2023-11-23 14:51:07
In Sweden, Tesla electric vehicle workshops have been on strike for three weeks, because the American electric car giant refuses to sign a collective agreement on wages. But the strike is extending to other sectors, such as dockers and postal workers who are blocking Tesla’s activities as a sign of solidarity. A completely new social movement in this Nordic country.
Tesla employees, supported by the IF Metall union in Sweden, launched the strike in response to the company’s categorical refusal to sign a collective agreement on wages. In this country, collective agreements are negotiated sector by sector and form the basis of the Swedish labor market. They cover around 90% of all Swedish workers and guarantee minimum wages and fair working conditions.
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The IF Metall union, which has nearly 300,000 members, is largely in favor of this system. Except that Tesla recently confirmed its refusal to sign such an agreement, declaring that it did not follow this practice in the rest of the world. For several weeks, this strike has been followed by the car manufacturer’s mechanics spread across seven workshops across the Scandinavian country.
“This fight with Tesla is very important”
Except that the IF Metall union made it a symbolic fight. “There are a lot of young, non-unionized people, often it’s their first job, they don’t have a family, they don’t understand the importance of having a collective agreement that guarantees a pension, insurance, profits,” explained Arturo Vasquez, spokesperson for the IF Metall union. “This fight with Tesla is very important. It will send a signal not only in Sweden, but throughout Europe about the importance of unions and collective agreements. In Germany too, there is a conflict with Tesla. So we have to help each other now. Otherwise, we will find ourselves like in the United States, South America, India, China, without rights. Our union has the means, we are one of the richest in Sweden, maybe even in Europe, so we are going to fight.”
Vehicle deliveries blocked by dock workers
In addition to IF Métal, nine other unions have announced solidarity measures towards Tesla employees, such as the construction union which announced that it would stop maintaining Tesla sites from November 28. Since Monday, postal sector employees have started to stop delivering to Tesla sites and workshops. A decision which could prevent new Teslas from hitting the road because license plates issued by the Swedish Transport Agency are only delivered by the postal group Postnord, according to the daily Dagens Industri. Same thing among the dockers who since Tuesday decided to stop the delivery of vehicles to the four largest ports in the country.
Tesla boss Elon Musk, responding to a user who had posted a message about this on X, formerly Twitter, just said that this movement was “insane”. Tesla is a major player in the automobile industry in Sweden, with more than 17,000 registrations since the start of the year. This represents a market share in the country of 7.2% and more than 19% in the 100% electric vehicle segment.
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