"Shame on you Tesla, shame on you!" Former Swedish Social Democrat Prime Minister Stefan Löfven is not one to let his emotions get the better of him. But the former leader of the powerful IF Metall union saw red when he learned that American giant Tesla was refusing to sign Swedish collective bargaining agreements.
In a message posted on Facebook on Sunday, October 29, Löfven announced that he would be boycotting Elon Musk's cabs, and encouraged his fellow citizens to suspend their purchase of a Tesla "until an agreement is signed."
Since October 27, the union has been on strike at seven Tesla dealerships in Sweden, employing 120 people. If no agreement is reached by November 3, IF Metall is threatening to extend the strike to the brand's service centers in some 15 towns. The Transport union, meanwhile, has announced that it is ready to block all Tesla electric vehicle departures and arrivals at four of Sweden's largest ports from November 7, in solidarity with the company's employees.
"This dispute is about wages, pensions and insurance for our members working at Tesla. But fundamentally, it's also about defending the whole Swedish labor market model. In Sweden, unions and employers agree on working conditions, within the framework of collective bargaining," IF Metall President Marie Nilsson explained.
According to the union, talks with the company broke down on October 24. Refusing to sign the industry agreements, Tesla representatives reportedly stated that the group "has no collective agreement anywhere in the world" and that "this is a decision that has to be made at the highest level of the company," according to Veli-Pekka Säikkälä, in charge of collective agreement negotiations at IF Metall.
The development is exceptional. The last time the metalworking union compensated its striking members was in 2010. Then, IF Metall was in dispute with a stone-cutting company, which refused to sign collective agreements. On several occasions since then, the union has threatened to stop work, but each time a compromise was reached before a strike was called.
Another peculiarity: the American company seems ready for confrontation. Tesla employees have revealed that they have been threatened by their bosses. The Swedish newspaper Dagens Arbetare reported that Tesla was planning to break the strike by transferring employees from one dealership to another within the country, in violation of the Saltjöbad agreement, which has regulated relations between unions and employers since 1938.
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