🔗 Share this article

Across Sweden, approximately seventy car technicians continue to confront one of the globe's wealthiest companies – Tesla. The labor strike targeting the American automaker's ten Scandinavian repair facilities has currently entered its second anniversary, and there is little sign of a resolution.

Janis Kuzma has remained at the electric car company's picket line since the autumn of 2023.

"It has been a tough time," remarks the 39-year-old. And as Sweden's cold winter weather sets in, it is expected to grow even tougher.

The mechanic spends every start of the week alongside a colleague, standing outside a Tesla service center within a business district in Malmö. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies accommodation in the form of a mobile construction vehicle, plus hot beverages & light meals.

But it remains business as usual nearby, at which the workshop appears to operate in full swing.

This industrial action involves an issue that goes to the heart of Swedish industrial culture – the right of trade unions to negotiate pay & working terms on behalf of their workforce. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has supported industrial relations in Sweden for nearly one hundred years.

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

This is a system welcomed across the board. "We prefer the right to negotiate directly with the unions and sign collective agreements," says Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Businesses business organization.

However the electric car company has disrupted the apple cart. Outspoken chief executive the company leader has stated he "disagrees" with the concept of unions. "I simply don't like anything that establishes a kind of lords and peasants sort of thing," he informed listeners at an event last year. "In my view the unions try to create negativity in a company."

The automaker entered the Scandinavian market starting in 2014, while IF Metall has for years wanted to secure a collective agreement with the automaker.

"Yet they wouldn't reply," states Marie Nilsson, the organization's leader. "And we got the impression that they attempted to avoid or not discuss this with our representatives."

She states the organization eventually saw no alternative except to announce a strike, which started in late October, last year. "Usually it's enough to issue the threat," says Ms Nilsson. "The company typically agrees to the contract."

However this did not happen on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, who is from Latvia, started working for Tesla in 2021. He claims that pay & conditions frequently dependent on the whim of managers.

He remembers an evaluation meeting at which he says he was refused a salary increase on grounds that he "not reaching Tesla's goals". Meanwhile, a colleague was reported to have been turned down for a pay rise because he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, not everyone participated on strike. Tesla had approximately 130 technicians working at the time the strike was initiated. The union states currently approximately 70 of its members are on strike.

The automaker has since replaced these with replacement staff, a situation that has no precedent since the Great Depression.

"The company has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly and methodically," says German Bender, an analyst at a research institute, a policy organization supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not against the law, which is important to recognize. But it violates all established practices. But Tesla doesn't care for conventions.

"They want to be convention challengers. Thus when somebody tells them, hey, you are violating a standard, they see this as praise."

The company's Swedish subsidiary refused requests for interview via correspondence mentioning "record vehicle shipments".

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

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", the executive, told a business paper that it benefited the organization more to avoid a collective agreement, and instead "to work closely with employees and provide workers the best possible terms".

The executive denied that the choice to avoid a collective agreement was determined at Tesla headquarters overseas. "We have authorization to take our own such decisions," he stated.

IF Metall is not completely isolated in this conflict. The strike has been supported by a number of labor organizations.

Port workers in neighbouring Denmark, Norway & neighboring states, are refusing to process Teslas; waste is no longer collected from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; while newly built power points are not being connected to power networks across the nation.

Exists one such facility near the capital's airport, at which 20 charging units remain unused. However a Tesla enthusiast, the president of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, states vehicle owners remain unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's an alternative power point six miles from this location," he says. "And we can continue to purchase vehicles, we can service our vehicles, we can charge our cars."

With consequences significant for all parties, it's hard to see an end to the deadlock. IF Metall faces the danger of setting a precedent should it surrender the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

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