Battle against Tesla – the worst boss in the world

At the LO State Cartel Conference This week’s tournament was full of the strongest players in Norway. Prime Minister and Labor leader Jonas Gahr Storr of course made the trip to the mountains in mirror-soft winter conditions with a group of ministers. The central bank governor was also present and had to defend that she was pushing people away with non-stop interest rate increases.

But it was a completely different name that set the hall on fire. When Elon Musk was attacked on stage for union busting, cheers erupted.

Elon Musk was not present at Juul. If he were, he wouldn’t care. He was used to being booed and reprimanded by employees and unions. He responds by boasting about how many thousands he fired overnight when he took over Twitter a year ago. Things haven’t gone well, but the richest man in the world can afford to waste a few billion dollars playing God.

Speaking of Norwegian weapons

This time acting For once, it’s not about “X,” it’s about the old crown jewel, Tesla, the car brand that broke a historic barrier earlier this year when an electric car topped the world’s best-selling car list for the first time. Norway has served as a European showcase for Musk, and has long been the country outside the US where the largest number of Tesla vehicles have been sold. No wonder Elon Musk sees dollar signs in his eyes when he talks about Norway.

But there’s one thing Musk doesn’t like about Norway and the rest of Scandinavia. It is the northern model. He rejects a collective agreement for Tesla employees in Sweden and Norway, as he also does in his home country of the USA. In Sweden, the conflict ended at the end of October with a strike in several Tesla workshops among employees organized at IF Metall. In Norway, NRK Dagsrevyen was recently able to report that Tesla employees were afraid to organize for fear of losing their jobs, but many did so in secret.

Scandinavian Tesla managers say they have no other choice. The message from California is crystal clear: no collective agreements will be entered into. There is nothing to negotiate.

The new rules can be confusing

When you are the richest in the world You don’t have to follow many rules, and the ones he breaks can always pay off, as he’s had to pay off several Twitter bosses he’s fired. He’s also being sued for multibillions by former employees of Twitter, PayPal, and Tesla, and generally has a reputation as the world’s worst boss. He may be a brilliant and enterprising businessman, but Ap Torbjørn Berntsen’s veteran would surely call him a ‘trashbag’.

“Absolutely crazy,” Musk says in familiar style about a series of solidarity actions in Sweden, thus revealing that he does not understand with whom they were launched. Because the trade union movement in the Nordic countries is not the only one that stands united in this struggle. The conflict spread to other European countries, not least Germany, where the factory in Berlin produces three-quarters of all models sold in Europe. There, too, it could end in a blow, if Musk doesn’t budge.

The battle against Elon Musk Union busting has been described as the most important in Sweden for decades, and for the trade union movement in the Nordic countries this battle appears fateful for several reasons. IF Metall fears that other global companies will follow Tesla’s example if it does not put its foot down. They see it as a direct attack on the Nordic model, and thus as a larger, long-term battle against the globalization of employee rights.

Or as the Fifth Section Facebook account put it: “Should we allow Norway to become a developing union state like the USA? Where is the culture of fear and leaders with a desire to rule preventing workers from organizing? No!!!”

Now they are not Americans Conditions are exactly as bad as many would like them to be. Recently, the powerful United Auto Workers (UAW) prevailed against three major automakers in a dispute over wages, with support from Joe Biden himself. 75% of Americans supported the strikers in their struggle. In many similar struggles, low-wage groups in exposed industries such as the airline industry and the service professions have prevailed, and labor unions in the United States are said to be stronger than they have been for many decades.

UAW President Sean Fine believes the explanation for the growing support is that the fight is not about unilateral wages, but about the right to a decent life. Many Americans live paycheck to paycheck, have little job security, and must work multiple jobs to survive.

The bad news for Elon Musk is that Tesla is next on Sean Fine’s list: “Musk has made himself rich at the expense of the working class, and is spending billions on rockets, Twitter, and similar hobbies, while employees have no salaries to live on. American workers are fed up. “They want life.”

Maybe someone at IF Metall and Fellesforbundet will message Shawn Fain, if they haven’t already. The global trade union movement speaks together. Other global companies are starting to listen, fearing they will end up like Tesla.

Tesla conflict is It has become a battle that the union movement cannot lose, and one that even the richest man in the world cannot buy his way out of.