2023-10-18 18:02:47
Around 90 percent of employees in Sweden are covered by a collective bargaining agreementand the metal workers’ union, IF Metall, has long tried to negotiate one with Tesla without success.
The union is now threatening to order its members in all seven cities where Tesla operates service centres – or in total more than 120 employees – to walk out from the start of Friday next week.
Tesla runs service centres in Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö, Helsingborg, Örebro, Norrköping and Linköping. The company had by Wednesday not made any public comments about the strike threat.
“This dispute concerns our members’ salaries, pensions and insurances. In a broader sense, it also concerns the rules of the entire Swedish labour market. Companies should not be able to gain competitive advantages by giving employees worse conditions than they would have with a collective agreement,” said IF Metall’s representative Veli-Pekka Säikkälä in a statement.
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Working conditions at major international companies have been a hot topic in Sweden in the past year after tech workers at Spotify and Klarna launched a push for collective agreements.
Those in favour of collective agreements argue that they are an essential part of the Swedish model, ensuring good and equal contracts for everyone. Those against argue that up-and-coming businesses in the modern labour market need more flexibility than these deals offer.
Spotify in September pulled out of negotiations with trade unions.
“While we have a lot of respect for collective bargaining agreements and the Swedish model, our employment conditions and benefits are already just as good or better than what is stipulated in a collective bargaining agreement and our plan remains to keep offering our employees first-rate wages and benefits,” a Spotify spokesperson told startup news site Breakit at the time.
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