Tesla has filed a lawsuit against the Swedish government's Transport Agency over a workers' strike that has blocked the U.S. auto maker's requests for license plates for new vehicles, business daily Dagens Industri reported on Monday.
The Nordic employer-employee dynamic is fascinating. Did you know that there isn’t really a minimum wage in the Nordics? Neither did I! Despite this, workers are paid and treated well. Because of unions. In fact, the system works so well that Denmark has been resisting the EU’s demands to instate a minimum wage. At the behest of unions! Workers in the Nordics generally take matters into their own hands. In some respects it works really well, because the dispute is handled between interested parties. People who have deep working knowledge of the situation. I think it’s much more effective and flexible than getting the government involved, which tends to take ham-fisted action far too slowly. At the heart of it is a very liberal principle: you can’t force someone to work for you. That’s slavery. Everyone has the right to not work. Of course, Tesla has the right to fire those workers. But then the entire workforce is entitled to stop working at the same time. It’s a great example of a company having a bargaining partner with equal bargaining power on the other side. This doesn’t really ever happen in America, or really most other countries, which is why Musk is so confused. He’s about to learn that bullying unions in the Nordics doesn’t work.
The Nordic employer-employee dynamic is fascinating. Did you know that there isn’t really a minimum wage in the Nordics? Neither did I! Despite this, workers are paid and treated well. Because of unions. In fact, the system works so well that Denmark has been resisting the EU’s demands to instate a minimum wage. At the behest of unions! Workers in the Nordics generally take matters into their own hands. In some respects it works really well, because the dispute is handled between interested parties. People who have deep working knowledge of the situation. I think it’s much more effective and flexible than getting the government involved, which tends to take ham-fisted action far too slowly. At the heart of it is a very liberal principle: you can’t force someone to work for you. That’s slavery. Everyone has the right to not work. Of course, Tesla has the right to fire those workers. But then the entire workforce is entitled to stop working at the same time. It’s a great example of a company having a bargaining partner with equal bargaining power on the other side. This doesn’t really ever happen in America, or really most other countries, which is why Musk is so confused. He’s about to learn that bullying unions in the Nordics doesn’t work.