🔗 Share this article

Across Sweden, approximately 70 automotive mechanics persist to confront among the world's richest corporations – Tesla. This labor strike targeting the US carmaker's 10 Swedish repair facilities has currently reached its second anniversary, with minimal indication for a settlement.

One striking worker has remained on the Tesla protest line starting from the autumn of 2023.

"It has been a difficult time," states the worker in his late thirties. And as Sweden's chilly winter weather sets in, it is expected to grow more challenging.

Janis spends every start of the week alongside a fellow worker, standing near an electric vehicle service center within a business district located in southern Sweden. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies shelter in the form of a portable construction vehicle, plus hot beverages & sandwiches.

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

The strike concerns an issue that goes to the heart of Swedish industrial culture – the right of trade unions to bargain for pay & conditions on behalf of their members. This principle of collective agreement has underpinned industrial relations across the nation for nearly a century.

Today approximately seventy percent of Scandinavia's workers belong of a trade union, and 90% are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes across the nation are rare.

It's a system welcomed across the board. "We prefer the right to bargain freely with worker representatives and sign collective agreements," says a business representative from the Association of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

But the electric car company has disrupted established practices. Vocal chief executive the company leader has stated he "disagrees" with the idea of unions. "I just don't like any arrangement that establishes a kind of lords and peasants situation," he told an audience in New York last year. "I think labor groups try to create negativity within businesses."

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

"Yet they did not reply," states the union president, the union's leader. "And we got the belief that they attempted to hide away or evade discussing the matter with our representatives."

She says the organization ultimately saw no alternative than to announce a strike, which started in late October, 2023. "Typically it's enough to issue the threat," comments Ms Nilsson. "Employers usually signs the agreement."

However not in this case.

Janis Kuzma, originally from Latvia, began employment with the automaker several years ago. He asserts that pay & conditions were often dependent on the discretion of managers.

He recalls an evaluation meeting at which he states he was refused an annual pay rise because that he "failing to meet Tesla's goals". At the same time, a colleague was reported to have been rejected for a pay rise due to having an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, not everyone participated in the industrial action. Tesla employed approximately one hundred thirty mechanics employed at the time the industrial action was initiated. IF Metall says that today around 70 of its members are participating in the action.

The automaker has long since replaced the striking workers with new workers, a situation that has not occurred since the 1930s.

"The company has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly & methodically," says German Bender, an analyst at Arena Idé, a policy organization financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It's not against the law, which is important to understand. But it goes against all established norms. But Tesla doesn't care for conventions.

"They want to be norm breakers. Thus when somebody informs them, hey, you are breaking a standard, they see this as praise."

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

Indeed, the company has given only one media interview in the two years after the industrial action began.

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", Jens Stark, told a business paper that it suited the organization better not to have a union contract, and rather "to work closely with the team and give workers optimal conditions".

The executive rejected that the decision not to enter a collective agreement was determined by US leadership overseas. "We have a mandate to take independent such choices," he stated.

The union is not entirely isolated in this conflict. The strike has received backing by a number of other unions.

Dockworkers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Norway and neighboring states, are refusing to process the company's vehicles; waste is no longer removed from Tesla's Swedish facilities; and recently constructed charging stations are not being connected to the grid in the country.

There is one such facility close to Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which 20 charging units remain unused. However a Tesla enthusiast, the president of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, says vehicle owners remain unaffected by the strike.

"There exists another charging station 10km from here," he says. "Plus we are able to continue to buy our cars, we can service our vehicles, we can power our cars."

With stakes significant for all parties, it is difficult to envision an end to the deadlock. The union faces the danger of establishing a pattern if it concedes the principle of collective agreement.

"The concern is that this could expand," states the researcher, "and ultimately {erode