Tesla Strike In Sweden Worsens As Nation's Largest Union Joins Fray

Sweden's biggest union has thrown its weight behind a six-month-old strike by mechanics at Tesla, escalating a conflict the notoriously anti-union company is facing with a Nordic labor force committed to collective bargaining, Marie Mannes reported for Reuters.

The focus of the dispute is Tesla CEO Elon Musk's refusal to sign a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) allowing the union to strike deals for the workforce as a whole. I Photo: IndustriALL Global Union

The focus of the dispute—among Sweden's longest—is Tesla CEO Elon Musk's refusal to sign a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) allowing the union to strike deals for the workforce as a whole.

Last month, Musk said the labor storm had passed in the country where Tesla's Model Y is the top-selling car, but he was contradicted by a representative for the metalworkers' union IF Metall, who said its strike continued.

IF Metall confirmed to Reuters that about 44 of its members—roughly a third of the firm's Swedish mechanics—have downed tools at Tesla, which does not produce vehicles in Sweden but services them locally.

"The strike is ongoing, and we have no signs of reaching an agreement in the near future," Marie Nilsson, head of IF Metall, said.

"We have had a few sittings with the Swedish management during April, but... Tesla has shown little willingness in discussing an end to the conflict." More than a dozen unions have launched action in support of IF Metall's strike, with Unionen the latest and biggest.

"It is fundamentally important to protect our collective agreement system," Martin Wästfeldt, head of negotiations at Unionen, a white-collar union with about 700,000 members, told Reuters.