Swedish Car Technicians Engage in Prolonged Industrial Action Against Automotive Giant Tesla

Across Sweden, around seventy car technicians persist to confront among the world's wealthiest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The industrial action targeting the US automaker's ten Swedish repair facilities has now reached two years of duration, with minimal indication of a resolution.

One striking worker has remained on the Tesla picket line since the autumn of 2023.

"It's a difficult period," remarks the 39-year-old. And as Sweden's cold winter weather sets in, it is expected to become more challenging.

Janis devotes each Monday with a fellow worker, positioned outside a Tesla garage within a business district located in southern Sweden. His union, IF Metall, supplies shelter in the form of a mobile builders' van, as well as coffee and sandwiches.

However it remains business as usual across the road, at which the workshop seems to operate in full swing.

This industrial action involves an issue that goes to the core of Swedish labor traditions – the authority for worker organizations to bargain for pay & working terms on behalf of their members. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned industrial relations across the nation for nearly one hundred years.

Currently approximately 70% of Swedish employees are members to labor organizations, while ninety percent fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes in Sweden are rare.

It's an arrangement supported by all parties. "We favor the right to bargain freely with worker representatives and establish labor contracts," says a business representative from the Association of Swedish Businesses employer group.

But Tesla has upset the apple cart. Vocal chief executive Elon Musk has said he "disagrees" with the idea of labor organizations. "I simply don't like anything that establishes a sort of hierarchical sort of thing," he informed an audience in New York last year. "I think labor groups try to create negativity within businesses."

Tesla entered the Scandinavian market back in 2014, and the metalworkers' union has for years sought to secure a collective agreement with the automaker.

"But they did not reply," states Marie Nilsson, the organization's leader. "We formed the belief that they tried to hide away or not discuss this with us."

She states the union ultimately saw no other option except to announce a strike, beginning on 27 October, 2023. "Typically the threat suffices to issue the threat," comments Ms Nilsson. "Employers usually agrees to the agreement."

But not on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, who is of Latvian origin, began employment with the automaker several years ago. He asserts that wages and work terms frequently dependent on the whim of supervisors.

He remembers a performance review where he states he was refused an annual pay rise because he was "not reaching Tesla's goals". At the same time, a coworker was reported to have been rejected for increased compensation because having an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, not everyone participated in the industrial action. Tesla employed some one hundred thirty mechanics employed when the strike was initiated. IF Metall states that today around 70 of their represented workers are on strike.

Tesla has long since substituted the striking workers with replacement staff, a situation there is no precedent since the Great Depression.

"The company has done it [found replacement staff] publicly and systematically," says German Bender, a researcher at a research institute, a think tank supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It's not against the law, which is important to recognize. But it goes against all established norms. But the company doesn't care about norms.

"They aim to become norm breakers. So if anyone informs them, hey, you are breaking a standard, they perceive this as praise."

The company's Swedish subsidiary refused attempts for interview via correspondence citing "record deliveries".

In fact, the company has granted only one press discussion in the two years after the strike started.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, the executive, told a financial publication that it suited the organization more to avoid a union contract, and rather "to collaborate directly with the team and provide workers optimal terms".

Mr Stark denied that the choice to avoid a labor contract was determined at Tesla headquarters overseas. "We have authorization to make independent such choices," he said.

IF Metall is not entirely isolated in its fight. The strike has received backing by a number of other unions.

Dockworkers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Norway and neighboring states, decline to handle Teslas; waste is not collected from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; and newly built power points remain connected to power networks in the country.

Exists one such facility near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which twenty chargers remain unused. But a Tesla enthusiast, the president of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, states vehicle owners are unaffected by the strike.

"There's another charging station six miles from here," he comments. "And we can continue to purchase vehicles, we can service our vehicles, we can power our electric cars."

With consequences significant on both sides, it is difficult to envision a resolution to the deadlock. The union risks setting a precedent if it concedes the principle of negotiated labor contracts.

"The concern is how that would spread," says the researcher, "and eventually {erode