#Tesla#Sweden#Unions#LaborRights#LaborStrikes#EVs: "Globally, Tesla has fought off any attempts by unions to organize its workplaces and establish collective bargaining. Signing up its employees is a priority for the United Auto Workers, the industry’s largest American union, and for its counterpart in Germany, where Tesla operates a big factory outside Berlin. UAW President Shawn Fain, who won extensive wage concessions from Detroit’s three major automakers with a strike last year, has cheered on the Swedes and called their effort “a blueprint for future leveraging campaigns.” Encouraged by this support—and armed with enough funds to pay the idle Tesla workers for around 500 years—IF Metall has stuck to its guns. The strike has now lasted four times as long as the UAW’s in 2023.
If Tesla had reached a collective agreement when it arrived in Sweden a decade ago, it’s likely nobody would have cared. For IF Metall, which signs hundreds of such accords each year, it hardly would have warranted a public declaration of victory. And Tesla could have rationalized it as an obligatory acceptance of local customs—comparable to removing one’s shoes when entering a Swedish home.
Now the company’s approach risks tarnishing its image in a region at the vanguard of the green transition. Scandinavians are among the world’s fastest adopters of electric vehicles: EVs and hybrids accounted for 60% of new cars sold in Sweden last year. Norwegians, Danes and Finns also buy electric cars at rates far above those in the US. Global automakers are fighting for the business of these affluent customers, who also happen to be broadly supportive of organized labor." https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-04-29/tesla-strike-in-sweden-previews-elon-musk-playbook-for-us-unions
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