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Comment by starbase | Hacker News Reader

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You are lying.

Around 70% of people in Sweden are members of Unions for $15/month.

Sweden salary is 4k/month, with full health insurance, free school for the kids, free college. In case they get ill, workers get 2 years of 80% salary.

While you have at will contrracts in the US, unions in Sweden have ensured 3 months notice. Unions also negotiate minumum annual raise and gives you annual raise at least equal to inflation.

Unemployment insurance is handled by unions, you must be a member - 1 year of 80% salary and additional year. If needed, new training is obtained for free.

Without a union agreement, Musk workers are slaves.

No serious brand operates without unions.

Yep, all of this are how things are, assuming your workplace plays by the social contract and signs the collective agreement. You can sign up for the unemployment insurance without being a union member too.

I am under the impression that they did not strike due to fear of reprisals from Tesla. Therefore, an adjacent union striking against Tesla can be a substitute because Tesla doesn't have leverage to threaten them. It's worker solidarity.

So you think the workers who didn't join the walkout are lying when they say they fear the union and who they actually fear is Tesla? Do you have even a shred of evidence for this claim?

I don't think any auto worker has said anything like that because it is so laughable if you know anything about the Swedish labor market.

Is it laughable though? The union is blockading shipments to a company that chooses not to join. The next step, apparently, will be an embargo on the company's electrical repair work and trash service.

Seems like extortion to me, so I certainly wouldn't want to put my career or my family in the crosshairs of a group that's willing to sink to such lows.

When the mafia demands protection money, it's prudent to fly under the radar.

When a corporation arbitrary decides not to do business with an individual, it's just their legal right.

When individuals decide not to do business with a corporation, it's a mafia, huh?

Corporations have to be forced to submit to society or they'll run roughshod over everyone as soon as they are able. They might even play nice at first, offering good conditions and pay, but that would never last. Learn from history.

Bold of you to assume that the person you're arguing against supports any restraint of free trade.

The whole point is that it's not considered a restraint on free trade if two businesses can't agree on a price and thus don't conduct business, but somehow becomes one when one side is the employee.

Please enlighten us on all the innocent Swedish families killed by union mafia car bombs.

I hope to never be the recipient of such "solidarity".

> Upstanding folks in that union, I tell ya what.

Indeed, they’ve guaranteed safety and prosperity for their members in Sweden for decades. Meanwhile in the US, Tesla workers have one of highest rates of injury among autoworker and the company is facing class action lawsuits and state investigations for alleged racist abuse of black workers.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/24/15681472/tesla-model-3-el...

https://apnews.com/article/tesla-racism-black-lawsuit-class-...

In 2020-2022 the workplace injury rate in Tesla's Fremont factory was well below industry average.

Totally believable. They’re not at all underreporting workplace injuries. Oh wait, except they also got investigated by the state of California for that too:

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-03-06/tesla-left...

https://revealnews.org/article/tesla-says-its-factory-is-saf...

Tesla's the biggest target for many journalists, the records are available via FOIA requests, and it's an obvious follow-up given the earlier stories. Tesla makes their workplace safety statements in annual reports, so proving a falsification of those reports is securities fraud and a big deal.

So if Tesla is lying, look it up via FOIA, file a whistleblower report with the SEC and cash in.

Didn’t that actually happen

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/12/tesla-whistleblowers-filed-c...

Translation: "The great thing is, no matter what they do, I'll find a way to condemn them for it."

Two articles that are 3 and 5 years old about an investigation? That's your evidence? Sounds like it went nowhere because if it did you would have posted that.

They’re currently under investigation in Germany for high levels of workplace injuries as well, so their disregard for safety has gone international!

Below the US average or below the Swedish average?

Around 70% of people in Sweden are members of Unions for $15/month.

Sweden salary is 4k/month, with full health insurance, free school for the kids, free college. In case they get ill, workers get 2 years of 80% salary.

While you have at will contrracts in the US, unions in Sweden have ensured 3 months notice. Unions also negotiate minumum annual raise and gives you annual raise at least equal to inflation.

Unemployment insurance is handled by unions, you must be a member - 1 year of 80% salary and additional year. If needed, new training is obtained for free.

Without a union agreement, Musk workers are slaves.

No serious brand operates without unions.

Did you reply to the wrong comment? This doesn't answer anything about the average the OP asked about.

Tesla workers in Sweden are paid less than an average in same industry in Sweden. No retirement funds. No injury insurance.

Sweden does not opearate llike that.

Again, he was talking about the injury rate -- not average salary or compensation.

Slaves?

yes, more or less slavery. modern slavery looks like that. underpaid. no rights. no pensions. no injury insurance. no right to. sounds like an average american factory worker. swedes don't want that.

educate yourself. there are 50 million people living in modern slavery today. and yes they are white too. however, the largest slaveholder in the world in India.

https://www.walkfree.org/global-slavery-index/

I tried for a while but I could not find an apples-to-apples comparison of tesla fremont factory, sweden autoworkers, us autoworkers.

Not true that they have higher wages. They lack injusry insurance, pension funds and have lower salaries thatn average worker in the same industry.

So the source for your quote is https://insideevs.com/news/693890/tesla-sweden-employees-ref... Some kind of American EV trade magazine. I can tell you that the quote is 100% bullshit and the only reason the employees wanted to "remain anonymous" is because the writer made them up. Swedish unions have exactly zero leverage on employees and the idea that someone would be afraid of repercussions from a union is so preposterous that it is laughable.

What the union is trying to do is to get Tesla to sign an agreement not to pay auto workers less than what other car manufacturers pay. If Tesla can't agree to that, when everyone else can, shame on them.

... and those workers should go work for the other manufacturers. Of course, when they don't for some reason, we won't be here talking about that.

Worker solidarity doesn’t mean take another position from a shitty position, knowing someone more desperate than you might take the position you just left. It means making sure even the most desperate worker has a minimum level of dignity in their workplace. It means the worker is invested in improving the operations of the company in which they work.

Your post is now old news.

This is no longer the case.

Share the current info then

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38085231

This article talks about "at least 5" strike breakers that arrived in one single taxi. Sounds like that backs up, not contradicts, the above comment that most workers didn't strike.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com