Elon Musk has condemned a wave of “insane” strikes centred on Tesla workshops in Sweden, as workers target the US electric car maker in a strike for collective bargaining rights.
In what has been described as the biggest battle in decades to save the Swedish trade union model from global labour practices, the powerful IF Metall union has been leading a five-week strike at eight Tesla factories in Sweden.
It is the first time workers at the US carmaker have gone on strike, and on Thursday Musk, the tech billionaire and Tesla chief executive, made his feelings clear, writing on X, formerly Twitter: “This is insane.”
He was responding to a social media post about secondary, or sympathy, strikes by Swedish postal services that are preventing number plates from reaching new Tesla cars.
IF Metall, which has more than 300,000 members in Swedish industry, has said it will “continue [the strikes] as long as necessary”. It says it took action after Tesla refused to sign a collective agreement with its members.
Collective agreements, which cover conditions such as pay, pensions, working hours and holidays and mean that unions and employers theoretically regulate the labour market rather than the state, are seen as a cornerstone of the Swedish labour market model.
Although union membership in Sweden has declined in recent decades, many workers are still union members and around nine out of ten workers are covered by collective agreements.
The Tesla strike has attracted secondary action from eight other unions and is threatening to spread to neighbouring Norway, where Fellesförbundet (the Confederation of Swedish Trade Unions), the country’s largest private sector union, said it was prepared to take sympathy action.
Marie Nilsson, the head of IF Metall, said the strike was not just a fight for Tesla workers, but to protect the Swedish trade union model. “If we allow companies like Tesla to operate without a collective agreement, it will open the door for other international companies and other types of industry,” she said. “It may take a long time,” she added. “We will continue for as long as it takes.”
The strike has been supported by transport and port workers who have refused to load or unload Tesla cars in all Swedish ports, electricians who have refused to carry out service or repairs in Tesla’s workshops, and charging station operators and painters who will not work on Tesla cars. Other sympathy strikes include service and communication workers who have stopped delivering mail and parcels to Tesla.
“We are well prepared for a prolonged conflict,” said a spokesman for IF Metall, Jesper Pettersson. “Unfortunately, we do not have ongoing talks with Tesla Sweden at the moment, but as always we are available for further talks as soon as possible.”
The action appears to be affecting companies beyond Tesla. Shortly after the Tesla strike began, Swedish global payments company Klarna signed a collective agreement, averting a planned strike at its Stockholm headquarters.
Afterwards, Klarna co-founder and CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski pointed to the Swedish model, saying: “I am convinced that we will benefit from this agreement and that Klarna can contribute to strengthening the Swedish model from within.”
Some commentators have suggested that the action at Tesla could kick-start talks at the Swedish arm of streaming company Spotify, which earlier this year pulled out of talks on a collective agreement, saying it did not believe it would add “significant value” for employees.
In Norway, where Fellesförbundet says it organises around 500 Tesla workers, union leader Jørn Eggum said it would block Swedish Teslas from coming to the country. “Norway should not be a transit country for Tesla to get away with strikebreaking,” he told NRK earlier this month. “We must hold Tesla accountable and make them commit to collective agreements in the European countries where they operate.”
Jesper Hamark, an economic historian and visiting researcher at the University of Gothenburg, said the strike was about defending the Scandinavian model against the American one.
Comparing it to the 1995 strikes at Toys R Us, which the unions won, he said: “My guess is that Tesla will not stay in Sweden without a collective agreement. The union will win. I find it hard to see the unions giving in. The issue is too important.”
Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Spotify declined to comment.
