Swedish Auto Technicians Engage in Extended Labor Dispute With Carmaker Tesla

In Sweden, around 70 car technicians continue to challenge one of the world's wealthiest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This labor strike targeting the American carmaker's ten Swedish repair facilities has currently entered two years of duration, and there is little sign for a settlement.

Janis Kuzma has remained at the electric car company's picket line starting from the autumn of 2023.

"It has been a tough period," remarks the 39-year-old. With Sweden's cold winter weather arrives, it's likely to grow more challenging.

The mechanic spends every start of the week with a colleague, positioned near a Tesla service center within an industrial park located in southern Sweden. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies accommodation via a portable builders' van, plus coffee & light meals.

But it's operations continue normally across the road, at which the service facility seems to be at full capacity.

This industrial action concerns an issue that reaches to the core of Swedish labor traditions – the authority of trade unions to negotiate pay and working terms on behalf of their members. This concept of collective agreement has underpinned industrial relations in Sweden for nearly one hundred years.

Today approximately 70% of Scandinavia's employees belong to labor organizations, and 90% fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages in Sweden occur infrequently.

This is a system welcomed across the board. "We prefer the right to bargain directly with the unions and sign collective agreements," states a business representative of the Confederation of Swedish Businesses business organization.

However the electric car company has disrupted established practices. Vocal chief executive Elon Musk has said he "opposes" with the idea of unions. "I just don't like anything which creates a sort of hierarchical sort of thing," he told listeners in New York in 2023. "I think the unions attempt to create conflict within businesses."

The automaker entered the Scandinavian market back in the mid-2010s, while IF Metall has long sought to secure a collective agreement with the company.

"But they did not respond," says Marie Nilsson, the union's leader. "We formed the impression that they tried to hide away or not discuss the matter with our representatives."

She says the union eventually found no alternative than to call a strike, beginning in late October, 2023. "Typically the threat suffices to make the threat," comments Ms Nilsson. "The company usually agrees to the agreement."

But this did not happen in this case.

Janis Kuzma, who is of Latvian origin, started working with the automaker several years ago. He claims that wages and conditions were often subject to the whim of supervisors.

He remembers a performance review where he states he was refused a salary increase on grounds that he "not reaching company targets". At the same time, a coworker was said to be turned down for increased compensation because he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, not everyone participated in the industrial action. Tesla employed some 130 technicians working when the strike was initiated. IF Metall says that today around seventy of their represented workers are on strike.

Tesla has since substituted the striking workers with replacement staff, a situation that has not occurred since the era of the 1930s.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly & methodically," says German Bender, a researcher at a research institute, a think tank supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It's not against the law, this being crucial to recognize. However it violates all established norms. Yet Tesla shows no concern about norms.

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

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary declined requests for interview via correspondence citing "record deliveries".

Indeed, the automaker has granted just a single press discussion in the two years after the industrial action started.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", the executive, informed a business paper that it benefited the organization more to avoid a collective agreement, and instead "to work closely with employees and provide workers optimal terms".

Mr Stark rejected that the choice to avoid a labor contract was determined at Tesla headquarters overseas. "Our division possesses a mandate to take independent such decisions," he said.

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

Dockworkers in nearby Denmark, Nordic countries and neighboring states, are refusing to handle the company's vehicles; rubbish is not collected from the automaker's Swedish facilities; and recently constructed charging stations remain linked to the grid in the country.

There is one such facility close to the capital's airport, at which 20 charging units stand idle. However a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, states vehicle owners remain unaffected by the strike.

"There's another charging station 10km from this location," he says. "And we can continue to buy our cars, we can service our cars, we can power our electric cars."

With consequences significant on both sides, it is difficult to envision an end to the deadlock. IF Metall risks establishing a pattern should it surrender the principle of negotiated labor contracts.

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