While in the US employing strikebreakers has been increasingly common since the 1970s, and there is only a much more limited right to strike. (Eg, sympathy strikes, like the Danish McDonald's one mentioned at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38036371 , are illegal in the US due to the anti-worker Taft-Hartley Act.)
The US court interpretation encourages strike breaking. For example, when combined with the decertification provision of Taft-Hartley Act, you can hire strikebreakers then have the new population of workers decertify the union. (This is one of the examples at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLRB_v._Mackay_Radio_%26_Teleg.... .)
So even if strikebreaking isn't illegal in either country, the legal framework which protects strikebreaking is stronger in the US, and the legally allowed consequences of strikebreaking are weaker.
These is part of the legal framework which a US employer should learn and understand when expanding to Europe.
To give what I think is a reasonable analogy, Sweden does not have a minimum wage law while the US does. Instead, minimum wages are determined by union agreements on an industry sector basis.
A US employer who enters Sweden and offers a position for only $5/hour might consider that reasonable, as there is no law against it. However, they would (as the Denmark/McDonald's case shows) be subject to industry action that is prohibited in the US.
Everything seems to indicate that strikebreakers are legal in Sweden.
>So even if strikebreaking isn't illegal in either country, the legal framework which protects strikebreaking is stronger in the US, and the legally allowed consequences of strikebreaking are weaker. These is part of the legal framework which a US employer should learn and understand when expanding to Europe.
It seems that you are still assuming that Tesla doesn't know the law, and will suffer legal consequences. What are the "legally allowed consequences" of strikebreaking in Sweden?
I think sympathy strikes are legal in Sweden. That makes them a legally allowed consequence. If I understand the Denmark McDonald's case correctly, then the Swedish equivalent of the Teamsters could decide to not deliver parts to a Tesla repair shop.
> Everything seems to indicate that strikebreakers are legal in Sweden.
Yes. Why is it so important to only look at what the law says about strikebreakers? There's also the overall economics.
As I understand it, in the US you can fire someone on strike and replace them with a permanent worker, so long as it is justified economically and not due "anti-union animus" - and the latter is hard to prove.
As I understand it, going on strike in Sweden not considered grounds for terminating the employment.
So if the employer hires a strike breaker - which is legal! - then once the worker ends the strike, the Swedish employer must continue to employ the worker and the strike breaker, under much stronger employee protections than in the US. That makes it expensive to hire strike breakers.
This makes the US a much easier place to use strikebreakers, even before considering its combination with anti-worker laws like Taft-Hartley.
