Swedish Car Technicians Participate in Prolonged Industrial Action Against Carmaker Tesla

In Sweden, approximately seventy car mechanics persist to confront one of the world's richest corporations – Tesla. The industrial action targeting the US automaker's ten Swedish service centers has now reached two years of duration, with minimal indication for a settlement.

One striking worker has been at the electric car company's protest line starting from October 2023.

"It's a tough period," remarks the worker in his late thirties. With the nation's cold seasonal conditions sets in, it is expected to grow more challenging.

The mechanic devotes every start of the week alongside a colleague, standing outside a Tesla garage on a business district located in southern Sweden. His union, IF Metall, supplies shelter in the form of a portable builders' van, as well as coffee and light meals.

However it's business as usual nearby, at which the service facility seems to operate at full capacity.

This industrial action involves a matter that goes to the core of Swedish labor traditions – the authority for worker organizations to bargain for wages and working terms representing their workforce. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned labor dynamics across the nation for nearly a century.

Currently some 70% of Swedish workers are members of a trade union, while 90% are covered by a collective agreement. Strikes across the nation are rare.

This is a system welcomed by all parties. "We prefer the ability to negotiate directly with the unions and establish labor contracts," states Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Businesses business organization.

However the electric car company has upset the apple cart. Outspoken CEO Elon Musk has stated he "opposes" with the concept of labor organizations. "I just disapprove of any arrangement which creates a sort of hierarchical sort of thing," he informed listeners in New York last year. "In my view labor groups attempt to generate conflict in a company."

The automaker came to Sweden back in the mid-2010s, and the metalworkers' union has long sought to secure a collective agreement with the automaker.

"Yet they wouldn't respond," states Marie Nilsson, the union's leader. "And we got the belief that they tried to avoid or evade discussing the matter with our representatives."

She states the organization eventually saw no alternative than to call a strike, which started on 27 October, 2023. "Usually it's enough to make a warning," comments the union leader. "The company usually signs the contract."

However this did not happen in this case.

The striking mechanic, who is of Latvian origin, began employment with the automaker several years ago. He asserts that pay & work terms frequently dependent on the discretion of managers.

He remembers a performance review at which he says he was denied an annual pay rise on grounds that he "failing to meet Tesla's goals". At the same time, a colleague was said to have been turned down for increased compensation due to he had the "wrong attitude".

However, not everyone participated in the industrial action. The company employed some one hundred thirty technicians working when the industrial action was initiated. IF Metall states currently approximately seventy of its members are participating in the action.

Tesla has long since substituted the striking workers with replacement staff, a situation there is not occurred since the 1930s.

"Tesla has done it [found replacement staff] publicly & methodically," says a labor researcher, an analyst at a research institute, a think tank financed by Swedish trade unions.

"It is not illegal, which is important to understand. However it violates all established practices. But the company doesn't care about norms.

"They want to become convention challengers. Thus when anyone tells them, listen, you are breaking a standard, they see this as a compliment."

The company's Swedish subsidiary refused attempts for interview via correspondence citing "all-time high vehicle shipments".

In fact, the automaker has given just a single press discussion during the entire period since the strike started.

In March 2024, the local division's "national manager, Jens Stark, informed a financial publication that it suited the organization more not to have a union contract, and instead "to collaborate directly with the team and give them the best possible conditions".

The executive denied that the choice to avoid a labor contract was determined at Tesla headquarters overseas. "Our division possesses authorization to take independent such decisions," he stated.

IF Metall is not completely alone in this conflict. This industrial action has been supported from several of labor organizations.

Port workers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Norway and Finland, are refusing to process Teslas; rubbish is no longer removed from the automaker's Swedish facilities; while recently constructed charging stations remain connected to power networks across the nation.

Exists one such facility close to the capital's airport, at which twenty chargers stand idle. However Tibor Blomhäll, the leader of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, says vehicle owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There exists another charging station 10km from this location," he says. "Plus we are able to continue to purchase vehicles, we can maintain our vehicles, we can power our electric cars."

With consequences significant on both sides, it's hard to envision an end to the deadlock. IF Metall faces the danger of setting a precedent if it concedes the principle of collective agreement.

"The concern is how that would spread," says Mr Bender, "and eventually {erode