Swedish Auto Mechanics Participate in Extended Labor Dispute With Automotive Giant Tesla

Across Sweden, approximately seventy car mechanics persist to confront one of the globe's richest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This industrial action targeting the US carmaker's 10 Scandinavian repair facilities has now reached its second anniversary, and there is little indication for a resolution.

One striking worker has remained on the electric car company's protest line starting from the autumn of 2023.

"It's a tough time," states the worker in his late thirties. With Sweden's cold seasonal conditions sets in, it is expected to become even tougher.

The mechanic spends every start of the week with a colleague, positioned near a Tesla garage on a business district located in southern Sweden. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides accommodation via a mobile builders' van, as well as hot beverages and sandwiches.

However it's operations continue normally nearby, at which the workshop appears to operate in full swing.

This industrial action involves an issue that reaches to the core of Swedish industrial culture – the right for worker organizations to bargain for pay & working terms representing their members. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned industrial relations in Sweden for nearly a century.

Today approximately 70% of Swedish employees belong to labor organizations, while 90% are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages across the nation occur infrequently.

This is an arrangement welcomed across the board. "We prefer the right to bargain freely with worker representatives and establish collective agreements," says Mattias Dahl from the Association of Swedish Businesses business organization.

However the electric car company has disrupted the apple cart. Vocal chief executive Elon Musk has stated he "opposes" with the concept of unions. "I just don't like any arrangement that establishes a sort of lords and peasants sort of thing," he told an audience in New York last year. "In my view labor groups try to generate conflict in a company."

The automaker entered Sweden back in 2014, and IF Metall has long sought to establish a collective agreement with the company.

"But they wouldn't respond," says Marie Nilsson, the organization's leader. "And we got the belief that they attempted to hide away or evade discussing the matter with us."

She states the organization eventually saw no alternative except to announce a strike, which started in late October, 2023. "Typically it's enough to make the threat," comments Ms Nilsson. "Employers usually agrees to the agreement."

But not on this occasion.

Janis Kuzma, originally of Latvian origin, began employment with the automaker several years ago. He claims that wages & conditions were often subject to the discretion of managers.

He recalls a performance review where he says he was refused a salary increase on grounds he was "failing to meet Tesla's goals". At the same time, a coworker was said to be turned down for a pay rise because having an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, some workers went out in the industrial action. Tesla employed approximately one hundred thirty mechanics working when the strike was initiated. IF Metall says currently approximately 70 of their represented workers are participating in the action.

Tesla has long since substituted these with replacement staff, a situation there is not occurred since the 1930s.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly and systematically," says German Bender, an analyst at a research institute, a think tank financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not against the law, which is crucial to recognize. However it goes against all established norms. But Tesla doesn't care about norms.

"They aim to be convention challengers. So if anyone tells them, hey, you are breaking a standard, they perceive that as praise."

The company's Swedish subsidiary refused requests for interview via correspondence mentioning "all-time high deliveries".

Indeed, the automaker has granted just a single press discussion in the two years since the industrial action started.

In March 2024, the local division's "country lead", Jens Stark, told a business paper that it benefited the organization more to avoid a union contract, and instead "to collaborate directly with employees and provide them optimal conditions".

Mr Stark rejected that the choice to avoid a collective agreement was determined by US leadership in the US. "We have a mandate to take our own such decisions," he said.

IF Metall is not entirely alone in its fight. The strike has received backing from several of other unions.

Dockworkers in neighbouring Denmark, Norway & Finland, are refusing to process the company's vehicles; rubbish is no longer collected from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; while recently constructed power points remain linked to power networks across the nation.

Exists an example near the capital's airport, at which 20 chargers remain unused. But a Tesla enthusiast, the president of an owner's club the Swedish Tesla association, says vehicle owners are unaffected by the strike.

"There exists an alternative power point 10km from here," he comments. "Plus we are able to continue to buy our cars, we can service our vehicles, we can charge our electric cars."

With stakes high on both sides, it's hard to see a resolution to the deadlock. IF Metall faces the danger of setting a precedent should it surrender the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

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