Swedish Car Mechanics Engage in Extended Industrial Action With Automotive Giant Tesla

In Sweden, approximately seventy automotive mechanics continue to challenge one of the world's wealthiest companies – Tesla. This industrial action targeting the American automaker's 10 Swedish service centers has currently entered its second anniversary, with little indication of a settlement.

One striking worker has remained at the electric car company's picket line since the autumn of 2023.

"It has been a tough time," states the 39-year-old. And as Sweden's chilly seasonal conditions arrives, it is expected to become more challenging.

Janis spends each Monday alongside a fellow worker, standing near an electric vehicle service center on an industrial park located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, IF Metall, provides accommodation in the form of a portable construction vehicle, as well as coffee & sandwiches.

But it remains operations continue normally nearby, at which the service facility appears to be at full capacity.

This industrial action involves an issue that reaches to the heart of Scandinavia's industrial culture – the authority of trade unions to negotiate pay & conditions representing their workforce. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has supported labor dynamics across the nation for nearly a century.

Today approximately 70% of Scandinavia's workers belong to labor organizations, and ninety percent fall under by a collective agreement. Labor stoppages in Sweden occur infrequently.

It's an arrangement welcomed across the board. "We favor the right to bargain directly with worker representatives and establish labor contracts," states Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Businesses employer group.

But Tesla has upset the apple cart. Outspoken CEO the company leader has said he "disagrees" with the concept of labor organizations. "I just don't like any arrangement that establishes a kind of hierarchical sort of thing," he told listeners at an event last year. "I think labor groups attempt to generate conflict within businesses."

Tesla entered the Scandinavian market starting in the mid-2010s, while the metalworkers' union has for years sought to establish a collective agreement with the automaker.

"Yet they did not respond," says Marie Nilsson, the union's president. "We formed the belief that they tried to avoid or not discuss the matter with us."

She states the organization eventually saw no alternative than to call industrial action, which started on 27 October, last year. "Usually it's enough to make a warning," says the union leader. "Employers usually signs the agreement."

But not on this occasion.

Janis Kuzma, who is from Latvia, began employment with the automaker in 2021. He asserts that pay and conditions frequently dependent on the whim of supervisors.

He remembers an evaluation meeting at which he says he was denied a salary increase on grounds that he "failing to meet Tesla's goals". Meanwhile, a coworker was said to be turned down for increased compensation because he had the "wrong attitude".

Nevertheless, not everyone participated on strike. Tesla employed approximately 130 technicians employed at the time the industrial action was initiated. The union says currently around 70 of their represented workers are participating in the action.

Tesla has long since replaced these with replacement staff, for which there is no precedent since the 1930s.

"The company has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly and methodically," says a labor researcher, a researcher at a research institute, a think tank supported by Swedish trade unions.

"It is not illegal, this being important to understand. But it goes against all established practices. Yet the company doesn't care about norms.

"They aim to be norm breakers. Thus when somebody informs them, listen, you are violating a standard, they perceive this as a compliment."

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary refused attempts for interview in an email mentioning "record deliveries".

Indeed, the automaker has given just a single press discussion in the two years after the strike started.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, Jens Stark, told a business paper that it suited the organization better to avoid a collective agreement, and instead "to work closely with employees and give them the best possible terms".

The executive rejected that the decision to avoid a labor contract was one made by US leadership in the US. "Our division possesses a mandate to make independent such choices," he said.

IF Metall is not entirely isolated in its fight. This industrial action has been supported from several of other unions.

Port workers in nearby Denmark, Nordic countries & Finland, are refusing to handle the company's vehicles; waste is no longer collected from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; and newly built power points remain linked to the grid across the nation.

There is one such facility near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which 20 chargers stand idle. However Tibor Blomhäll, the president of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, states Tesla owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's an alternative power point 10km from here," he says. "And we can continue to purchase vehicles, we can maintain our vehicles, we can charge our cars."

With consequences high on both sides, it's hard to envision an end to the stand-off. IF Metall risks setting a precedent if it concedes the principle of negotiated labor contracts.

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