Scandinavian Car Technicians Participate in Prolonged Labor Dispute With Carmaker Tesla

Across Sweden, around seventy car mechanics continue to challenge among the world's wealthiest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This industrial action targeting the US carmaker's 10 Swedish service centers has currently entered two years of duration, and there is little indication for a settlement.

Janis Kuzma has been at the Tesla protest line starting from the autumn of 2023.

"It's a difficult time," remarks the 39-year-old. And as the nation's cold winter weather sets in, it's likely to become more challenging.

The mechanic spends each Monday with a fellow worker, positioned near a Tesla service center within a business district located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, IF Metall, provides accommodation in the form of a mobile builders' van, plus hot beverages & light meals.

However it's business as usual across the road, at which the workshop seems to operate in full swing.

This industrial action concerns an issue that goes to the core of Swedish labor traditions – the right of trade unions to negotiate wages and working terms representing their workforce. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned industrial relations across the nation for almost a century.

Today some 70% of Swedish employees belong of a trade union, while ninety percent fall under by a collective agreement. Strikes across the nation occur infrequently.

This is a system welcomed by all parties. "We favor the right to bargain freely with worker representatives and establish collective agreements," states Mattias Dahl from the Association of Swedish Businesses business organization.

However the electric car company has disrupted the apple cart. Vocal CEO Elon Musk has said he "disagrees" with the idea of labor organizations. "I just don't like anything which creates a kind of lords and peasants sort of thing," he told listeners at an event last year. "In my view the unions attempt to create conflict within businesses."

The automaker entered Sweden starting in 2014, and IF Metall has long sought to establish a collective agreement with the automaker.

"But they wouldn't respond," states Marie Nilsson, the organization's president. "We formed the impression that they tried to hide away or evade discussing the matter with us."

She states the organization ultimately found no other option except to announce industrial action, which started on 27 October, last year. "Typically it's enough to issue a warning," says Ms Nilsson. "Employers typically signs the agreement."

However this did not happen in this case.

Janis Kuzma, originally from Latvia, began employment for Tesla in 2021. He asserts that pay & work terms were often subject to the discretion of supervisors.

He recalls an evaluation meeting at which he states he was refused an annual pay rise because he was "failing to meet Tesla's goals". At the same time, a coworker was said to have been rejected for increased compensation due to he had the "wrong attitude".

However, some workers went out in the industrial action. The company had some 130 technicians employed at the time the strike was initiated. The union states that today approximately seventy of their represented workers are on strike.

Tesla has since replaced the striking workers with replacement staff, for which that has not occurred since the Great Depression.

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

"It's not illegal, this being important to recognize. However it goes against all established practices. But the company shows no concern for conventions.

"They want to be norm breakers. Thus when anyone informs them, listen, you are breaking a standard, they see that as a compliment."

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

Indeed, the automaker has granted just a single press discussion during the entire period since the strike started.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", the executive, informed a financial publication that it benefited the organization better not to have a collective agreement, and rather "to collaborate directly with the team and provide workers the best possible terms".

The executive denied that the choice to avoid a collective agreement was one made at Tesla headquarters overseas. "We have authorization to make our own such decisions," he stated.

The union is not completely alone in this conflict. This industrial action has been supported from several of labor organizations.

Port workers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries and neighboring states, are refusing to process Teslas; rubbish is no longer collected from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; while newly built power points are not being connected to power networks across the nation.

Exists one such facility near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, where 20 chargers stand idle. However a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, states vehicle owners remain unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's an alternative power point six miles from here," he comments. "And we can continue to buy our cars, we can service our vehicles, we can charge our electric cars."

With consequences significant for all parties, it's hard to see an end to the deadlock. The union faces the danger of setting a precedent if it concedes the principle of negotiated labor contracts.

"The worry is that that would spread," states the researcher, "and eventually {erode