Scandinavian Auto Technicians Engage in Prolonged Industrial Action Against Carmaker Tesla

Across Sweden, around 70 automotive technicians continue to confront among the world's richest companies – Tesla. This industrial action at the US automaker's ten Swedish service centers has currently entered its second anniversary, and there is minimal indication of a settlement.

One striking worker has remained at the Tesla picket line since October 2023.

"It has been a tough period," states the 39-year-old. With Sweden's cold winter weather sets in, it's likely to become more challenging.

Janis spends each Monday with a colleague, standing near a Tesla service center on an industrial park in Malmö. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies shelter via a mobile builders' van, as well as coffee & sandwiches.

However it's operations continue normally nearby, at which the service facility seems to operate at full capacity.

The strike concerns an issue that reaches to the heart of Scandinavia's labor traditions – the authority for worker organizations to negotiate pay and working terms representing their workforce. This principle of collective agreement has supported labor dynamics across the nation for almost a century.

Today some seventy percent of Swedish employees belong of a trade union, while 90% fall under by a collective agreement. Labor stoppages in Sweden are rare.

This is a system supported by all parties. "We prefer the right to bargain freely with worker representatives and sign collective agreements," states a business representative from the Association of Swedish Businesses employer group.

But the electric car company has upset established practices. Outspoken CEO Elon Musk has said he "opposes" with the idea of labor organizations. "I just disapprove of any arrangement which creates a sort of lords and peasants situation," he informed listeners in New York in 2023. "I think the unions try to generate conflict within businesses."

The automaker came to the Scandinavian market starting in 2014, and the metalworkers' union has long wanted to establish a labor contract with the company.

"Yet they wouldn't respond," says the union president, the union's leader. "And we got the belief that they tried to avoid or not discuss this with our representatives."

She says the organization ultimately saw no alternative except to announce industrial action, which started on 27 October, 2023. "Typically it's enough to issue a warning," comments Ms Nilsson. "The company typically signs the agreement."

However this did not happen in this case.

The striking mechanic, originally from Latvia, began employment with the automaker in 2021. He asserts that pay & conditions were often subject to the whim of managers.

He remembers a performance review at which he says he was refused a salary increase because he was "not reaching Tesla's goals". Meanwhile, a coworker was reported to have been turned down for increased compensation due to having an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, not everyone participated on strike. Tesla had approximately 130 mechanics employed when the strike was called. The union states that today around 70 of its members are participating in the action.

The automaker has since substituted these with replacement staff, for which there is no precedent since the Great Depression.

"Tesla has done it [found replacement staff] openly and systematically," states a labor researcher, an analyst at a research institute, a think tank financed by Swedish trade unions.

"It's not against the law, this being important to understand. But it goes against all established practices. Yet the company doesn't care for conventions.

"They want to be convention challengers. So if somebody informs them, listen, you are violating a standard, they see that as a compliment."

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

In fact, the company has granted just a single media interview in the two years since the strike began.

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", Jens Stark, informed a business paper that it benefited the organization more not to have a collective agreement, and rather "to collaborate directly with the team and give workers optimal conditions".

The executive rejected that the choice to avoid a collective agreement was determined by US leadership in the US. "We have authorization to make our own such decisions," he said.

IF Metall is not entirely isolated in its fight. This industrial action has been supported by a number of other unions.

Port workers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries and Finland, are refusing to process Teslas; waste is not collected from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; while recently constructed charging stations remain linked to the grid in the country.

There is one such facility close to Stockholm Arlanda Airport, where twenty charging units remain unused. However Tibor Blomhäll, the leader of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, says vehicle owners are unaffected by the strike.

"There exists an alternative power point 10km from here," he says. "And we can continue to buy our cars, we can maintain our cars, we can charge our electric cars."

With consequences high for all parties, it is difficult to envision an end to the stand-off. IF Metall risks establishing a pattern should it surrender the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

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