A gentle reminder that the union and Tesla are still fighting in #Sweden.
Translation by Google.
After Tesla's defeat in the Supreme Court, the company is now taking the issue to the administrative court. It is "sad" that the company is spending millions in legal proceedings rather than providing the same conditions as the rest of the industry, according to the ST union.
Tesla's legal battle to persuade the Swedish Transport Agency to break the blockade and hand over the license plates seemed over. But after the case went through all the courts and was thrown out by the Supreme Court, the company is now appealing to the Administrative Court in Karlstad instead.
โ I'm not surprised, but I'm still a little disappointed. Are these processes going to continue forever?, says Joakim Lindqvist, union lawyer at the ST union.
Since November 2023, ST and Seko have blocked Tesla's mail in sympathy with IF Metall's demand for a collective agreement with the company. This had the effect that the license plates that Tesla needs from the Swedish Transport Agency to put new Tesla cars into service got stuck in the system.
But while Tesla and the unions are playing a cat-and-mouse game with alternative addresses that the union then blocks, Tesla is pursuing the issue in the country's courts.
Now they are demanding that the administrative court in Karlstad force the Swedish Transport Agency to hand over the plates directly to the company.
"How the provision should be practically implemented so that the license plates reach Tesla is, according to Tesla, a question that the Swedish Transport Agency can appropriately take a position on," Tesla writes in the appeal, according to Dagens Arbete, which was first to report on the new process.
The Swedish Transport Agency does not want to break the blockade So far, the Swedish Transport Agency has not filed a response, but in the district court, the court of appeal, and thus also the Supreme Court, the authority's position has been that they cannot make exceptions to the procedures for Tesla.
It is a collective agreement. So it is not negotiated between Tesla and the workers directly. It is negotiated between a representation of the industry employers and a representation of the Unions. So the Employers side across the industry organizes itself internally what its positions are and the workers side does the same. Then their representatives negotiate changes that are valid across the entire industry.
These agreements do only leave small wiggle room for individual companies and their workers, because the collective agreements are by the very design set to define standards for the entire industry.
Think of it like the EU. If a new country wants to join the EU it cannot just make its demands on how to change all the EU law for itself. It has to mostly join the already agreed upon collective rules and then it can work together with the other countries, if it sees changes necessary. But these then dont apply for this country individually but in all of the EU.
Ok, fine, for example; Tesla joins the collective agreement and in return Tesla gets a guarantee for the pay-increase for the next 2 years.
I'm just sitting here wondering if you have any personal experience of union negotiations in Sweden? Because I do.
The major point of disagreement does not seem to revolve around setting the wages for the next two years, but whether to be in the collective agreement or not.
That is why the radical far right neoliberal ideologues at Tesla fight against it so much. Whatever the workers would offer in return, this point means whether Tesla would play by the normal rules and respect organized workers. It is staunchly against their ideology and that is why there is this whole situation. Tesla does not care about whether the wages change for the next two years by 0%, 3% or 5% . They care about whether they get to act like American capitalists, or whether they have to follow the Swedish way in Sweden.
And this issue goes beyond Sweden. Tesla is fiercely fighting unionization in all places. It is part of their core business ideology. In the same way wherever Tesla went in Europe they made a point of violating labor laws, because they deem themselves superior to European laws.