🔗 Share this article

Across Sweden, around seventy car technicians persist to confront one of the world's richest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The industrial action targeting the American carmaker's 10 Swedish repair facilities has now entered two years of duration, with minimal sign for a settlement.

One striking worker has been at the Tesla protest line starting from the autumn of 2023.

"It's a difficult period," remarks the 39-year-old. With the nation's chilly winter weather sets in, it is expected to become even tougher.

Janis spends every start of the week alongside a fellow worker, positioned near an electric vehicle service center on an industrial park located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, IF Metall, supplies accommodation via a portable builders' van, plus hot beverages & light meals.

However it's business as usual across the road, at which the service facility appears to be in full swing.

This industrial action concerns an issue that goes to the heart of Scandinavia's labor traditions – the authority for worker organizations to negotiate wages & working terms representing their members. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has supported labor dynamics in Sweden for nearly one hundred years.

Currently approximately seventy percent of Scandinavia's workers are members to labor organizations, and 90% fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages across the nation occur infrequently.

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

But Tesla has disrupted established practices. Vocal chief executive the company leader has said he "opposes" with the idea of labor organizations. "I simply disapprove of anything which creates a kind of hierarchical situation," he informed an audience at an event in 2023. "In my view labor groups attempt to generate conflict within businesses."

Tesla entered Sweden starting in 2014, while IF Metall has for years sought to establish a labor contract with the automaker.

"But they did not reply," states Marie Nilsson, the union's president. "And we got the belief that they attempted to avoid or not discuss the matter with our representatives."

She states the union eventually saw no other option except to announce a strike, which started in late October, last year. "Usually the threat suffices to make the threat," comments the union leader. "The company typically agrees to the contract."

However this did not happen on this occasion.

Janis Kuzma, originally from Latvia, began employment with the automaker several years ago. He claims that wages & conditions frequently dependent on the discretion of managers.

He recalls a performance review where he says he was denied a salary increase because that he "not reaching company targets". Meanwhile, a coworker was said to have been turned down for increased compensation due to he had the "wrong attitude".

However, not everyone went out in the industrial action. Tesla employed approximately one hundred thirty technicians employed when the industrial action was initiated. The union states that today around 70 of its members are participating in the action.

The automaker has since substituted the striking workers with new workers, for which there is not occurred since the Great Depression.

"The company has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly and systematically," states a labor researcher, an analyst at Arena Idé, a think tank financed by Swedish trade unions.

"It is not illegal, which is important to recognize. However it violates all established practices. Yet Tesla doesn't care for conventions.

"They aim to be norm breakers. Thus when anyone informs them, listen, you are breaking a standard, they perceive this as praise."

The company's Swedish subsidiary declined attempts for interview in an email mentioning "all-time high deliveries".

In fact, the automaker has given just a single press discussion during the entire period after the strike began.

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", the executive, informed a business paper that it benefited the organization more to avoid a collective agreement, and rather "to work closely with the team and provide them the best possible conditions".

The executive denied that the choice to avoid a collective agreement was determined by US leadership overseas. "Our division possesses authorization to take our own such decisions," he stated.

IF Metall is not completely isolated in this conflict. The strike has received backing from several of other unions.

Port workers in neighbouring Denmark, Nordic countries & neighboring states, are refusing to process Teslas; rubbish is no longer removed from the automaker's Swedish facilities; while newly built power points are not being linked to the grid in the country.

Exists an example near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, where twenty charging units remain unused. However Tibor Blomhäll, the president of an owner's club the Swedish Tesla association, says vehicle owners remain unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's an alternative power point 10km from here," he comments. "Plus we are able to still buy our cars, we can service our cars, we can power our cars."

With stakes significant on both sides, it is difficult to see a resolution to the stand-off. IF Metall risks establishing a pattern should it surrender the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

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