Swedish Car Technicians Participate in Extended Industrial Action With Automotive Giant Tesla

In Sweden, around seventy car technicians continue to confront among the world's wealthiest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This labor strike at the American carmaker's 10 Scandinavian repair facilities has currently entered its second anniversary, with minimal sign of a resolution.

Janis Kuzma has remained at the Tesla protest line starting from the autumn of 2023.

"It has been a difficult period," remarks the 39-year-old. And as the nation's chilly winter weather sets in, it's likely to grow more challenging.

Janis devotes every start of the week alongside a colleague, standing outside a Tesla garage within an industrial park located in southern Sweden. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides accommodation via a portable builders' van, as well as coffee & sandwiches.

However it's operations continue normally across the road, at which the workshop appears to be in full swing.

This industrial action concerns a matter that goes to the core of Scandinavia's labor traditions – the authority for worker organizations to negotiate wages & conditions on behalf of their workforce. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned industrial relations across the nation for almost one hundred years.

Today approximately 70% of Swedish workers are members of a trade union, while 90% are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes across the nation are rare.

It's an arrangement supported by all parties. "We prefer the ability to negotiate directly with worker representatives and sign labor contracts," says Mattias Dahl from the Association of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

However the electric car company has upset the apple cart. Vocal CEO the company leader has said he "disagrees" with the concept of labor organizations. "I simply don't like any arrangement which creates a kind of hierarchical sort of thing," he informed an audience at an event in 2023. "In my view the unions try to generate conflict within businesses."

Tesla entered Sweden starting in 2014, while IF Metall has long wanted to secure a labor contract with the company.

"But they wouldn't respond," states Marie Nilsson, the union's president. "And we got the impression that they attempted to avoid or not discuss the matter with us."

She states the union eventually saw no alternative than to announce industrial action, which started on 27 October, 2023. "Typically it's enough to issue the threat," says Ms Nilsson. "The company typically signs the contract."

But this did not happen in this case.

Janis Kuzma, who is from Latvia, started working for Tesla in 2021. He claims that wages and conditions frequently subject to the discretion of supervisors.

He recalls a performance review where he states he was refused an annual pay rise because that he "failing to meet company targets". Meanwhile, a coworker was reported to have been rejected for a pay rise due to he had the "wrong attitude".

However, some workers went out on strike. The company employed approximately 130 technicians working when the industrial action was called. The union says that today around seventy of their represented workers are on strike.

The automaker has since replaced the striking workers with replacement staff, for which that has no precedent since the Great Depression.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly & methodically," says German Bender, an analyst at Arena Idé, a policy organization supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not illegal, which is crucial to understand. However it violates all established norms. Yet Tesla doesn't care for conventions.

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

The automaker's local division declined attempts for interview in an email mentioning "record vehicle shipments".

In fact, the company has granted only one media interview in the two years after the strike began.

Earlier this year, the local division's "national manager, the executive, informed a business paper that it suited the company more not to have a union contract, and instead "to collaborate directly with the team and give them optimal conditions".

Mr Stark denied that the choice not to enter a labor contract was determined by US leadership in the US. "Our division possesses a mandate to make our own such decisions," he said.

The union is not entirely alone in this conflict. The strike has been supported by a number of labor organizations.

Port workers in neighbouring Denmark, Nordic countries and Finland, are refusing to process Teslas; rubbish is not removed from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; and recently constructed charging stations are not being linked to power networks in the country.

Exists one such facility close to Stockholm Arlanda Airport, where 20 charging units 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 another charging station six miles from here," he says. "Plus we are able to continue to purchase vehicles, we can maintain our cars, we can charge our cars."

With stakes high for all parties, it is difficult to envision a resolution to the deadlock. The union risks setting a precedent should it surrender the principle of negotiated labor contracts.

"The concern is how this could expand," states Mr Bender, "and eventually {erode