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Workers who have a collective bargaining agreement with the automaker say they are pushing for their rights, but car owners say they are going too far in the fight.
By Melissa Eddy
Melissa Eddy spent several days in Stockholm and Malmo, Sweden, interviewing striking workers, Tesla owners and union leaders.
The Tesla technicians who walked off their jobs in Sweden say they still support the mission of the American company and its headline-grabbing chief executive. But they also want Tesla to accept the Swedish way of doing business.
They call it the Swedish model, a way of life that has explained the country’s economy for decades. At the heart of this strategy is cooperation between employers and workers so that both parties benefit from the company’s profits.
Instead, four technicians who left their jobs on Oct. 27 said they were subject to what they described as a “typical American model”: six-day workweeks, unavoidable overtime and an unclear evaluation formula for promotions.
“Just work, work, work,” said Janis Kuzma, one of the technicians on strike.
The union representing Tesla workers, IF Metall, may not have said how many of the company’s 130 technicians walked out; Possibly it would be only a few dozen. The company’s 10 service centers remain open.
But as the strike moves into its third month, it is having an outsize impact on the Nordic region. At least 15 other unions have taken action to try to force Tesla to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement to set wages and benefits that reflect industrywide norms in Sweden. Daniel Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, warned that the dispute was becoming “an important lightning-rod issue around unions globally” for Tesla and its chief executive, Elon Musk.
Polls show that a majority of Swedes are taking part in the strike, which is widely seen as a consensus-based defense of the country’s way of doing business. In Sweden, nine out of ten people work under contract and removals are relatively rare. Questions are raised about whether Sweden’s use of social agreements is depriving corporations of flexibility and agility.
This division is reflected in the reactions of some of the country’s roughly 50,000 Tesla owners, who see the strike as a power play through a wealthy and politically influential union.
Mr. Musk has pushed back against efforts by his 127,000 employees around the world to unionize.
The company has declined repeated requests for comment. At a service center in Malmo this month, workers wearing Tesla shirts were busy moving cars in and out. Strikers on the picket line said some of those working appeared to be recent hires.
There is talk that some Tesla owners have been unable to find anyone to change their tires for winter — essential for driving in Sweden this time of year.
But fearing that the strike would only be a nuisance to Tesla, IF Metall called on other unions.
Unions in Denmark, Norway and Finland, as well as Sweden, have rallied around IF Metall. This means dockworkers have stopped unloading Teslas arriving by ship; union members at independent repair shops have stopped servicing Teslas; postal workers have quit delivering Tesla’s mail, including license plates; and electricians have pledged to no longer repair Tesla’s charging stations.
It may be too early to say how badly these measures hurt the industry. So far, new vehicle registration figures don’t show that the strike is hurting sales: Tesla’s Model Y becomes the most popular vehicle in Sweden. in 2023, with more than 14,000 cars sold through October, according to official statistics.
The company also appears to have found a loophole to circumvent the blockade imposed on postal staff by ordering license plates to be issued to customers.
Still, some potential buyers worry that, despite Tesla’s commitment to maintaining the prestige quo, they won’t be able to take delivery of their car within the promised five to eight weeks.
“I don’t want to commit yet,” said John Khademi, a Tesla owner who decided to put off ordering a new one. “I will wait to see how it plays out.”
Sympathy movements have sown discord. Some corporations that have no vested interest in the strike, such as independent auto repair shops, have lost business because they reached collective bargaining agreements with IF Metall that require them to refuse Tesla-related activities. Under Swedish law, if a union calls for a sympathy strike, its members will have to abide by it.
“These corporations lose a lot of money and get frustrated,” said Mattias Dahl, deputy vice president of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprises, which represents 60,000 corporations.
Some say that these solidarity movements go too far. ” There is no equality here anymore,” said Prime Minister Nilsson, executive leader of Timbro, a Swedish think tank that promotes libertarian ideals and the free market.
