🔗 Share this article

In Sweden, approximately seventy automotive technicians continue to confront one of the world's richest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The industrial action at the American carmaker's 10 Swedish service centers has now entered its second anniversary, and there is minimal sign of a settlement.

One striking worker has been at the Tesla picket line since the autumn of 2023.

"It's a tough period," remarks the 39-year-old. With the nation's chilly seasonal conditions sets in, it's likely to become even tougher.

Janis spends each Monday alongside a colleague, standing near a Tesla service center on a business district in Malmö. His union, IF Metall, provides accommodation in the form of a mobile builders' van, as well as coffee and sandwiches.

However it's operations continue normally nearby, at which the service facility appears to operate in full swing.

The strike concerns an issue that goes to the core of Swedish labor traditions – the right of trade unions to bargain for wages and working terms representing their members. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned industrial relations in Sweden for nearly a century.

Currently approximately 70% of Scandinavia's employees are members of a trade union, and ninety percent are covered by a collective agreement. Strikes across the nation are rare.

This is an arrangement welcomed by all parties. "We prefer the right to bargain directly with worker representatives and sign labor contracts," says a business representative of the Confederation of Swedish Businesses business organization.

However the electric car company has disrupted the apple cart. Outspoken CEO the company leader has stated he "opposes" with the concept of labor organizations. "I simply disapprove of anything which creates a kind of hierarchical sort of thing," he told listeners in New York last year. "In my view the unions attempt to create negativity in a company."

The automaker came to the Scandinavian market starting in the mid-2010s, while IF Metall has long sought to secure a labor contract with the automaker.

"But they wouldn't reply," says the union president, the union's leader. "And we got the impression that they attempted to hide away or evade discussing the matter with our representatives."

She says the organization eventually saw no other option than to call industrial action, which started on 27 October, last year. "Typically it's enough to make the threat," comments the union leader. "Employers usually signs the contract."

However this did not happen in this case.

Janis Kuzma, who is from Latvia, began employment for Tesla in 2021. He asserts that pay & conditions were often dependent on the discretion of supervisors.

He remembers an evaluation meeting where he says he was denied an annual pay rise because that he "failing to meet Tesla's goals". Meanwhile, a colleague was reported to have been rejected for a pay rise because having an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, some workers went out on strike. The company employed approximately one hundred thirty technicians employed when the strike was initiated. IF Metall states currently approximately 70 of its members are participating in the action.

Tesla has long since replaced these with replacement staff, a situation there is no precedent since the era of the 1930s.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly and systematically," states a labor researcher, an analyst at Arena Idé, a think tank financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not against the law, which is crucial to recognize. However it violates all established norms. Yet the company shows no concern about norms.

"They want to become norm breakers. So if somebody informs them, hey, you are violating a norm, they perceive this as praise."

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

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

Earlier this year, the local division's "country lead", Jens Stark, told a business paper that it benefited the company more to avoid a union contract, and instead "to collaborate directly with employees and provide them optimal conditions".

Mr Stark rejected that the choice not to enter a labor contract was determined at Tesla headquarters in the US. "Our division possesses a mandate to take independent such decisions," he said.

The union is not completely isolated in its fight. The strike has received backing by a number of labor organizations.

Dockworkers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries & Finland, decline to process Teslas; rubbish is not removed from the automaker's Swedish facilities; while newly built power points remain linked to the grid in the country.

There is an example close to Stockholm Arlanda Airport, where twenty charging units remain unused. However a Tesla enthusiast, the president of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, says Tesla owners remain unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's an alternative power point six miles from here," he says. "Plus we are able to still purchase vehicles, we can maintain our vehicles, we can power our cars."

With consequences high on both sides, it is difficult to see a resolution to the stand-off. IF Metall faces the danger of establishing a pattern if it concedes the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

"The worry is how this could expand," states the researcher, "and ultimately {erode