{"text":[[{"start":12.17,"text":"In Sweden, the innate suspicion towards organised labour of a US tech entrepreneur has collided with Europe’s social model. "},{"start":18.874,"text":"The Swedish IF Metall union is in an escalating battle with Elon Musk’s Tesla over the carmaker’s refusal to sign a collective bargaining agreement, where employers and unions set labour conditions. "},{"start":28.954,"text":"The dispute has already spread to dockworkers in Norway and Denmark. "},{"start":32.759,"text":"Its implications for Tesla, unions and the auto industry stretch across Europe, and back home to the US. "}],[{"start":39.83,"text":"Under the Nordic labour model that Sweden typifies, unions and employer organisations jointly set wages and working conditions in most companies at national level; the government does not intervene. "},{"start":50.147,"text":"Both sides tend to agree this has kept strikes down compared with, say, France. "},{"start":55.126999999999995,"text":"The unions see collective agreements as especially vital in a nation with no minimum wage. "}],[{"start":60.89,"text":"A wrinkle here is that many small companies in Sweden are not part of collective bargaining agreements — and despite its global clout and renown, Tesla’s labour presence in the country, where it has no manufacturing, is relatively tiny. "},{"start":73.219,"text":"Only about 130 mechanics in Tesla workshops are involved in the dispute. "},{"start":77.624,"text":"That has led to some sympathy for the US automaker in Swedish business circles, especially given the unions’ hardball tactics. "}],[{"start":84.78,"text":"IF Metall and supporters in other sectors are certainly open to charges of heavy-handedness. "},{"start":89.697,"text":"Using a right to sympathy action, cleaners, postal staff and dockworkers have stopped co-operating with Tesla — preventing it from receiving registration plates for cars or even unloading them from ships. "},{"start":100.202,"text":"Danish and Norwegian dockworkers are set to prevent the company from bringing cars into Sweden from their ports. "}],[{"start":106.67,"text":"The unions argue this is an existential issue. "},{"start":109.637,"text":"They have pressed other tech companies such as Northvolt, Klarna and Spotify to sign collective agreements. "},{"start":115.042,"text":"If a multinational such as Tesla can avoid a deal, they fear, others might do the same, undermining a bargaining system that has existed since 1938. "}],[{"start":124.37,"text":"The stakes are high for Tesla, too. "},{"start":127.149,"text":"Being seen to “fold” in Sweden could embolden its workforces elsewhere. "},{"start":131.092,"text":"In Germany, where worker representation is required by law, Tesla is resisting ambitions by the big unions to take the role of organising workers at its 10,000-strong Grünheide factory. "},{"start":141.472,"text":"In the US, the United Auto Workers union is making unusually public efforts to unionise workers at 13 carmakers that have non-union plants, including Tesla, after it wrested sizeable pay rises and concessions from General Motors, Ford and Stellantis in a six-week strike. "}],[{"start":156.8,"text":"For Musk, challenging established ways of doing things is central to his modus operandi. "},{"start":161.99200000000002,"text":"His Tesla business is part of an invading band of EV makers aiming to supplant Europe’s auto giants — which dragged their feet on the new technology — precisely by rejecting old practices. "},{"start":171.847,"text":"They are apt to see attempts to force them into existing labour relations pacts as a form of protectionism. "}],[{"start":177.78,"text":"But business leadership is also about recognising what works. "},{"start":181.459,"text":"The Nordic model of labour co-operation has been found to be positive for manufacturing productivity, and to have made workforces more adaptable and willing to adopt new technology — making it generally good for employers, too. "}],[{"start":194.18,"text":"Disrupters are vital to economic dynamism; Musk has done more disrupting, and shown more dynamism, than most. "},{"start":201.209,"text":"But foreign investors need to respect the legal and social rules and the business cultures of the countries where they seek to do business; doing otherwise can harm their brands. "},{"start":209.502,"text":"It should be for Musk and his company to adapt to a Swedish model that has a record of working well, rather than for the Swedish model to adapt to Musk. "}],[{"start":216.85000000000002,"text":""}]],"url":"https://creatives.ftacademy.cn/album/133422-1701922343.mp3"}