Tesla Has Bitten Off More Than It Can Chew by Picking a Fight With Swedish Unions

Elon Musk is attempting to expand Tesla into Sweden and circumvent its unions — but Swedish labor has a long history of taking on big US firms. If they can bring Tesla to heel, it will mark a major victory for organized labor across the globe.

Since the end of October, mechanics at Tesla workshops in Sweden have been striking in an attempt to pressure the firm to agree to collective bargaining with the Swedish Metalworkers’ Union.

Tesla does not manufacture cars in Sweden, so the strike covers only 130 workers. Despite the small number of affected workers, this has become a very prominent strike in the region because it pits two powerful parties against one another.

On one side is Tesla, by far the world’s most valued automaker, currently valued higher than the next nine car companies combined. It boasts 130,000 workers and the top two best-selling EV models. On the other side is the Swedish Metalworkers’ Union, a union with 230,000 members organizing 80 percent of all workers in its sectors. With a large membership that has not taken party in many strikes, the union has amassed a war chest of about $1 billion. It is able to pay the striking workers 130 percent of their salaries.

If either side caves, it will have profound impacts across Sweden. If the unions lose, it might spell the end of the Swedish norm-based labor market system of high unionization rates, sectoral bargaining, and few regulations (there is, for example, no minimum wage in Sweden as most employers simply pay the wages agreed in negotiations with the unions). If Tesla loses, it will be the first union with which the company has been forced to negotiate.

Recognizing these stakes, several other sectors have started sympathy strikes. The transport workers are now refusing to unload Teslas in Swedish ports, the construction workers are not doing repair work on Tesla facilities, and the postal workers are not delivering mail, including license plates to Tesla. The latter strike was branded as “insane” by Elon Musk on Twitter/X.