A court in Sweden has thrown out Tesla’s lawsuit against the country’s postal service, which is backing Tesla mechanics’ strike there by refusing to deliver plates for the U.S. carmaker. The labor unions are also now backed by dockers in Denmark and Finland, which are refusing to process Tesla vehicles destined for Sweden. The action is a response to Tesla’s own refusal to recognize collective bargaining agreements with labor unions, which CEO Elon Musk describes as “insane” but is customary in Scandinavian industry.
A Swedish court ruled Thursday that PostNord will not be forced to deliver license plates for now. Possibly more concerning for Musk, however, will be the sympathy strikes spreading throughout Scandinavia as fellow unions coalesce their preserve behind the region’s deeply entrenched principle of collective bargaining as a lynchpin of labor relations. Union members across a host of Swedish industries have joined the secondary strike action with members of trade union IF Metall, who have been embroiled in an ongoing battle with Tesla for around six weeks. Earlier this week, Denmark’s largest trade union announced its own sympathy strike to hinder Tesla cars being delivered to Danish ports and transported into Sweden.
One of Elon’s most obvious flaws—and you have to hand it to the world’s richest man for making it clear how wildly one can succeed despite having so many— is thinking that Western laws, regulations and norms are homogenous and putting his foot in it when learning otherwise.
