🔗 Share this article

In Sweden, approximately 70 automotive technicians continue to confront among the globe's wealthiest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The industrial action at the US carmaker's 10 Swedish service centers has now entered two years of duration, with minimal indication of a resolution.

One striking worker has been on the electric car company's picket line starting from the autumn of 2023.

"It has been a tough period," remarks the 39-year-old. And as Sweden's chilly winter weather arrives, it is expected to become more challenging.

Janis devotes each Monday with a fellow worker, standing near an electric vehicle service center within a business district in Malmö. The labor organization, IF Metall, supplies accommodation via a mobile construction vehicle, plus coffee and sandwiches.

But it remains business as usual across the road, where the service facility appears to operate in full swing.

The strike involves a matter that reaches to the heart of Swedish labor traditions – the authority for worker organizations to bargain for pay and working terms on behalf of their workforce. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has supported labor dynamics across the nation for almost one hundred years.

Today approximately seventy percent of Swedish workers belong of a trade union, and ninety percent fall under by a collective agreement. Labor stoppages across the nation are rare.

This is a system welcomed by all parties. "We favor the right to bargain directly with the unions and sign labor contracts," states a business representative of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

But Tesla has upset established practices. Outspoken CEO the company leader has stated he "opposes" with the concept of labor organizations. "I just don't like anything which creates a kind of hierarchical sort of thing," he told listeners at an event last year. "I think labor groups attempt to generate negativity within businesses."

Tesla entered Sweden back in 2014, while the metalworkers' union has for years sought to establish a collective agreement with the company.

"But they wouldn't reply," says the union president, the union's president. "And we got the belief that they tried to hide away or not discuss the matter with our representatives."

She says the union ultimately found no alternative than to call a strike, beginning on 27 October, last year. "Usually the threat suffices to make the threat," says the union leader. "The company typically signs the contract."

But not on this occasion.

Janis Kuzma, originally from Latvia, started working with the automaker in 2021. He claims that pay and conditions were often dependent on the whim of managers.

He remembers a performance review at which he says he was denied an annual pay rise on grounds that he "not reaching Tesla's goals". At the same time, a colleague was said to have been rejected for increased compensation because he had the "wrong attitude".

Nevertheless, some workers went out on strike. The company employed approximately 130 mechanics working when the industrial action was called. IF Metall says currently approximately 70 of their represented workers are on strike.

The automaker has long since replaced these with new workers, for which that has no precedent since the 1930s.

"Tesla has done it [found replacement staff] openly and methodically," states a labor researcher, an analyst at Arena Idé, a policy organization supported by Swedish trade unions.

"It's not against the law, which is crucial to recognize. But it violates all established norms. Yet Tesla shows no concern about norms.

"They want to become convention challengers. So if anyone informs them, hey, you are breaking a norm, they see this as praise."

The company's Swedish subsidiary declined requests for interview in an email mentioning "all-time high deliveries".

In fact, the automaker has given just a single media interview in the two years after the industrial action started.

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, the executive, informed a financial publication that it benefited the company better to avoid a union contract, and instead "to work closely with employees and give workers the best possible terms".

The executive denied that the decision not to enter a collective agreement 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 this conflict. This industrial action has been supported by a number of other unions.

Dockworkers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Norway & neighboring states, decline to handle Teslas; waste is no longer collected from the automaker's Swedish facilities; and recently constructed power points are not being linked to power networks in the country.

There is an example close to Stockholm Arlanda Airport, where 20 charging units stand idle. However a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, states Tesla owners remain unaffected by the strike.

"There's an alternative power point 10km from this location," he comments. "And we can still buy our cars, we can service our cars, we can charge our electric cars."

With consequences high for all parties, it's hard to see an end to the stand-off. The union faces the danger of establishing a pattern should it surrender the principle of negotiated labor contracts.

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