[eddtries]

> plays ball

Which is the case for 99% of companies. It’s only American ones internationally expanding who don’t realise other economies operate differently that get stung with this.

[wil421]

Why does everyone complain like it is an American issue? It’s an Elon issue, he hates unions and does it very publicly.

For decades, Ford and others have factories in Europe and have union members.

[eddtries]

Because the previous examples of companies trying to avoid collective agreements have been American (notably Toys'R'Us and McDonalds)

[masklinn]

> Why does everyone complain like it is an American issue?

Because it largely is.

> For decades, Ford and others have factories in Europe and have union members.

These were handled very differently.

For the most part those were independent subsidiaries, under the same brand but playing with their own set of rules.

They commonly had different lineups entirely, for instance the Ford Focus was created in cooperation by the british (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_of_Britain) and German (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Germany) teams of Ford of Europe (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_of_Europe), and while the Focus was designed as an international car, it is the direct descendent of Ford of Europe's first passenger car the Escort (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Escort_(Europe)), which itself directly descends from Ford of Britain's Anglia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Anglia).