Elon Musk Faces Increasing Union Pressure in the Nordics

January 19, 2024

By German Bender

German Bender is chief analyst at the progressive Swedish think tank Arena and a former visiting research fellow at Harvard Law School

The Swedish strike against Tesla is entering its twelfth week, and none of the parties show any signs of caving. In my previous two updates (on November 1st and 13th), I wrote about the many solidarity strikes called by labor unions supporting IF Metall (the union involved in the primary dispute with Tesla, whose aim is to get a collective bargaining agreement for mechanics in Tesla’s repair shops across the country).

Since then, more unions have joined. At the moment, ten Swedish unions are involved in the conflict, including IF Metall, among them: the electrical workers’ union, which refuses to perform electrical work, such as maintenance or repairs, on Tesla’s charging stations and repair shops; the building maintenance union, which has stopped cleaning Tesla’s shops and offices; the postal workers’ union which blocks deliveries (including license plates for new vehicles) to all Tesla facilities; and the transportation union which has blocked disposal of industrial waste in repair shops and blocked all unloading of Tesla cars delivered to Sweden’s approximately 50 ports, effectively halting Tesla’s car deliveries to Sweden.

This last measure has been mirrored by three unions in Denmark, Norway, and Finland, adding an international dimension to the dispute. The Nordic unions decided to support IF Metall with formal conflict measures after Tesla tried to evade the Swedish dockworkers’ blockade by shipping cars through ports in neighboring countries, and then hauling them to Sweden with trucks.

Tesla has, in turn, responded to the blockade of Nordic ports by shifting to land transport directly from its factory in Germany (Tesla’s only manufacturing plant in Europe, and the second largest outside the US). But this takes longer and is more cumbersome than using large cargo ships.

FULL story: https://onlabor.org/elon-musk-faces-increasing-union-pressure-in-the-nordics/