no financial difference between paying someone to not work one day every two weeks, and having them show up that day but not do anything (which we can agree would be unproductive).
Paying someone to stay home, and then paying someone else to cover them, reduces productivity of the factory because it requires more total labor to produce the same number of parts.
You can argue that the person will be more refreshed or whatever, which I think is probably a good argument for many types of jobs that are not manufacturing line work.
People who have engineering or creative jobs constantly think that you can get the same work out of four days as five. And for their jobs, because they have significantly decreasing marginal productivity per hour worked, they might be right. But that's very different than line work. The 40th hour worked does not have appreciably different productivity than the 35th hour worked in a week on a line.
If it's about productivity at all costs, then let's just go back to 12 or 16 hour days, 6 or 7 days a week.
PTO is a "fringe benefit". Factoring it into productivity levels is orthogonal, as its goal is to increase desirability of the employer, not to ensure "maximum output per employee".
That's what I'm saying - productivity per employee doesn't change. They still make the same widgets/hour on the line on hour 1, hour 35 and hour 40 of their week. The company just employs 1.1 people to run that line full time (well, 40 hours a week, leaving aside 24/7 ops for the sake of simplicity) rather than the mathematical minimum 1 person.
> Paying someone to stay home, and then paying someone else to cover them, reduces productivity of the factory because it requires more total labor to produce the same number of parts.
Maybe it's the pedant in me as I approach an MBA program, but while there are multiple definitions of productivity, in industry it's usually an expression of the output as a factor of input. And generally it's the equipment that's the limitation. A factory whose equipment can produce 200,000 widgets/year can still only produce 200,000 widgets/year, even if you have twice as many employees working 20 hour weeks, i.e. productivity is the same.
PTO just another part of total compensation. If you offer less PTO you have to offer more salary to compensate and vice versa. In fact I suspect many people value PTO higher than their actual monetary value, so offering it is a financial win for the company.
Frankly? Yes. The drawn out death rattle was annoying to follow.
But if you list the causes of SAABs demise you get pretty far down the list before coming to "2 months vacation and 36 hour workdays" (it's 25 days and 39 hour work weeks btw).
> The drawn out death rattle was annoying to follow
You're saying that a company that employees thousands of people should have died earlier and cost those folks their jobs because....it annoyed you personally?
You’re right. That was a poor choice of words on my part. My point was that it was obvious SAAB cars (neé SAAB Weapon Systems) wasn’t a viable business and the last few years were extremely drawn out and full of drama.
SAAB was never really a car company. It was an aerospace company that ended up owning a car and truck manufacturer due to some mergers and ran its car division more like an eccentric hobby. The car part was never really well run or financially self-sufficient and that just became more obvious when the car part was eventually split off from the aerospace part.
edit: Just correcting my history slightly. SAAB actually started their eccentric car hobby before merging with a car manufacturer, partially due to to the end of WW2 leaving them with a surplus of engineers and capacity and wanting to put them to some use. The rest of my point basically stands
I'm sure someone has a good writeup¹, but as to my understanding they had a really weird lineup where the 9-5 competed with 9-3 and both were basically low-end luxury sedans marketed as family cars.
So selling off a failing company on the open market to the highest bidder is socialist. But governments bailing out a failing car manufacturer to the tune of billions of tax payer dollars is free market capitalism? Got it.
They sold it off because they were bad at making money and keeping it running.
Your second sentence it a strawman. Of course it's not capitalism to bail out manufacturers. How's that working out for the US? All you've proven is that when the US implements socialist policies it's detrimental. So, thanks for proving my point.
Lmao imagine just ignoring that Mercedes, bmw, porsche, Wolkswagen, Lotus, Mini, Audi, Skoda, Renault exist.
Even Japanese and Korean workers are getting better deals now, why would you suck the boot, specially only to let someone like Musk enjoy more soirees at Epstein's
The "sympathy strikes" where other workers (dock workers, etc) pitched in seemed to be the killer for McDonalds. I wonder if that will happen to Tesla also.
Doesn't seem to be out of the question. Last time a sympathy strike seems to have happened/about to happen, was when the union for electricians (Svenska Elektrikerförbundet) noticed about incoming strikes in order to help painters (Målareförbundet) to negotiate in 16th of May 2023 - https://www.sef.se/om-oss/nyheter/2023/elektrikerna-varslar-...
