🔗 Share this article

Across Sweden, approximately seventy automotive mechanics persist to confront among the globe's wealthiest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The labor strike targeting the US carmaker's 10 Scandinavian service centers has now entered two years of duration, and there is little indication for a settlement.

One striking worker has been on the Tesla picket line starting from the autumn of 2023.

"It's a difficult time," states the 39-year-old. With Sweden's chilly seasonal conditions sets in, it is expected to become more challenging.

The mechanic spends each Monday alongside a colleague, standing near an electric vehicle service center on a business district located in southern Sweden. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies shelter in the form of a mobile builders' van, as well as hot beverages & light meals.

But it remains operations continue normally nearby, at which the workshop appears to be at full capacity.

The strike involves an issue that reaches to the heart of Scandinavia's labor traditions – the right for worker organizations to bargain for pay and conditions representing their workforce. This principle of collective agreement has underpinned labor dynamics across the nation for almost one hundred years.

Currently some seventy percent of Scandinavia's workers are members of a trade union, while 90% are covered by a collective agreement. Strikes in Sweden are rare.

It's a system welcomed by all parties. "We prefer the right to negotiate directly with the unions and sign labor contracts," states a business representative of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

But the electric car company has disrupted the apple cart. Vocal chief executive Elon Musk has said he "disagrees" with the concept of labor organizations. "I just don't like anything which creates a kind of hierarchical situation," he informed listeners in New York last year. "I think labor groups attempt to create negativity within businesses."

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

"Yet they wouldn't reply," says Marie Nilsson, the organization's leader. "We formed the belief that they tried to avoid or not discuss the matter with us."

She states the organization ultimately saw no alternative than to call a strike, beginning on 27 October, 2023. "Usually it's enough to issue a warning," comments Ms Nilsson. "The company typically signs the contract."

But this did not happen on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, originally from Latvia, started working with the automaker in 2021. He asserts that pay and conditions were often subject to the discretion of supervisors.

He remembers a performance review where he states he was denied a salary increase on grounds he was "not reaching company targets". At the same time, a colleague was reported to have been turned down for a pay rise due to having the "wrong attitude".

However, some workers went out on strike. Tesla had approximately one hundred thirty mechanics working at the time the industrial action was called. The union states currently around 70 of its members are participating in the action.

The automaker has long since replaced these with new workers, for which there is no precedent since the era of the 1930s.

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

"It is not illegal, this being crucial to recognize. But it goes against all traditional norms. But Tesla shows no concern for conventions.

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

The company's local division declined attempts for interview via correspondence mentioning "record vehicle shipments".

Indeed, the automaker has given just a single press discussion during the entire period since the industrial action began.

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", Jens Stark, told a business paper that it benefited the organization better not to have a collective agreement, and instead "to collaborate directly with the team and provide them the best possible terms".

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

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

Port workers in nearby Denmark, Norway and Finland, decline to handle Teslas; rubbish is no longer collected from Tesla's Swedish facilities; and newly built charging stations remain linked to power networks in the country.

There is an example near the capital's airport, at which 20 charging units stand idle. However a Tesla enthusiast, the president of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, states Tesla owners are unaffected by the strike.

"There exists an alternative power point 10km from this location," he says. "And we can still buy our cars, we can service our cars, we can power our cars."

With stakes high for all parties, it is difficult to see an end to the deadlock. The union risks setting a precedent if it concedes the principle of collective agreement.

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