🔗 Share this article

Across Sweden, around 70 car technicians continue to challenge among the globe's richest companies – Tesla. This industrial action at the American automaker's ten Swedish repair facilities has now reached two years of duration, and there is little sign of a settlement.

Janis Kuzma has remained on the Tesla picket line since October 2023.

"It's a tough time," remarks the 39-year-old. And as the nation's cold seasonal conditions sets in, it's likely to grow even tougher.

The mechanic spends every start of the week alongside a fellow worker, standing outside an electric vehicle service center on a business district located in southern Sweden. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies shelter via a portable builders' van, plus hot beverages and light meals.

But it's operations continue normally nearby, at which the service facility appears to operate in full swing.

The strike involves an issue that reaches to the heart of Swedish labor traditions – the right of trade unions to bargain for pay & working terms on behalf of their workforce. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned labor dynamics in Sweden for almost one hundred years.

Currently approximately 70% of Swedish employees belong to labor organizations, while ninety percent fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes across the nation are rare.

It's a system supported across the board. "We prefer the ability to negotiate directly with the unions and establish collective agreements," says Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Businesses business organization.

However Tesla has disrupted the apple cart. Vocal CEO Elon Musk has said he "opposes" with the idea of unions. "I simply don't like any arrangement which creates a sort of hierarchical situation," he told listeners in New York in 2023. "In my view labor groups attempt to create negativity in a company."

The automaker came to the Scandinavian market back in 2014, while the metalworkers' union has for years sought to establish a labor contract with the company.

"Yet they wouldn't respond," states the union president, the organization's leader. "We formed the belief that they attempted to avoid or evade discussing the matter with us."

She says the organization ultimately saw no alternative than to call a strike, which started in late October, 2023. "Typically the threat suffices to issue a warning," says Ms Nilsson. "The company usually signs the contract."

But not in this case.

The striking mechanic, who is of Latvian origin, started working with the automaker in 2021. He asserts that wages & work terms were often dependent on the whim of supervisors.

He remembers an evaluation meeting at which he says he was refused a salary increase because that he "not reaching Tesla's goals". At the same time, a colleague was reported to be rejected for increased compensation due to he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, not everyone went out on strike. Tesla had approximately 130 technicians employed at the time the strike was called. IF Metall states currently approximately 70 of its members are participating in the action.

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

"Tesla has done it [found replacement staff] publicly & systematically," says German Bender, a researcher at Arena Idé, a think tank financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not illegal, which is crucial to recognize. However it violates all established practices. Yet Tesla doesn't care about norms.

"They aim to be convention challengers. Thus when anyone tells them, listen, you are breaking a norm, they see this as praise."

The automaker's local division refused requests for interview in an email citing "all-time high vehicle shipments".

Indeed, the automaker has granted just a single media interview in the two years since the industrial action began.

In March 2024, the local division's "country lead", the executive, told a business paper that it benefited the company more not to have a collective agreement, and instead "to work closely with employees and provide them optimal conditions".

Mr Stark denied that the choice not to enter a collective agreement was determined at Tesla headquarters overseas. "Our division possesses authorization to make independent such choices," he stated.

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

Port workers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Norway & Finland, are refusing to handle Teslas; waste is not removed from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; and recently constructed power points are not being linked to power networks across the nation.

Exists one such facility close to the capital's airport, where twenty charging units remain unused. But Tibor Blomhäll, 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 this location," he comments. "And we can continue to purchase vehicles, we can service our cars, we can charge our electric cars."

With consequences high for all parties, it's hard to see an end to the deadlock. IF Metall risks setting a precedent if it concedes the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

"The concern is that that would spread," says Mr Bender, "and eventually {erode