Scandinavian Car Mechanics Engage in Extended Industrial Action Against Carmaker Tesla

Across Sweden, around seventy car mechanics continue to challenge among the world's richest corporations – Tesla. The industrial action at the American carmaker's 10 Swedish service centers has now entered two years of duration, with little sign for a resolution.

One striking worker has been on the Tesla picket line starting from October 2023.

"It has been a difficult period," states the worker in his late thirties. And as the nation's chilly seasonal conditions arrives, it's likely to become more challenging.

Janis devotes each Monday alongside a fellow worker, positioned near a Tesla service center within an industrial park located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, IF Metall, supplies accommodation via a mobile construction vehicle, as well as coffee & sandwiches.

However it remains operations continue normally nearby, at which the service facility seems to operate in full swing.

The strike involves an issue that reaches to the heart of Scandinavia's labor traditions – the authority of trade unions to negotiate pay and working terms on behalf of their workforce. This principle of collective agreement has underpinned labor dynamics across the nation for almost one hundred years.

Currently some seventy percent of Scandinavia's employees belong to labor organizations, and 90% are covered by a collective agreement. Labor stoppages across the nation are rare.

This is a system welcomed by all parties. "We prefer the ability to bargain directly with the unions and establish collective agreements," says Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

However the electric car company has disrupted the apple cart. Outspoken chief executive the company leader has said he "disagrees" with the idea of unions. "I simply disapprove of anything that establishes a sort of hierarchical situation," he told listeners at an event in 2023. "I think the unions try to generate conflict within businesses."

Tesla came to Sweden back in the mid-2010s, and the metalworkers' union has for years sought to secure a labor contract with the company.

"Yet they did not respond," says Marie Nilsson, the organization's leader. "And we got the belief that they attempted to avoid or evade discussing this with us."

She states the organization ultimately saw no alternative except to announce a strike, beginning on 27 October, 2023. "Typically it's enough to make the threat," says Ms Nilsson. "Employers usually agrees to the contract."

But not on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, who is from Latvia, began employment for Tesla several years ago. He asserts that wages & work terms were often subject to the discretion of supervisors.

He remembers an evaluation meeting where he states he was denied an annual pay rise because that he "not reaching company targets". Meanwhile, a colleague was said to have been rejected for increased compensation due to having the "wrong attitude".

However, some workers participated on strike. Tesla employed approximately one hundred thirty mechanics working when the industrial action was initiated. IF Metall states currently approximately 70 of its members are on strike.

Tesla has since substituted the striking workers with replacement staff, for which there is not occurred since the era of the Great Depression.

"The company has done it [found replacement staff] openly & methodically," states German Bender, an analyst at a research institute, a think tank financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It's not against the law, which is important to understand. But it goes against all traditional norms. Yet Tesla shows no concern about norms.

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

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary refused attempts for interview via correspondence mentioning "all-time high deliveries".

Indeed, the automaker has given only one media interview in the two years since the industrial action started.

In March 2024, the local division's "country lead", the executive, told a financial publication that it suited the company more not to have a collective agreement, and instead "to collaborate directly with employees and provide workers the best possible conditions".

Mr Stark rejected that the choice not to enter a collective agreement was one made by US leadership in the US. "Our division possesses authorization to make independent such decisions," he said.

The union is not completely alone in its fight. This industrial action has received backing by a number of labor organizations.

Port workers in neighbouring Denmark, Nordic countries and neighboring states, are refusing to handle Teslas; waste is not removed from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; and newly built power points remain linked to the grid in the country.

There is an example near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which 20 charging units remain unused. But a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, says Tesla owners remain unaffected by the strike.

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

With consequences high for all parties, it is difficult to envision a resolution to the deadlock. The union risks establishing a pattern should it surrender the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

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