🔗 Share this article

In Sweden, around seventy automotive technicians persist to challenge one of the world's richest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This labor strike at the American automaker's 10 Swedish service centers has now entered its second anniversary, with minimal indication of a resolution.

Janis Kuzma has been at the Tesla protest line since October 2023.

"It has been a tough time," states the 39-year-old. With the nation's cold winter weather arrives, it is expected to become even tougher.

The mechanic devotes every start of the week alongside a colleague, standing outside an electric vehicle garage on an industrial park located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides accommodation in the form of a mobile construction vehicle, as well as coffee & sandwiches.

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

This industrial action concerns a matter that goes to the core of Swedish labor traditions – the right of trade unions to negotiate pay & conditions representing their workforce. This principle of collective agreement has supported labor dynamics across the nation for nearly one hundred years.

Today approximately seventy percent of Scandinavia's workers belong to labor organizations, while ninety percent fall under by a collective agreement. Labor stoppages across the nation occur infrequently.

It's an arrangement welcomed by all parties. "We prefer the ability to negotiate directly with the unions and sign collective agreements," states a business representative of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

However Tesla has upset the apple cart. Outspoken CEO the company leader has stated he "disagrees" with the idea of unions. "I simply disapprove of anything which creates a kind of hierarchical sort of thing," he told listeners at an event last year. "I think labor groups try to generate negativity within businesses."

Tesla entered the Scandinavian market back in the mid-2010s, and the metalworkers' union has long sought to secure a collective agreement with the automaker.

"But they did not reply," says Marie Nilsson, the organization's president. "We formed the impression that they attempted to avoid or evade discussing the matter with our representatives."

She says the union ultimately saw no other option than to announce industrial action, which started in late October, 2023. "Usually the threat suffices to issue the threat," says the union leader. "Employers usually agrees to the agreement."

However this did not happen on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, originally of Latvian origin, started working for Tesla several years ago. He asserts that pay and conditions were often dependent on the discretion of supervisors.

He recalls an evaluation meeting at which he says he was denied an annual pay rise on grounds he was "not reaching Tesla's goals". At the same time, a coworker was reported to be turned down for increased compensation due to having the "wrong attitude".

However, not everyone participated in the industrial action. The company employed some one hundred thirty mechanics working at the time the strike was called. The union states currently around seventy of its members are on strike.

The automaker has since substituted the striking workers with replacement staff, a situation there is no precedent since the era of the 1930s.

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

"It is not against the law, this being important to recognize. But it goes against all traditional practices. But Tesla doesn't care about norms.

"They aim to be norm breakers. So if anyone informs them, hey, you are breaking a norm, they perceive that as a compliment."

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary refused requests for interview in an email citing "record vehicle shipments".

In fact, the automaker has given just a single press discussion in the two years since the strike began.

Earlier this year, the local division's "country lead", the executive, informed a financial publication that it suited the company more to avoid a union contract, and instead "to work closely with employees and provide workers the best possible terms".

Mr Stark denied that the decision not to enter a labor contract was determined by US leadership in the US. "We have authorization to take our own such choices," he said.

IF Metall is not entirely alone in this conflict. This industrial action has been supported from several of other unions.

Dockworkers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries & Finland, are refusing to handle Teslas; rubbish is no longer removed from the automaker's Swedish facilities; while newly built power points are not being connected to power networks in the country.

There is an example near the capital's airport, at which 20 charging units remain unused. But Tibor Blomhäll, the leader of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, states Tesla owners are unaffected by the strike.

"There exists an alternative power point six miles from here," he comments. "Plus we are able to continue to buy our cars, we can maintain our cars, we can power our electric cars."

With stakes high for all parties, it is difficult to envision a resolution to the stand-off. IF Metall faces the danger of establishing a pattern should it surrender the principle of negotiated labor contracts.

"The concern is that this could expand," states the researcher, "and eventually {erode