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> There are also statements from Tesla mechanics in the press to the same effect

Scabs :) more seriously: let's say I have 100 employees; I underpay 90 of them, and overpay 10. When the union comes knocking, I roll out the 10 overpaid ones to whinge in the press. I'm not saying this is Tesla's case, just that all declarations (particularly from employers) have to be taken with a big pinch of salt.

That's not to say that unions are always right, some of them are undoubtedly power-hungry organizations more interested in survival than in their core mission (like all institutions). But typically, cries from employers about their agreements being "better" are just because they don't want to be tied to the guarantees that union agreements contain; nobody stops them from paying above what stated in the agreement anyway.

> nobody stops them from paying above what stated in the agreement anyway

That's not the point - the point is they don't want to be strong-armed via collective bargaining. We have a market to enforce market rates; you don't need a union to do that.

"The market will solve this" only works with an idealized free market.

Labour is the very definition of an un-free market. Employees are looking for the very means to survive, while employers (especially ones like Tesla) are just looking for ways to make themselves even richer than they already are.

A free market, in the sense of "market theory", requires (among several other conditions, very few of which apply here) that what is being negotiated over is a commodity. Neither side can have their very existence at stake, and what's being traded can be swapped with another provider's version of it for no (or very low) cost.

Their existence isn't at stake. It's only at stake if there's only one employer, e.g. in the total opposite of a free market.

Your phrasing, e.g. "even richer than they already are" is really not helping. Anyone can start a business, even a tiny one. They take on risk. They need people to survive this risk. Those people want close to no risk, and a salary and other things. They get those not because of labour unions, but because these two types of people need each other.

There are so many variables, it's fundamentally disingenuous to say "just find another job". Maybe Tesla is the only car factory in town, and your skills are very specific to car manufacturing. Maybe you have a disability that makes it extra-challenging to job-hunt. Maybe you borrowed money to fix your home, and you can't afford to be out of work for a month as you look for another gig. Etc etc.

"The free market of labor" is anything but.

You call it strong-arming, I call it negotiating among equals. When unions are involved, the original imbalance of capital owners vs labor becomes more of a level playing field, and the resulting agreements tend to be fairer than they would otherwise be.

Obviously, if you are a capital owner used to leverage your asymmetric power, this sucks. It probably sucks even if you're one of the few workers who happen to be able to be treated almost as peers (typically because of skill scarcity), since the union might concede something you enjoy in exchange for guarantees that you don't (think you) need. But for the workforce as a whole, collective bargaining is typically a net positive. Which is a big part of why Scandinavian countries have some of the highest quality of life scores in the world.

Personally I think the market is a pretty good mechanism to handle that: if you underpay employees will seek employment elsewhere.

The word safe here is doing a lot of heavy lifting imo. Not necessarily safe as in physical safety but also contractual safety.

An example is pension where companies not under collective agreement tend to not specify pension in contract rather just a blurb about "pension is to be compensated based on the currently applicable company policy". Basically allowing them to do whatever bait and switch they want later. Even if the benefits are good now there's no guarantee that they will stay that way. That's what a collective agreement is supposed to protect, that you can't go below that standard.

> I’ve yet to see anything that indicates [...] that Tesla employees themselves want a collective agreement with IF Metall.

I, uh, wonder how you arrive to this conclusion considering all the Tesla employees striking for this exact purpose? Admittedly it's not the employees themselves manning the picket lines, but that's for safety reason as bosses at Tesla has threatened to fire people who participate in the strike.

Same in Germany, where the left party and labor union drive a campaign against Tesla Grünheide (just southeast of Berlin) with very nebulous claims such as safe working conditions or wages. Those claims are never backed by hard numbers, just anecdotes about work accidents or in case of wages pure accusations.

The German IG Metall is quite obviously teaming up with the Swedish IF Metall (does anyone else recognize the similarity in their names) to keep their power. It will be interesting to see how this will work out.

> Same in Germany, where the left party and labor union drive a campaign against Tesla Grünheide (just southeast of Berlin) with very nebulous claims such as safe working conditions or wages. Those claims are never backed by hard numbers, just anecdotes about work accidents or in case of wages pure accusations.

This is a very strange claim considering that the German media recently published articles on workplace accidents at Tesla in Grünheide. Some of them are government documents they can't share, but they have published many numbers.

Doesn't this strongly support what the left party and labor union are saying?

> To me it’s quite obvious that this is about defending “the Swedish model"

Of course it is. And what's wrong with that?

Mr. Freeze Peach doesn't seem to complain about that when it is China calling the shots. If he wants to play in Sweden, he can play by local rules.

Copy-paste from another comment of mine:

There is nothing illegal about operating without a collective labour agreement in Sweden. For example, I’m born in Sweden and have worked here for 20+ years and I don’t think I’ve ever had an employer with a collective labor agreement. Among tech startups and smaller companies it’s quite rare, and when I’ve worked for larger companies I’ve incorporated and contracted, largely to get away from the negative effects of unions and job security: absurdly low pay.

Why are you pretending I said anything about it being illegal? I said nothing about law.

Yes you are absolutely right. In this case it is about Tesla, owned by the richest man in the world. In other cases it has been about a salad bar run by an ordinary small-business owner. The "Swedish model" is that they should all sign collective agreements or else the unions will be very unhappy and you will have a hard time to continue running your business.

No single person owns Tesla. It's a publicly traded company, Elon does not have majority ownership nor control of the board. Anyone can buy shares and take ownership or run for the board.