🔗 Share this article

In Sweden, around seventy car mechanics continue to challenge one of the world's wealthiest corporations – Tesla. This labor strike at the US automaker's 10 Scandinavian service centers has now reached its second anniversary, with minimal indication of a settlement.

One striking worker has remained on the electric car company's protest line since October 2023.

"It's a tough time," remarks the 39-year-old. And as the nation's chilly winter weather arrives, it is expected to grow even tougher.

The mechanic devotes each Monday alongside a colleague, standing outside a Tesla garage on a business district located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, IF Metall, provides shelter via a mobile builders' van, as well as hot beverages and sandwiches.

However it's operations continue normally across the road, at which the workshop seems to operate at full capacity.

The strike concerns a matter that reaches to the heart of Swedish industrial culture – the right of trade unions to negotiate pay and conditions representing their workforce. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned labor dynamics in Sweden for nearly one hundred years.

Currently approximately seventy percent of Swedish employees are members of a trade union, and 90% are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages in Sweden are rare.

This is a system welcomed by all parties. "We prefer the ability to bargain freely with the unions and establish collective agreements," states a business representative of the Confederation of Swedish Businesses employer group.

However the electric car company has upset established practices. Outspoken CEO Elon Musk has stated he "opposes" with the concept of labor organizations. "I just don't like any arrangement which creates a kind of hierarchical sort of thing," he informed an audience in New York in 2023. "I think labor groups attempt to create conflict in a company."

The automaker came to Sweden back in 2014, while IF Metall has for years wanted to establish a labor contract with the automaker.

"Yet they did not reply," states the union president, the organization's president. "And we got the belief that they attempted to hide away or not discuss this with us."

She states the union ultimately saw no alternative except to call a strike, which started in late October, 2023. "Typically it's enough to issue the threat," says the union leader. "Employers typically agrees to the contract."

However this did not happen in this case.

Janis Kuzma, originally of Latvian origin, began employment with the automaker several years ago. He claims that pay & work terms were often dependent on the whim of managers.

He remembers a performance review at which he states he was denied an annual pay rise on grounds he was "not reaching company targets". At the same time, a colleague was said to be turned down for increased compensation because he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, some workers participated in the industrial action. Tesla employed approximately one hundred thirty technicians working at the time the industrial action was initiated. IF Metall states currently around seventy of its members are participating in the action.

Tesla has since substituted these with replacement staff, a situation there is no precedent since the 1930s.

"Tesla has done it [found replacement staff] publicly and methodically," states a labor researcher, a researcher at Arena Idé, a policy organization supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It's not against the law, this being crucial to understand. However it goes against all established practices. Yet the company shows no concern about norms.

"They want to be norm breakers. So if anyone informs them, listen, you are breaking a standard, they perceive this as a compliment."

The company's local division declined requests for comment via correspondence citing "record vehicle shipments".

In fact, the company has granted just a single press discussion during the entire period since the industrial action began.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, Jens Stark, told a financial publication that it suited the organization better not to have a collective agreement, and rather "to collaborate directly with the team and provide them the best possible terms".

Mr Stark rejected that the decision not to enter a labor contract was one made by US leadership overseas. "Our division possesses authorization to make our own such decisions," he stated.

The union is not entirely alone in its fight. The strike has been supported by a number of other unions.

Port workers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries & neighboring states, decline to process the company's vehicles; rubbish is not collected from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; and newly built charging stations are not being linked to power networks in the country.

There is an example near the capital's airport, at which twenty chargers remain unused. But Tibor Blomhäll, the president of an owner's club the Swedish Tesla association, says vehicle owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's another charging station 10km from this location," he comments. "Plus we are able to continue to buy our cars, we can service our vehicles, we can charge our electric cars."

With consequences significant for all parties, it is difficult to envision a resolution to the deadlock. IF Metall faces the danger of setting a precedent should it surrender the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

"The worry is how that would spread," says Mr Bender, "and ultimately {erode