Scandinavian Auto Mechanics Participate in Prolonged Industrial Action Against Automotive Giant Tesla

In Sweden, approximately seventy car technicians persist to confront one of the world's richest corporations – Tesla. The labor strike at the US carmaker's 10 Scandinavian service centers has now entered two years of duration, and there is little sign of a resolution.

One striking worker has remained at the electric car company's protest line starting from October 2023.

"It has been a difficult time," states the worker in his late thirties. With Sweden's chilly seasonal conditions arrives, it's likely to grow more challenging.

The mechanic devotes each Monday with a fellow worker, positioned outside an electric vehicle service center within a business district located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, IF Metall, supplies shelter via a portable construction vehicle, plus coffee & sandwiches.

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

This industrial action concerns an issue that goes to the heart of Swedish labor traditions – the authority for worker organizations to negotiate wages & working terms representing their members. This concept of collective agreement has supported industrial relations in Sweden for almost a century.

Currently some seventy percent of Swedish workers are members to labor organizations, and 90% fall under by a collective agreement. Labor stoppages across the nation are rare.

It's an arrangement welcomed by all parties. "We favor the right to bargain directly with the unions and establish collective agreements," states a business representative from the Association of Swedish Businesses business organization.

But the electric car company has disrupted established practices. Outspoken chief executive Elon Musk has stated he "opposes" with the idea of unions. "I just disapprove of anything which creates a kind of lords and peasants situation," he told listeners at an event in 2023. "In my view labor groups attempt to create negativity in a company."

Tesla entered the Scandinavian market starting in the mid-2010s, and the metalworkers' union has long wanted to secure a labor contract with the company.

"Yet they did not respond," states Marie Nilsson, the union's leader. "We formed the belief that they tried to hide away or not discuss this with us."

She says the union eventually saw no other option than to call industrial action, which started in late October, 2023. "Usually the threat suffices to make the threat," comments Ms Nilsson. "The company usually agrees to the contract."

But this did not happen on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, who is from Latvia, began employment with the automaker in 2021. He claims that pay & work terms were often dependent on the discretion of managers.

He remembers an evaluation meeting at which he states he was denied a salary increase on grounds that he "not reaching company targets". At the same time, a coworker was said to be turned down for a pay rise due to he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, some workers participated in the industrial action. Tesla had approximately 130 technicians employed when the strike was initiated. The union states currently approximately seventy of its members are participating in the action.

Tesla has long since replaced these with new workers, for which there is not occurred since the Great Depression.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly & methodically," says a labor researcher, a researcher at Arena Idé, a think tank financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

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

"They aim to be convention challengers. Thus when anyone informs them, hey, you are violating a standard, they perceive this as praise."

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary refused attempts for interview via correspondence citing "record deliveries".

In fact, the automaker has given just a single press discussion in the two years after the industrial action began.

Earlier this year, the local division's "national manager, Jens Stark, told a business paper that it benefited the company better to avoid a union contract, and instead "to collaborate directly with the team and give workers the best possible conditions".

Mr Stark rejected that the choice not to enter a collective agreement was one made by US leadership overseas. "We have authorization to take our own such decisions," he stated.

IF Metall is not completely isolated in this conflict. This industrial action has received backing from several of other unions.

Dockworkers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries & Finland, are refusing to handle the company's vehicles; waste is no longer collected from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; and newly built charging stations remain connected to power networks in the country.

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

"There's another charging station six miles from this location," he comments. "Plus we are able to continue to buy our cars, we can maintain our vehicles, we can power our electric cars."

With consequences high for all parties, it's hard to see an end to the deadlock. IF Metall risks establishing a pattern if it concedes the principle of negotiated labor contracts.

"The worry is how this could expand," says the researcher, "and eventually {erode