Tesla has filed a lawsuit against the Swedish state via Sweden’s Transport Agency after striking postal workers in the Scandinavian country stopped delivering license plates for new vehicles manufactured by the Texas-based automaker
The government, not the union, signed a contract that prevents the license plates from being handled in any other way.
There’s no contract, that’s just how license plates are distributed here. The government isn’t blocking Tesla, nor have they ordered anything that blocks Tesla. This is just the consequences of their actions; they tried to fuck with the way our labour market works, and now workers refuse to provide them with labour. It really is that simple.
What you’re saying is that the government makes some sort of legal exception to procedure specifically for Tesla. Why? Last I checked Tesla wasn’t the king of Sweden or any other organ that gets special legal treatment.
A democratically elected government signed an exclusive contract with a private company. This worked just fine for years.
But now a foreign company wants the democratically elected government to make an exception for them, so they can circumvent labour unions and undermine the labour rights enacted by a democratically elected parliament.
Ignoring the legal merits of this particular case, it’s bad PR and very bad politics.
Don’t be too surprised if, over the coming months and years, Tesla and Musk’s troubles with authorities and unions across the EU keep mounting up and that suddenly no one cares to give them the benefit of the doubt or interpret the rules anything but strictly.
There’s no contract, that’s just how license plates are distributed here. The government isn’t blocking Tesla, nor have they ordered anything that blocks Tesla. This is just the consequences of their actions; they tried to fuck with the way our labour market works, and now workers refuse to provide them with labour. It really is that simple.
What you’re saying is that the government makes some sort of legal exception to procedure specifically for Tesla. Why? Last I checked Tesla wasn’t the king of Sweden or any other organ that gets special legal treatment.
They made this bed.
There is a contract that states only this one service can deliver the license plates (edit: and can’t be delivered any other way)
That contract is the problem.
A democratically elected government signed an exclusive contract with a private company. This worked just fine for years.
But now a foreign company wants the democratically elected government to make an exception for them, so they can circumvent labour unions and undermine the labour rights enacted by a democratically elected parliament.
Ignoring the legal merits of this particular case, it’s bad PR and very bad politics.
Don’t be too surprised if, over the coming months and years, Tesla and Musk’s troubles with authorities and unions across the EU keep mounting up and that suddenly no one cares to give them the benefit of the doubt or interpret the rules anything but strictly.
I think “bad PR” is a massive understatement there.