Sweden’s largest trade union, the 7000,000 strong technical, professional and IT union Unionen has joined the dispute between the IF Mettal union and e-vehicle manufacturer Tesla in a fight that the Swedish labour movement sees as fundamental to protecting the countries employment model and which provides for legally underpinned sectoral collective bargaining. The dispute is now turing into a war of attrician with Tesla using scab label and declaring the dispute as ‘over’.
As the strike by Tesla’s mechanics in Sweden who maintain Tesla’s imported vehicles moves into its sixth month Tesla boss Elan Musk declared the dispute as being ‘over’ as maintenance of vehicles was being carried out by 25 ‘temporary’ staff from outside of Sweden.
The move by Tesla will drag the Swedish government into the dispute – bringing in scab labour to break a strike poses a dilemma for the government as will the involvement of Unionen who began a blockade affecting all work for Tesla at DEKRA Industrial AB, which conducts equipment inspections.
“It is fundamentally important to protect our collective agreement system,” Martin Wastfeldt, head of negotiations at Unionen.
Unionen warned that if Tesla seeks to circumvent their blockade by hiring ‘other providers’, the union was prepared to escalate the dispute.
Unionen recently signed a collective agreement with the (fin-tech) financial – tech company Klarna who had told its employees that collective bargaining did not fit with its current business model. When its 6,000 strong workforce threatened to strike Klarna signed a collective agreement with Unionen and is working with the union.