🔗 Share this article

In Sweden, around seventy automotive mechanics persist to confront one of the globe's richest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The labor strike targeting the American automaker's 10 Scandinavian service centers has now entered two years of duration, and there is minimal sign of a resolution.

One striking worker has been on the Tesla protest line since the autumn of 2023.

"It's a difficult time," remarks the 39-year-old. And as Sweden's chilly winter weather arrives, it is expected to grow even tougher.

Janis devotes every start of the week with a fellow worker, positioned outside a Tesla service center within a business district located in southern Sweden. His union, IF Metall, supplies shelter via a mobile construction vehicle, plus coffee & light meals.

However it's operations continue normally nearby, where the workshop appears to be in full swing.

This industrial action concerns a matter that goes to the heart of Swedish labor traditions – the right for worker organizations to negotiate wages & conditions on behalf of their workforce. This principle of collective agreement has supported labor dynamics in Sweden for almost a century.

Today some seventy percent of Swedish employees belong to labor organizations, and ninety percent fall under by a collective agreement. Strikes in Sweden are rare.

This is an arrangement welcomed across the board. "We favor the ability to bargain freely with worker representatives and establish labor contracts," states a business representative from the Association of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

However the electric car company has disrupted the apple cart. Vocal chief executive Elon Musk has stated he "disagrees" with the idea of labor organizations. "I simply disapprove of any arrangement that establishes a sort of hierarchical situation," he told an audience in New York last year. "In my view labor groups try to create negativity within businesses."

Tesla came to the Scandinavian market starting in 2014, and IF Metall has long sought to establish a labor contract with the company.

"But they wouldn't respond," states the union president, the union's leader. "We formed the belief that they tried to avoid or evade discussing this with our representatives."

She says the organization eventually found no other option except to announce industrial action, which started on 27 October, last year. "Usually the threat suffices to issue a warning," says the union leader. "The company typically agrees to the agreement."

But not in this case.

The striking mechanic, originally of Latvian origin, started working with the automaker several years ago. He claims that pay & work terms frequently dependent on the whim of managers.

He remembers a performance review where he says he was refused an annual pay rise because that he "failing to meet company targets". Meanwhile, a coworker was said to have been turned down for increased compensation due to having an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, not everyone went out in the industrial action. The company employed some one hundred thirty mechanics working at the time the industrial action was called. The union says that today approximately seventy of their represented workers are participating in the action.

Tesla has long since substituted these with replacement staff, for which there is not occurred since the era of the 1930s.

"The company has done it [found replacement staff] publicly & systematically," states German Bender, an analyst at Arena Idé, a think tank supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not against the law, which is crucial to understand. But it goes against all established norms. But Tesla shows no concern for conventions.

"They aim to be convention challengers. So if somebody informs them, hey, you are violating a norm, they perceive that as a compliment."

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary refused attempts for comment in an email mentioning "all-time high deliveries".

In fact, the automaker has given only one media interview in the two years after the strike started.

Earlier this year, the local division's "national manager, the executive, told a business paper that it benefited the company more not to have a collective agreement, and instead "to collaborate directly with the team and give workers the best possible conditions".

The executive denied that the decision to avoid a labor contract was determined by US leadership in the US. "Our division possesses authorization to take independent such decisions," he said.

The union is not entirely alone in its fight. This industrial action has been supported by a number of labor organizations.

Dockworkers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries and Finland, are refusing to process the company's vehicles; waste is not removed from the automaker's Swedish facilities; and newly built power points remain connected to the grid in the country.

There is an example close to the capital's airport, where 20 chargers remain unused. However a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of an owner's club the Swedish Tesla association, states Tesla owners are unaffected by the strike.

"There exists an alternative power point 10km from here," he comments. "And we can continue to buy our cars, we can service our vehicles, we can power our electric cars."

With stakes high for all parties, it's hard to envision a resolution to the deadlock. The union risks setting a precedent if it concedes the principle of collective agreement.

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