🔗 Share this article

Across Sweden, approximately 70 car technicians continue to challenge one of the world's richest corporations – Tesla. This industrial action at the American automaker's 10 Scandinavian service centers has currently reached its second anniversary, and there is little indication of a resolution.

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

"It has been a difficult period," states the 39-year-old. With the nation's chilly winter weather sets in, it is expected to grow more challenging.

Janis spends every start of the week alongside a colleague, positioned outside an electric vehicle garage on an industrial park located in southern Sweden. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies accommodation in the form of a mobile construction vehicle, as well as hot beverages & light meals.

But it's operations continue normally across the road, at which the workshop seems to be in full swing.

This industrial action concerns a matter that reaches to the heart of Swedish labor traditions – the authority for worker organizations to bargain for pay & working terms representing their members. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned labor dynamics across the nation for almost one hundred years.

Currently some 70% of Scandinavia's workers are members to labor organizations, while ninety percent fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes across the nation occur infrequently.

It's a system welcomed by all parties. "We favor the right to negotiate directly with worker representatives and sign labor contracts," says Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

But the electric car company has disrupted the apple cart. Vocal chief executive Elon Musk has stated he "disagrees" with the idea of unions. "I just disapprove of anything that establishes a kind of hierarchical sort of thing," he told listeners at an event last year. "In my view the unions attempt to generate negativity within businesses."

The automaker came to Sweden back in the mid-2010s, and IF Metall has for years sought to secure a labor contract with the company.

"Yet they did not reply," says the union president, the union's president. "We formed the impression that they attempted to avoid or not discuss the matter with our representatives."

She states the organization ultimately saw no other option than to call industrial action, which started in late October, 2023. "Usually it's enough to make a warning," comments Ms Nilsson. "The company typically agrees to the agreement."

But this did not happen in this case.

Janis Kuzma, originally from Latvia, began employment with the automaker in 2021. He claims that pay & work terms were often dependent on the whim of managers.

He recalls an evaluation meeting where he says he was denied a salary increase on grounds that he "not reaching Tesla's goals". Meanwhile, a colleague was said to be turned down for a pay rise because having an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, some workers participated on strike. Tesla employed some 130 technicians working at the time the industrial action was called. The union says currently around 70 of their represented workers are participating in the action.

Tesla has since substituted the striking workers with replacement staff, a situation that has not occurred since the 1930s.

"The company has done it [found replacement staff] publicly and methodically," says German Bender, a researcher at Arena Idé, a think tank supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

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

"They want to be convention challengers. So if somebody informs them, hey, you are breaking a standard, they see that as a compliment."

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary declined requests for interview via correspondence citing "all-time high deliveries".

Indeed, the company has given only one press discussion in the two years since the industrial action began.

In March 2024, the local division's "country lead", Jens Stark, told a financial publication that it benefited the organization better not to have a union contract, and rather "to collaborate directly with the team and give them the best possible terms".

The executive rejected that the choice to avoid a labor contract was determined by US leadership in the US. "Our division possesses a mandate to make our own such choices," he stated.

IF Metall is not completely isolated in its fight. The strike has been supported from several of labor organizations.

Port workers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Norway & neighboring states, are refusing to handle Teslas; waste is not collected from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; while newly built charging stations are not being connected to the grid in the country.

There is one such facility near the capital's airport, at which 20 chargers remain unused. However Tibor Blomhäll, the leader of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, says Tesla owners are unaffected by the strike.

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

With stakes significant for all parties, it is difficult to see an end to the deadlock. IF Metall faces the danger of establishing a pattern if it concedes the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

"The worry is that that would spread," states the researcher, "and ultimately {erode