Swedish Auto Mechanics Engage in Prolonged Industrial Action Against Automotive Giant Tesla

Across Sweden, approximately seventy car mechanics persist to challenge among the globe's richest companies – Tesla. This industrial action at the US automaker's 10 Scandinavian service centers has now entered two years of duration, and there is minimal sign for a settlement.

Janis Kuzma has been on the Tesla protest line since the autumn of 2023.

"It's a tough period," states the worker in his late thirties. With Sweden's cold winter weather sets in, it's likely to grow even tougher.

The mechanic spends each Monday with a fellow worker, standing outside a Tesla service center within an industrial park located in southern Sweden. His union, IF Metall, provides shelter in the form of a portable construction vehicle, plus hot beverages and light meals.

But it remains operations continue normally across the road, where the workshop seems to operate in full swing.

This industrial action concerns an issue that reaches to the core of Swedish industrial culture – the right of trade unions to negotiate pay & working terms representing their workforce. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned industrial relations across the nation for almost one hundred years.

Today some seventy percent of Scandinavia's workers belong of a trade union, while ninety percent fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages across the nation are rare.

This is an arrangement welcomed by all parties. "We prefer the ability to bargain directly with worker representatives and establish labor contracts," states Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Businesses employer group.

However the electric car company has disrupted the apple cart. Vocal CEO Elon Musk has stated he "opposes" with the idea of unions. "I just disapprove of any arrangement which creates a sort of lords and peasants situation," he informed listeners at an event last year. "In my view labor groups try to create negativity within businesses."

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

"Yet they did not respond," states Marie Nilsson, the union's president. "We formed the belief that they tried to hide away or not discuss this with our representatives."

She states the union ultimately found no alternative than to call industrial action, beginning on 27 October, last year. "Usually it's enough to issue the threat," comments Ms Nilsson. "Employers usually agrees to the agreement."

However this did not happen in this case.

The striking mechanic, who is of Latvian origin, started working for Tesla several years ago. He asserts that pay and work terms were often subject to the discretion of supervisors.

He recalls an evaluation meeting where he states he was denied an annual pay rise because 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".

Nevertheless, not everyone participated on strike. Tesla employed approximately one hundred thirty technicians employed at the time the strike was called. The union states that today around 70 of their represented workers are on strike.

Tesla has long since replaced these with replacement staff, a situation that has not occurred since the era of the Great Depression.

"Tesla has done it [found replacement staff] publicly & systematically," states a labor researcher, an analyst at Arena Idé, a think tank supported by Swedish trade unions.

"It is not illegal, which is crucial to recognize. But it violates all traditional practices. But the company shows no concern for conventions.

"They want to be norm breakers. Thus when anyone tells them, hey, you are violating a standard, they see this as praise."

The company's Swedish subsidiary declined requests for comment in an email mentioning "all-time high vehicle shipments".

Indeed, the automaker has given only one media interview during the entire period since the industrial action started.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, Jens Stark, informed a financial publication that it benefited the company more to avoid a union contract, and instead "to work closely with employees and provide them the best possible terms".

The executive rejected that the choice not to enter a labor contract was determined by US leadership overseas. "We have authorization to take independent such decisions," he said.

IF Metall is not entirely alone in its fight. This industrial action has received backing from several of labor organizations.

Port workers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries & Finland, are refusing to process Teslas; waste is no longer collected from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; while recently constructed charging stations are not being connected to power networks across the nation.

Exists an example close to Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which 20 chargers stand idle. However Tibor Blomhäll, the leader of an owner's club the Swedish Tesla association, says Tesla owners are unaffected by the strike.

"There's another charging station six miles from this location," he comments. "Plus we are able to still purchase vehicles, we can service our cars, we can charge our electric cars."

With stakes high on both sides, it is difficult to see an end to the stand-off. IF Metall faces the danger of setting a precedent if it concedes the principle of negotiated labor contracts.

"The worry is that this could expand," says Mr Bender, "and ultimately {erode