After almost a month, striking workers in Sweden have elicited a response from Tesla's well-known anti-union CEO. "This is insane," stated CEO Elon Musk on Thursday via his owned social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter). This comes as Swedish postal workers have joined in solidarity with the mechanics by refusing to deliver Tesla license plates, following their decision to stop servicing Tesla cars at the end of last month.
Approximately 130 mechanics initiated a strike in October when their employer, a Tesla subsidiary in Sweden, refused to acknowledge their labor union, as reported by Expressen, a CNN affiliate. The strike then expanded to include dockworkers who halted Tesla car deliveries at the country's ports, electricians who ceased maintenance work for the carmaker, and other workers in Sweden, according to Expressen.
IF Metall union in Sweden, which initiated the strike, emphasized the importance of fair wages, pensions, and insurance for all Tesla employees on its website. After lengthy negotiations with Tesla, the union stated that the company's refusal to sign a collective bargaining agreement and disregard for fundamental labor market principles led to the strike.
The country's labor force is highly unionized, with approximately 90% of workers being governed by collective agreements. Despite this, unionizing at Tesla has been challenging. The company has thwarted at least three attempts by its US employees to organize, largely due to aggressive company tactics and inadequate labor protections in the United States.
The National Labor Relations Board, a federal agency in the US, has consistently criticized Tesla and Musk for engaging in illegal or inappropriate anti-union behavior, including interrogating employees and punishing or discriminating against workers for their support of unions.
In a recent incident, the company terminated over 30 employees who were supporters of a newly forming union at its Buffalo, New York facility, shortly after the organizing effort was made public.
Elon Musk, the wealthiest person in the world, has openly expressed his disapproval of unions, which led to a conflict with the labor relations agency when he was instructed to remove a tweet from 2018 suggesting that Tesla employees could lose their stock options if they unionized.
Nevertheless, the strikes by Swedish workers may empower Tesla's employees in Germany, where the company operates a significant plant that produces electric vehicles and battery cells.
The pressure from German unions has led to demands for a collective bargaining agreement to be implemented for the 11,000 workers at the Berlin factory, as reported by Reuters. The influential German union, IG Metall, claims that Tesla pays its workers less than other carmakers in Germany and has a tendency to dismiss employees who are frequently ill. In response to this, over 1,000 workers at the factory joined the union in solidarity during a protest last month.
Tesla submitted a request earlier this year to increase the production capacity of the plant near the German capital from its current capacity to 1 million EVs. If the expansion is approved, the factory would surpass Volkswagens plant in Wolfsburg, making it the largest car factory in Europe.