In the swedish version of this article they listed what the collective agreement would mean
Translated:
This is what the employees of tesla does not have compared to if they had a collective agreement:
- A complete insurance package with Fora
- The comprehensive adjustment support found in the main agreement between the social partners
- Salaries are lower compared to the average in the motor industry agreement
- Without the collective agreement no yearly raises are guaranteed
- No possibility of part time retirement
- They also do not have reduced working hours
Original:
Detta har inte de anställda på Tesla jämfört med om de hade kollektivavtal
- Ett komplett paket med försäkringar hos Fora
- Det omfattande omställningsstöd som finns i huvudavtalet mellan arbetsmarknadens parter
- Lönerna ligger lägre än genomsnittet i Motorbranschavtalet
- Utan kollektivavtal garanteras inte årliga löneökningar
- De har inte möjlighet till deltidspension
- De har inte heller arbetstidsförkortning
As many others have pointed out, these agreements are fundamental to the swedish labor market. While it's not as common in tech, industries like car manufacturing are almost completely covered.
"Collective agreements are the basis of the Swedish labour market model. This means that the trade unions and the employers' organizations determine the rules of the game in the labour market, without interference from the state and politicians. In Sweden, approximately nine out of ten workers are covered by collective agreements.
The terms of the collective agreement include wages, form of employment, occupational pension, working hours, vacations, and periods of notice. Thus, the employers benefit from industry-specific, long-term, and stable ground rules. "
They go into details [here](https://www.ifmetall.se/aktuellt/tesla/darfor-tvingas-if-met...) (only in Swedish unfortunately). Basically they say that despite repeated attempts to negotiate a collective agreement Tesla employees have fewer guarantees, lower salaries, and fewer prospects compared to members at other companies with such agreements.
The Swedish article does. Some things mentioned are not a sufficient pension plan, lack of insurance covering loss of pay due to long term illness or injury, life insurance, the right for annual wage renegotiation and the right to work part time. They also claim that Tesla is paying a below average wage.
> They also claim that Tesla is paying a below average wage.
It's hard to understand this. Why take the job if you don't like the pay? Taking the job at a certain wage and then striking seems the wrong way to go about things. Can anyone who knows the system explain this a little more?
Agreed. If Tesla create new jobs and they pay below average wages, they won't attract workers from other companies. It'll also be harder to retain staff. Surely they'd move towards the average in order to operate normally rather than being forced there by some collective work agreement.
From my understanding of the union model in the Nordic countries, the intention is to push the business to be better, not simply a game of competing adversarial interests
There isn't a legal minimum wage in Sweden, it's collectively argued for by the unions. It's pretty rare to find a company paying poorly against the market in Sweden.
That a valid point, in a perfect world no one would choose to work for a company that pays substandard wages or offers inadequate benefits. But as it stands people need money to pay for food and housing, which can put them in a disadvantageous bargaining position.
With Universal Basic Income perhaps this could be avoided.
Collective agreement is a floor. It is a contract which guarantees lower bounds on wages, vacation days, notice periods etc. There is nothing preventing a company from going beyond the collective agreement to provide additional benefits to their employees.
For instance, Sweden does not have a minimum wage. Instead we have collective agreements which stipulate these issues.
So why doesn't Sweden simplify their labor market by figuring out a reasonable lower boundary on collective agreements and installing a minimum wage? That seems particularly backwards on their part as a system failure. It would simplify their economy, remove inefficiency and benefit everyone - the sole possible arguments against it would require one being in favor of inefficient bureaucracy or abusing workers with lower wages.
If you install a reasonable minimum wage, it increases the freedom in the labor market by reducing the chains of collective agreements. It gives employees more options, flexibility, and power of self determination which can only be to their benefit.
> The swedish model basically sets minimum wage by sector. Much more tailored to the employers and employees.
But this is the same argument for why there shouldn't be one at all.
One of the major problems with the minimum wage in the US is that it de facto destroys training programs for entry-level employees. You could go to a school and pay them money to be trained or go to Walmart and do unskilled labor for low wages.
