It first exceeded 94 days and became the longest strike in Swedish history. In April it reached six months, now it has exceeded July and August and is already heading towards its anniversary. “There are no deadlines. The strike will continue until an agreement is reached,” sources from IF Metall, the union that has raised half of Sweden and part of Scandinavia against Tesla, in an unprecedented international labor conflict that began with only a hundred workers, told elDiario.es.
This is the Tesla mechanic team in Sweden, with which Elon Musk’s company refuses to sign a collective agreement. This is a crucial decision because these sectoral frameworks define a large part of workers’ rights in the Nordic countries, where they form the backbone of the labor market.
IF Metall, one of Sweden’s largest unions representing industrial workers, particularly in the metalworking and engineering sectors, has decided not to give up. On October 27, 2023, it called on all its members to join the strike to put pressure on Musk, sparking a conflict that has become a war of attrition with a strong ideological component. “At the moment, there are no ongoing talks or negotiations, but we have the means to contact our counterpart,” continued its spokesperson, Jesper Pettersson.
Despite its duration, the strike is not dead in its tracks. This summer, IF Metall continued to support its cause, among which the Unionen union stands out. It is one of the largest in Sweden and mainly represents white-collar workers in the private sector. That is to say: managers, administrators, engineers, advisors and other technical professionals. From now on, everyone who works at Tesla will be able to join the strike, while those from other companies will have the right to not participate in any activity related to the electric car manufacturer, if they wish.
This solidarity strike is another mechanism peculiar to Scandinavian markets. Swedish postmen have joined it, who neither collect nor deliver their mail; cleaning and maintenance workers, who do not repair their installations; electricians, who do not take care of their charging stations; taxi drivers, who do not buy Teslas; garbage collectors, who do not bring back their waste; dockworkers, who do not unload any of their vehicles; or carriers, who do not load them onto their trucks and do not supply their workshops with parts.
“If we let this go, a crack will open in the whole system,” said the transport union chairman as he joined his organisation in the strikes. “This is not just about the metalworkers and the transport unions. This is important because the whole Swedish model is at stake,” he said.
In fact, not only in Swedish. The proof is that IF Metall also managed to rally dockers and hauliers to the strike in Norway, Denmark and Finland.
Musk does not give in either
Each of these moves has been met with a response from Tesla. The conflict goes beyond business for Musk, who is known for his animosity toward unions. The tycoon has had no qualms about ordering his cars to be shipped by road to Sweden from other countries, multiplying costs, or asking his employees in the country to take their office trash home and dispose of it.
Their latest initiative, published in the Swedish press and denounced by If Metall, has been to bring workers from other EU countries to Sweden to increase their workforce of mechanics in the country. In August, it had registered with regulators 55 of these foreign employees “posted” to Sweden. “At the beginning of May, foreign workers were sent to the workshops in Malmö, Uppsala and Umeå. Since then, Örebro and Huddinge have also received help from other countries,” reported the newspaper Dagens Arbete, a media outlet funded by IF Metall and other unions.
elDiario.es contacted Tesla to confirm this information, but did not receive a response. “More than 90% of our employees have decided to stay in place, ready to welcome our customers in our delivery centers, service centers and stores. “We are deeply committed to the development of Tesla in Sweden with new centers, more test drive opportunities and the expansion of our public Supercharger network,” the statement sent by the company said.
The action of bringing in foreign workers “completely violates the Swedish labor market model,” the IF Metall spokesperson denounces in his conversation with this media outlet. “Since 1938, organized strike-breaking has been prohibited. This respect exists between unions and employers, i.e. the parties in the labor market. If Tesla does not respect the fact that work in the workshops has stopped, but continues to operate, then this is quite unique. Tesla is escalating the conflict on its own initiative. They are not only opposed to IF Metall, but to the entire Swedish trade union movement,” he adds.
More and more mechanics on strike
The arrival of mechanics from other countries on “secondment” to Sweden could be a consequence of the union convincing more of them of the importance of the strike. This is one of the weak points in IF Metall’s discourse: despite the enormous efforts made by the organization to obtain a collective agreement in their favor, only about forty people had joined the strike by April.
Tesla had taken the opportunity to publicly attack the union and denounce the disproportion of its actions. However, in recent months, IF Metall has managed to add more mechanics to its cause until it has the majority of the workforce in the American manufacturer’s workshops.
“Over the summer, more and more Tesla workers decided to join IF Metall and take part in the strike. We now have 50 strikers at Tesla, which is just over half of Tesla’s employees in our business area (i.e. mechanics),” reveals Jesper Pettersson.
As the strike approaches its first anniversary, the only thing that seems clear is that Tesla and IF Metall are locked in a battle that could have lasting repercussions for the future of work in Sweden and beyond. The Scandinavian country is just one of the geopolitical fronts Musk has opened. In one firestorm after another, the mogul has chosen to block X in Brazil rather than collaborate with the country’s justice system. This comes just weeks after the British government was outraged by his claims that the UK was “on the brink of civil war” as police tried to contain xenophobic riots in the streets, with far-right protesters attacking mosques and hotels sheltering refugees.
