Scandinavian Auto Mechanics Engage in Prolonged Industrial Action Against Automotive Giant Tesla

In Sweden, around seventy car technicians continue to confront one of the globe's wealthiest corporations – Tesla. This labor strike targeting the American carmaker's 10 Swedish service centers has now entered two years of duration, with minimal indication for a resolution.

Janis Kuzma has remained on the Tesla protest line starting from October 2023.

"It has been a difficult time," remarks the 39-year-old. With Sweden's cold winter weather arrives, it is expected to grow more challenging.

Janis devotes every start of the week with a colleague, positioned outside an electric vehicle service center within an industrial park in Malmö. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies shelter via a portable construction vehicle, as well as coffee & sandwiches.

However it remains business as usual across the road, where the workshop appears to operate at full capacity.

The strike involves a matter that goes to the heart of Scandinavia's labor traditions – the authority for worker organizations to bargain for wages & conditions representing their workforce. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has supported industrial relations in Sweden for almost one hundred years.

Today approximately 70% of Scandinavia's employees belong of a trade union, and 90% are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages across the nation occur infrequently.

This is a system supported by all parties. "We prefer the ability to negotiate freely with the unions and sign labor contracts," states a business representative of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

However Tesla has disrupted the apple cart. Vocal chief executive the company leader has stated he "opposes" with the concept of labor organizations. "I just disapprove of any arrangement that establishes a kind of hierarchical situation," he told an audience at an event last year. "I think the unions try to create negativity in a company."

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

"But they did not reply," says the union president, the union's leader. "And we got the belief that they attempted to hide away or evade discussing the matter with our representatives."

She says the organization eventually saw no alternative than to call a strike, which started on 27 October, 2023. "Typically it's enough to issue a warning," says Ms Nilsson. "The company usually signs the contract."

However not in this case.

Janis Kuzma, who is of Latvian origin, began employment with the automaker several years ago. He asserts that wages and work terms frequently dependent on the discretion of managers.

He remembers an evaluation meeting where he states he was refused an annual pay rise because that he "not reaching Tesla's goals". At the same time, a coworker was said to be rejected for increased compensation because having an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, some workers went out in the industrial action. Tesla employed some one hundred thirty technicians employed at the time the industrial action was initiated. The union says currently approximately seventy of its members are on strike.

The automaker has since replaced the striking workers with replacement staff, for which there is no precedent since the era of the 1930s.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly and systematically," says German Bender, an analyst at a research institute, a think tank financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not illegal, which is crucial to recognize. But it goes against all traditional practices. But the company shows no concern about norms.

"They want to become norm breakers. Thus when somebody tells them, listen, you are breaking a norm, they perceive that as a compliment."

The company's local division declined attempts for interview via correspondence citing "all-time high deliveries".

In fact, the company has granted just a single press discussion in the two years after the strike started.

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", Jens Stark, told a financial publication that it suited the organization more not to have a union contract, and instead "to work closely with employees and provide them the best possible conditions".

Mr Stark denied that the decision to avoid a collective agreement was determined at Tesla headquarters in the US. "Our division possesses authorization to make our own such decisions," he said.

IF Metall is not entirely alone in its fight. The strike has been supported from several of other unions.

Port workers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Norway & Finland, decline to process the company's vehicles; waste is no longer removed from Tesla's Swedish facilities; while recently constructed charging stations are not being connected to the grid in the country.

Exists an example near the capital's airport, at which twenty charging units remain unused. 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 here," he comments. "And we can continue to purchase vehicles, we can maintain our vehicles, we can charge our electric cars."

With consequences significant on both sides, it's hard to see a resolution to the stand-off. The union risks establishing a pattern if it concedes the principle of negotiated labor contracts.

"The worry is how that would spread," says the researcher, "and ultimately {erode