Scandinavian Auto Mechanics Participate in Extended Industrial Action Against Automotive Giant Tesla

In Sweden, approximately 70 automotive technicians continue to challenge one of the globe's richest corporations – Tesla. The industrial action at the American carmaker's ten Swedish service centers has currently reached its second anniversary, and there is minimal sign for a resolution.

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

"It has been a tough time," remarks the worker in his late thirties. And as the nation's chilly winter weather arrives, it's likely to grow even tougher.

The mechanic spends every start of the week alongside a fellow worker, positioned outside an electric vehicle garage within a business district in Malmö. The labor organization, IF Metall, supplies shelter via a mobile construction vehicle, plus hot beverages and sandwiches.

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

The strike concerns a matter that reaches to the heart of Scandinavia's labor traditions – the authority of trade unions to bargain for pay & working terms representing their members. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has supported labor dynamics across the nation for nearly a century.

Today approximately seventy percent of Swedish workers belong to labor organizations, and 90% are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes across the nation occur infrequently.

It's a system welcomed across the board. "We prefer the ability to bargain directly with the unions and establish labor contracts," states a business representative from the Association of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

But the electric car company has disrupted the apple cart. Vocal chief executive the company leader has said he "disagrees" with the idea of unions. "I simply don't like any arrangement which creates a sort of lords and peasants sort of thing," he told an audience at an event in 2023. "In my view labor groups attempt to create conflict in a company."

Tesla came to the Scandinavian market back in 2014, while the metalworkers' union has for years wanted to establish a collective agreement with the company.

"But they wouldn't reply," states Marie Nilsson, the organization's leader. "And we got the impression that they tried to avoid or evade discussing the matter with us."

She states the union ultimately found no alternative than to call a strike, which started in late October, 2023. "Usually it's enough to make the threat," says the union leader. "Employers typically signs the contract."

However not on this occasion.

Janis Kuzma, who is of Latvian origin, started working with the automaker in 2021. He asserts that wages & conditions frequently dependent on the discretion of managers.

He recalls an evaluation meeting at which he states he was denied an annual pay rise on grounds that he "not reaching company targets". Meanwhile, a coworker was reported to be rejected for increased compensation due to he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, some workers went out in the industrial action. Tesla had approximately one hundred thirty technicians working at the time the strike was called. The union states that today approximately 70 of their represented workers are on strike.

Tesla has long since replaced the striking workers with replacement staff, a situation that has no precedent since the era of the Great Depression.

"The company has done it [found replacement staff] publicly & systematically," states a labor researcher, a researcher at Arena Idé, a think tank supported by Swedish trade unions.

"It's not illegal, this being crucial to recognize. But it violates all traditional norms. Yet Tesla doesn't care about norms.

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

The automaker's local division refused attempts for interview in an email mentioning "record deliveries".

Indeed, the company has granted only one media interview during the entire period after the strike started.

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, Jens Stark, informed a financial publication that it benefited the organization more not to have a union contract, and rather "to work closely with employees and give workers optimal conditions".

Mr Stark rejected that the decision not to enter a labor contract was determined at Tesla headquarters overseas. "We have a mandate to make our own such choices," he said.

The union is not completely alone in its fight. This industrial action has received backing from several of labor organizations.

Port workers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries & neighboring states, are refusing to process Teslas; rubbish is not removed from Tesla's Swedish facilities; and recently constructed charging stations remain connected to power networks across the nation.

Exists an example close to the capital's airport, where 20 chargers remain unused. However a Tesla enthusiast, the president of an owner's club the Swedish Tesla association, says vehicle owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's another charging station six miles from here," he comments. "Plus we are able to continue to buy our cars, we can maintain our vehicles, we can power our cars."

With consequences high for all parties, it's hard to see a resolution to the stand-off. IF Metall faces the danger of establishing a pattern if it concedes the principle of collective agreement.

"The worry is how this could expand," says Mr Bender, "and eventually {erode