But if you want to go to an employer and spend 40 hours there of which half is working and half is learning, what's the appropriate wage for that? You might very well should be paying them -- they're getting as yet still unskilled labor and you're getting qualified to do a job that would ultimately pay above-median wages that you might otherwise pay $30,000/year in tuition for. Taking that deal with them paying you $2/hour could be a bargain. But not if it's prohibited by law.
Meanwhile someone could then offer $2/hour for an ordinary job, but who is going to take them up on that for no countervailing benefit when other employers pay more? It's the same reason 98% of people are paid more than the existing minimum wage despite no legal requirement to do so.
Literally no one in Sweden receives stock options as a form of compensation. Over 90% of the workforce is unionized. The ones that are not are basically working single employee companies and some tech companies.
Do they? Do you have any source for this, as I would be very surprised if it was true. Hell I'd surprised to learn that Tesla pays mechanics at their service centres in US in stock options.
Don't worry, Tesla stock has only gone up ~2,000% in the last four years, what could anyone possibly have wanted with stock options in that enterprise.
I'm skeptical about Tesla Sweden employees getting stock options for US stocks. That seems odd. And I don't read enough Swedish to see whether they're listed on the Swedish stock exchange, but it doesn't appear so.
I’m guessing “this” is the ability to collectively bargain if conditions aren’t good or, in this case, if you don’t have the ability to collectively bargain.
That’s what I thought but then I don’t get it in the context of the parent. Their teammates are spoiled because they’re not bargaining, to what end? Needs more context I think.
I would expect this to be some justification or benefit present in the article.
Unions are like sysadmins - if they are doing their job well, it looks like they're not necessary at all :)
They are like the large looking bouncer at the door of a club, who make patrons (businesses) behave themselves. So GP's coworkers are spoiled because the bouncer has been doing a pretty good job and seems unnecessary.
The context is that their teammates' working conditions are so good (as a result of union participation in collective bargaining) that they've become spoiled & forgotten how it got that way to begin with.
Because unions are a counter-balance to the bargaining strength of employers.
And history has shown that you get better outcomes not just for employees but the company and society as a whole. It's better these days but there is still a tendency to think of employees as mindless resources rather than assets.
I find the downvotes for the above post to be quite distateful. I see nothing wrong with it and historically simply disagreeing (or agreeing) with a post is a poor reason to vote.
I will add an anecdote to this post. I was talking with a close friend of mine’s father who owned a contruction company. I was fairly anti union at the time, and I made some comment about unions assuming he’d be anti union as well. His response was that he loved unions. He had 2 different unions onsite, and said they both provided access to the best workers. He was happy to have the unions for his business.
Now I realize that unions for him were acting like a filter, with the best construction workers likely being attracted to the higher pay and better conditions. But it was an interesting take on things for a young mind. I simply couldn’t fathom a world where a capitalist would embrace union activity.
As long as the unions and people in it understand that companies still need to thrive and do not get bogged down by corruption themselves this is indeed true
This is true, but it is also in regards to compensation. In the Swedish version there are more details but as it turns out Tesla wants to compensate their workers less than the other comparable employers.
With the collective agreement the workers would be provided:
- Complete package of insurance (providing workers with pensions, sick-pay, maternity leave)
- Re-education (if applicable, for instance companies cannot outright fire someone without severance. A re-education package can provide an employee with funds to acquire new skills so that they might be employed by another company)
- Wages in line with the industry standard (in Sweden)
- Guaranteed yearly wage increases
- Part-time pension plans (if applicable)
These are all afforded to other workers in the Auto industry.
They are incredibly well compensated - and while their safety record was worse than Toyota and Honda until 2021 (but better then the other US), my understanding is that with the move to gigacasting, now run safer than their japanese equivalents as well.
This is leftists being leftists. I am not opposed to unions when they are needed, but this is trade unionism because trade unionism.
If you compare USA to Swedish politics, the rightest right is still left of the leftest left of USA. I guess it's a bit hard to understand Unions in Sweden if all you know is the Unions of USA.
For instance, Sweden does not have a legal minimum wage - this is all done by collective agreements. Nine out of ten employees work under a collective agreement.