🔗 Share this article

In Sweden, around 70 car mechanics continue to challenge among the world's wealthiest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The industrial action targeting the American carmaker's 10 Swedish repair facilities has now reached its second anniversary, with minimal indication of a settlement.

One striking worker has remained at the Tesla picket line starting from October 2023.

"It's a difficult period," states the 39-year-old. And as Sweden's cold winter weather sets in, it is expected to become even tougher.

The mechanic spends each Monday with a colleague, standing near a Tesla service center within an industrial park in Malmö. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies accommodation via a portable construction vehicle, plus hot beverages and sandwiches.

However it's operations continue normally across the road, where the workshop seems to operate at full capacity.

The strike involves a matter that reaches to the heart of Scandinavia's labor traditions – the right of trade unions to bargain for pay & conditions representing their members. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned labor dynamics across the nation for nearly a century.

Currently approximately 70% of Scandinavia's employees are members of a trade union, and 90% fall under by a collective agreement. Strikes in Sweden are rare.

It's a system supported by all parties. "We prefer the right to bargain directly with the unions and sign labor contracts," states a business representative from the Association of Swedish Businesses business organization.

However Tesla has upset established practices. Vocal chief executive Elon Musk has said he "disagrees" with the concept of labor organizations. "I simply disapprove of anything that establishes a kind of lords and peasants situation," he told listeners at an event in 2023. "I think labor groups try to create conflict within businesses."

Tesla entered Sweden back in 2014, and the metalworkers' union has for years sought to establish a collective agreement with the company.

"But they did not reply," says the union president, the union's president. "And we got the belief that they tried to hide away or not discuss this with our representatives."

She says the union ultimately found no alternative than to call industrial action, which started on 27 October, 2023. "Usually it's enough to make the threat," says Ms Nilsson. "Employers usually signs the agreement."

However this did not happen on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, originally from Latvia, began employment with the automaker several years ago. He claims that wages and work terms frequently subject to the whim of supervisors.

He recalls an evaluation meeting at which he says he was denied an annual pay rise on grounds he was "not reaching company targets". At the same time, a colleague was reported to be rejected for increased compensation because having the "wrong attitude".

Nevertheless, some workers participated on strike. Tesla had some 130 mechanics employed at the time the strike was called. The union states that today around seventy of their represented workers are on strike.

Tesla has since substituted these with replacement staff, a situation that has no precedent since the Great Depression.

"Tesla has done it [found replacement staff] publicly and systematically," states German Bender, an analyst at Arena Idé, a policy organization financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not against the law, which is important to understand. But it violates all established practices. Yet the company doesn't care for conventions.

"They want to become norm breakers. So if anyone tells them, listen, you are violating a norm, they perceive that as praise."

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

In fact, the company has given only one media interview during the entire period since the strike began.

In March 2024, the local division's "country lead", Jens Stark, told a financial publication that it suited the organization better to avoid a union contract, and instead "to work closely with the team and give workers the best possible conditions".

The executive rejected that the decision not to enter a labor contract was one made by US leadership in the US. "We have a mandate to take our own such decisions," he said.

The union is not entirely alone in its fight. The strike has been supported from several of labor organizations.

Port workers in neighbouring Denmark, Nordic countries and neighboring states, are refusing to handle the company's vehicles; rubbish is not collected from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; and recently constructed power points are not being connected to power networks across the nation.

Exists one such facility near the capital's airport, where 20 charging units stand idle. But a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of an owner's club the Swedish Tesla association, says vehicle owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's another charging station six miles from this location," he says. "And we can continue to buy our cars, we can maintain our vehicles, we can charge our electric cars."

With stakes significant for all parties, it's hard to see an end to the stand-off. IF Metall risks setting a precedent should it surrender the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

"The worry is how this could expand," states Mr Bender, "and eventually {erode