I hope I am not boring you with my updates and machine translated articles from the Tesla workers strike in Sweden. And there is always the conundrum if I should post here or in another thread. But seriously, this conflict has made me think even less of Musk. Something I didnât think was possible. So fuck Elon Musk it is.
This is an incredibly important fight for all workers in Sweden. I also do not think that Musk and his local goons do not realise that they have woken a sleeping bear. IF Metall has a strike fund that is around 8,7 billion SEK, around 870 million USD.
Here is part of this article: Harald Gatu: Tesla Àr en jÀtte - men vÀcker en björn - Dagens Arbete.š
It explains very well why Tesla is being stupid and is annoying not only the unions.
PERSPECTIVE Tesla - one of the worldâs most highly valued companies - refuses collective agreements and hires strikebreakers. This challenges the Swedish order that allows employers to purchase industrial peace. It should make Swedish companies concerned. Has the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise called Elon Musk?
It has been said many times in recent days: the Swedish model is being challenged.
And even employers have had every reason to be irritated by Teslaâs indifference.
Refusing to sign collective agreements and, furthermore, calling in strikebreakers is hardly compatible with the social norms that employers claimed they wanted to uphold from the day that model was established. Itâs been almost 85 years to the day.
The model was supposed to put an end to the turmoil and unrest that had plagued Swedish workplaces for decades. Sweden was the world champion of labor market conflicts in the 1920s and 1930s.
Back then, we had around 500 strikes per year on average. The trust between workers and employers was shattered. Distrust prevented sustainable compromises. Strikes and lockouts were part of the norm. In the bitter atmosphere, employers did not hesitate to hire strikebreakers, often protected by the police, and sometimes even the military, as in the Ă dalen where where five people were killed.
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With the Saltsjöbad Agreement of 1938, employers and the labor movement agreed to a new order, a fresh start that would take Sweden away from conflicts. With the new order, employers could buy industrial peace for the duration of an agreement. In return, employers committed not to use strikebreakers.
Tesla brings in strikebreakers in taxis.
Tesla is not a member of any employersâ organization in Sweden. If they were, the company would be obligated to sign a collective agreement with IF Metall and allow its employees to work under conditions at least as good as the rest of the countryâs auto mechanics.
Tesla is not a member of the Motor Industry Employers Association, Maf. But the association is still drawn into the conflict. When IF Metall expands the strike to other auto repair shops servicing Tesla, Mafâs member companies are also involved in this drama. Which probably feels somewhat unsettling.
But, above all, employers in the automotive industry should be irritated by Teslaâs reluctance to sign collective agreements for a significant reason: competition neutrality. In a well-functioning market economy, companies want to compete on equal terms. The collective agreement provides companies with that opportunity. No one should be able to gain cost advantages by cutting wages. Competition requires agreeing on the rules of the game.
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Tesla is a giant. A giant ultimately controlled by one of the worldâs richest individuals. Without a collective agreement, Tesla can reduce wages and worsen conditions for its employees in its companies at any time and without discussion. Reducing wages is not possible if you work under a Swedish collective agreement.
No local union can be pressured to lower the wages for its members. With the collective agreement, the members have essentially promised each other and committed to not working for less than a certain wage.
Teslaâs actions have also revealed the potential strength of the labor movement: to stand up for each other because they fundamentally have common interests to protect. Unions can mobilize sympathy actions across industries. This was particularly effective in the 1990s when the Commercial Employeesâ Union, after a three-month conflict, managed to secure a collective agreement with the American toy giant Toys R Us.
The cross-industry mobilization could become relevant next week when the Transport Workersâ Union refuses to unload imported Tesla cars. More unions can join if the conflict drags on.
If, on the other hand, Tesla understands that the battle with IF Metall could cost more than the company initially realized and acts accordingly, then Swedish employers can breathe a sigh of relief while the labor movement celebrates a historic victory. But weâre not there yet.
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A side effect of the strike by workers at Tesla workshops is that a lot of other stuff is getting reported about what kind of company tesla is. Just take this article where the headline translates in to:
âWe send out faulty carsâ - Tesla employees sound the alarm about tight schedules.
The first few paragraphs sums
Those who canât keep up with the tough work pace at Tesla wonât get a pay raise and risk being fired, according to several mechanics. Complex issues also go unaddressed, as reported by several auto mechanics.
âWe send the cars out anyway,â says one employee.Teslaâs auto mechanics have to complete their tasks within certain time frames, known as âpiecework.â For instance, changing a reflector should take three minutes, and troubleshooting a maximum of one hour. However, in many cases, the time frames are set too tightly. This affects both the mechanics and Teslaâs customers.
This is the testimony of several mechanics that Dagens Arbete has spoken with. None of them wants to reveal their name out of fear of reprisals from the employer.
âThe system rewards those who do a poor job because it shows better productivity on paper,â says one of the employees.
According to him, there are several tasks that are impossible to complete thoroughly today. One example is more complex troubleshooting.
âIt can be an obscure issue that comes and goes. Then you have to sit and fiddle with all the cables and measure all the pins and so on. But it takes too much time,â he says.
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Not at all- Itâs already difficult to get coverage of the workersâ POV in a dispute like this, and non-English-Language sources make it even harder, so I really appreciate the updates. And itâs good to see someone fighting back against Musk , in a location which has real labour laws.
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This reminds me of some of the early Twitter layoffs that were based on number of lines of code. Quantity =/= quality, a fundamental concept Musk doesnât understand.
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There are many fundamental concepts that man do not understand.
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So he went to go visit meathead again and managed to sound as stupid as him
(yahoo reprint)
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ohmy. that edgy jacketâŠis that velvet???
edit/ nevermind;
and donned costumes for the podcastâs Halloween episode
edit2/ jfc. both are so full of shit, its still almost unbelivable.
âI overpaid tens of billions of dollars for Twitter on purpose because I hated that the company was headquartered in San Francisco and everyone knows San Francisco sucks.â
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And people say he didnât have a strategy!
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Even dumber is his idea that belonging in an early 80s vision of a future dystopia is a compliment.
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The main character of âBladerunnerâ was Billy Gimp.
None of it makes any sense.
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Is he hinting at his dream that in the future we will all ride self-driving electric sheep running on Android?
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An armoured âpersonnel carrier.â
Ford, Dodge, and GM have police departments pretty solidly. Hard to imagine the US military wanting this thing? Who the hell is it even for?
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I wanna be there when someone tells Musk that Deckard used a flying car, and he decides that the Cybertruck should fly too.
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Elon Musk. There was no business plan behind this thing, at all.
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Some dude called Descartes or something drove that in The Blade Runner. It was designed by Syd Mead.
This on was designed by some guy who is fan of the game Hard Drivinâ (1989).
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He already believes in a grim dark future where trillions of humans are spread across the galaxy, and the Earth is expendable because weâll have lots of planets.
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