Members of Sweden's IF Metall metalworkers' union working at Tesla service centres went on strike on Friday morning following a breakdown in negotiations over a collective bargaining agreement.
Around 90 percent of employees in Sweden are covered by a collective bargaining agreement
And while Tesla doesn’t have to fight 90 percent of all employess yet. If they’re bringing in strikebreakers all unions must act to not let a prescedence happen.
Not only their own employees would strike, but also employees of suppliers and everything that is connected to Tesla so nothing will reach the company unless Elon personally swings into a truck and drives the stuff into his factories.
Unionized and in the automotive sector. Would 100% strike in support of the Tesla workers. I’d rather see Tesla leave Sweden than have them succeed in this.
This is where the game of chicken is. The only question it boils down to is does Elon love winning pointless battles that require self sacrifice or does he love money? It’s a hard question tbh but I think deep down we know he’s a money grub as a priority, in which case he’ll cave and compromise to keep selling cars in Sweden
I don’t know about Sweden but bringing in scabs is generally illegal in Germany. That is, you can’t bring in temporaries, you can, of course, hire more people but then you’ll have to keep them, and of course they can strike.
Amazon was quite successful keeping unions out here because the kind of people they employ aren’t terribly union-affine, also, noone wants to stay at amazon anyway, but Tesla? A car manufacturer up against IG Metall? In East Germany? Tesla can either cave, leave, or get beaten into submission.
As the articles says
And while Tesla doesn’t have to fight 90 percent of all employess yet. If they’re bringing in strikebreakers all unions must act to not let a prescedence happen.
Not only their own employees would strike, but also employees of suppliers and everything that is connected to Tesla so nothing will reach the company unless Elon personally swings into a truck and drives the stuff into his factories.
Unionized and in the automotive sector. Would 100% strike in support of the Tesla workers. I’d rather see Tesla leave Sweden than have them succeed in this.
This is where the game of chicken is. The only question it boils down to is does Elon love winning pointless battles that require self sacrifice or does he love money? It’s a hard question tbh but I think deep down we know he’s a money grub as a priority, in which case he’ll cave and compromise to keep selling cars in Sweden
I don’t know about Sweden but bringing in scabs is generally illegal in Germany. That is, you can’t bring in temporaries, you can, of course, hire more people but then you’ll have to keep them, and of course they can strike.
Amazon was quite successful keeping unions out here because the kind of people they employ aren’t terribly union-affine, also, noone wants to stay at amazon anyway, but Tesla? A car manufacturer up against IG Metall? In East Germany? Tesla can either cave, leave, or get beaten into submission.