🔗 Share this article

In Sweden, approximately 70 car mechanics persist to confront one of the globe's wealthiest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The industrial action targeting the US automaker's 10 Swedish service centers has now entered its second anniversary, with little sign of a resolution.

Janis Kuzma has remained on the electric car company's picket line starting from October 2023.

"It has been a tough time," states the 39-year-old. And as Sweden's chilly winter weather sets in, it's likely to become even tougher.

The mechanic spends each Monday alongside a colleague, positioned near a Tesla service center within a business district located in southern Sweden. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies accommodation in the form of a portable builders' van, plus coffee & sandwiches.

But it's business as usual across the road, where the service facility appears to operate in full swing.

This industrial action concerns a matter that reaches to the core of Swedish labor traditions – the right for worker organizations to negotiate pay & conditions on behalf of their workforce. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned industrial relations in Sweden for nearly a century.

Currently some seventy percent of Swedish employees are members to labor organizations, and 90% are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages in Sweden occur infrequently.

It's an arrangement supported across the board. "We favor the ability to bargain freely with the unions and sign collective agreements," states Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

However the electric car company has disrupted the apple cart. Outspoken CEO Elon Musk has said he "disagrees" with the concept of labor organizations. "I simply don't like anything that establishes a kind of hierarchical situation," he told listeners at an event last year. "I think labor groups attempt to create conflict in a company."

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

"Yet they wouldn't respond," says the union president, the union's leader. "We formed the impression that they attempted to hide away or not discuss the matter with us."

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

But this did not happen in this case.

The striking mechanic, originally from Latvia, started working for Tesla in 2021. He asserts that wages & conditions frequently dependent on the discretion of managers.

He remembers an evaluation meeting where he says he was refused a salary increase because he was "failing to meet company targets". At the same time, a colleague was reported to be turned down for a pay rise because having an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, not everyone went out on strike. Tesla had approximately one hundred thirty technicians working when the industrial action was called. IF Metall states that today approximately 70 of their represented workers are on strike.

The automaker has since substituted the striking workers with replacement staff, a situation that has not occurred since the 1930s.

"The company has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly & methodically," states German Bender, a researcher at Arena Idé, a think tank supported by Swedish trade unions.

"It's not against the law, which is crucial to understand. However it violates all established practices. Yet the company doesn't care about norms.

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

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary declined requests for interview in an email citing "all-time high vehicle shipments".

In fact, the automaker has granted just a single media interview in the two years since the industrial action started.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, Jens Stark, told a business paper that it suited the organization more not to have a union contract, and instead "to work closely with employees and provide workers the best possible terms".

Mr Stark rejected that the decision to avoid a collective agreement was determined by US leadership overseas. "We have a mandate to make our own such choices," he said.

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

Port workers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries & neighboring states, are refusing to handle Teslas; waste is no longer removed from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; and recently constructed power points remain connected to power networks across the nation.

Exists one such facility close to the capital's airport, at which twenty charging units remain unused. But Tibor Blomhäll, the president of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, states vehicle owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There exists another charging station 10km from this location," he says. "Plus we are able to continue to buy our cars, we can service our cars, we can charge our cars."

With stakes significant on both sides, it's hard to envision a resolution to the deadlock. IF Metall risks establishing a pattern should it surrender the principle of collective agreement.

"The worry is that this could expand," states the researcher, "and eventually {erode