He cited Spotify, the audio streaming giant founded in Stockholm in 2006, as a company operating in Sweden without a collective bargaining agreement. Like Tesla, it comes from a culture of starting companies.
“Companies in the Swedish labour market will be able to exist without a collective agreement,” said Sánchez Nilsson.
Neither side has indicated it is willing to back down. IF Metall, which represents workers in other heavy industries, has built up its war chest over decades. It is offering those on strike 130 percent of their pay.
Tesla also has a lot of money (the company is valued at about $817 billion) and says it offers wages and benefits equal to or above those under a collective bargaining agreement, adding offering features as a lucrative incentive.
Tesla has shown its willingness to fight back by suing the Swedish car registration company and the postal company after its license plates were blocked. The lawsuits, filed in November, are ongoing.
In Sweden, it is collective bargaining, the law, that governs the conditions of operation. The country has a legal minimum wage.
Strikes are rare because once a labor agreement goes into effect, the union calls one. This peace guarantee has helped keep the number of strike days in Sweden at one of the lowest levels in Europe: just over two consecutive days per year lost due to removals. and lockouts affected 1,000 workers between 2010 and 2019, compared with 55 in Norway and 128 in France, according to one study.
Marie Nilsson has been a member of IF Metall for more than 40 years and took over as CEO in 2017. She remembers joining the picket line in 1995 against striking staff opposing Toys “R” Us, the last major US company. USA, which rejected a collective strike. agreement. But the action against Tesla is the first time it has called a strike.
“It’s the workers who form the union,” she said. “It’s not someone from the outside.”
It objected to Tesla’s argument that it offers conditions equivalent to or superior to what workers would get under a collective agreement. “That’s never the case,” Ms. Nilsson said.
Four technicians who described the reasons for their strike said they admired Mr. Musk. One of them praised how the new Cybertruck’s long-lasting battery would be a game-changer, and Mr. Kuzma drives a Model Y. But they all agreed that for all of Mr. Musk’s genius in the electric vehicle revolution, he was fighting with a country that has consensus, and that would be confusing the Swedish style with the United Automobile Workers, the American union that took an opposing hard line. to Detroit’s Big 3 automakers in a recent strike.
“IF Metall is not the U.A.W.,” said one technician, who declined to give his name because he said he hoped to return to his job at Tesla after the strike and feared repercussions for speaking out. “You have to know how different unions work in different countries.”
The strike is covered by the Swedish media and has been the subject of television debates. Discussions have become polarized, pitting Tesla enthusiasts against homeowners who oppose the union and its members.
Some Tesla owners describe the strike as an exposure stunt and a demonstration of the union’s overreach. They point out that dozens of technicians are still on the job, some of whom have joined the union, as a sign that they are satisfied with their work.
“If the situation was so bad, everyone would have quit,” says Ulf Siklosi, who drives a Tesla Model S. “Or they would all join the union. “
Daniel Schlaug, owner of the Model S and an investor in Tesla, said the company sent letters informing homeowners that 90% of Tesla workers were still working, a figure that could be confirmed recently.
Kuzma and several colleagues have expressed frustration with complaints from Tesla owners. “They don’t realize it’s about them,” he said. “If the pressure on staff is too much, they probably won’t be able to repair their cars properly. »
Last week, institutional investors from Sweden’s Nordic neighbors, who collectively manage $1 trillion in assets, sent a letter to Tesla’s board of directors saying they were “deeply concerned” about Tesla’s attitude toward workers’ rights in Sweden and calling for an assembly early next year.
Ms. Nilsson would also like to communicate with Mr. Musk. When asked what she would say if he met her, he replied, “I would love to. “
“I would say, ‘Let me know your expectations,'” he said. Let’s get in touch about it. “
Christina Anderson contributed reporting.
Melissa Eddy is in Berlin and reports on German politics, business, and the economy. Learn more about Melissa Eddy
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