Scandinavian Auto Technicians Engage in Prolonged Labor Dispute Against Automotive Giant Tesla

In Sweden, approximately seventy car mechanics persist to challenge one of the globe's richest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The industrial action at the American carmaker's 10 Swedish repair facilities has currently reached its second anniversary, with little sign of a settlement.

Janis Kuzma has been on the electric car company's picket line since October 2023.

"It's a tough period," states the worker in his late thirties. With Sweden's cold seasonal conditions arrives, it's likely to grow even tougher.

The mechanic spends every start of the week alongside a fellow worker, standing near a Tesla service center within a business district located in southern Sweden. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides shelter in the form of a mobile builders' van, as well as hot beverages and sandwiches.

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

This industrial action concerns a matter that goes to the core of Swedish industrial culture – the authority of trade unions to bargain for pay & working terms on behalf of their workforce. This principle of collective agreement has supported industrial relations across the nation for nearly a century.

Today some seventy percent of Swedish employees are members to labor organizations, and ninety percent are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages in Sweden occur infrequently.

It's a system supported by all parties. "We prefer the ability to negotiate freely with worker representatives and establish collective agreements," says a business representative from the Association of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

But Tesla has disrupted the apple cart. Vocal CEO the company leader has said he "opposes" with the concept of unions. "I just don't like any arrangement which creates a sort of lords and peasants sort of thing," he informed listeners at an event last year. "I think the unions try to generate negativity in a company."

Tesla came to the Scandinavian market back in the mid-2010s, and the metalworkers' union has long sought to secure a collective agreement with the company.

"Yet they did not reply," says Marie Nilsson, the organization's leader. "And we got the belief that they tried to avoid or not discuss this with us."

She states the union ultimately saw no other option than to announce a strike, which started on 27 October, last year. "Typically the threat suffices to issue a warning," comments the union leader. "The company usually signs the contract."

However not in this case.

The striking mechanic, originally from Latvia, began employment for Tesla several years ago. He asserts that pay & conditions frequently subject to the discretion of managers.

He remembers a performance review where he says he was refused a salary increase because he was "not reaching company targets". Meanwhile, a colleague was reported to be turned down for increased compensation because he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, not everyone went out on strike. The company employed some 130 mechanics working at the time the industrial action was initiated. The union states currently around seventy of their represented workers are participating in the action.

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

"The company has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly and systematically," says German Bender, a researcher at Arena Idé, a policy organization supported by Swedish trade unions.

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

"They aim to become norm breakers. So if anyone tells them, hey, you are violating a norm, they perceive that as a compliment."

The automaker's local division refused attempts for interview in an email mentioning "record deliveries".

In fact, the automaker has granted only one media interview during the entire period after the industrial action started.

In March 2024, the local division's "national manager, Jens Stark, told a financial publication that it benefited the organization better to avoid a collective agreement, and rather "to collaborate directly with the team and give workers optimal terms".

The executive denied that the decision not to enter a labor contract was one made at Tesla headquarters in the US. "Our division possesses a mandate to take independent such choices," he said.

IF Metall is not completely isolated in this conflict. This industrial action has received backing by a number of labor organizations.

Port workers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Norway and Finland, are refusing to handle the company's vehicles; rubbish is not collected from Tesla's Swedish facilities; and newly built charging stations are not being connected to the grid in the country.

There is an example near the capital's airport, at which twenty chargers remain unused. But a Tesla enthusiast, 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 this location," he comments. "And we can continue to buy our cars, we can maintain our cars, we can power our cars."

With consequences significant on both sides, it is difficult to see a resolution to the stand-off. The union risks establishing a pattern should it surrender the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

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