Scandinavian workers are turning against Tesla, with a 3rd Nordic nation joining in the widespread strikes that have irked Elon Musk
TT NEWS AGENCY/REUTERS
- Tesla workers in Sweden have been on strike since October.
- They want a collective labor agreement, which the vast majority of Swedish workers are covered by.
- Unions in Denmark and now Norway are planning to join the strike to back the Swedish workers.
Tesla's ongoing dispute with striking workers in Sweden is set to get bigger as a Norwegian union threatened to block shipments.
Since October, Swedish unions led by IF Metall have tried to get Tesla to sign a collective labor agreement.
It's a common deal in Nordic countries, which would allow the unions to negotiate wages and working conditions with Tesla. According to The New York Times, around 90% of Sweden's employees are covered by collective agreements.
In a statement, IF Metall said it wanted "our members at Tesla to have the same decent and safe working conditions as the members at other similar companies in Sweden."
Swedish dockworkers who aren't employed by Tesla then said they would block all deliveries of the company's vehicles from being unloaded.
Nine unions in Sweden are backing IF Metall, including postal workers who are refuse to ship license plates — leaving Tesla unable to complete deliveries, per the NYT.
Elon Musk later lashed out in a post on X, calling it "insane."
The world's richest person has often voiced his opposition to labor unions. In 2021, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that Tesla and Musk illegally threatened workers who wanted to unionize.
On Tuesday, a labor union in Denmark backed IF Metall in its action against Tesla. 3F said it would refuse to unload or transport Tesla vehicles made for Swedish customers.
Now, Norway is joining in on the action too.
The country's largest private-sector labor union, Fellesforbundet, said Wednesday it would block Tesla shipments meant for the Swedish market if the dispute hasn't been resolved by December 20.
"The right to demand a collective agreement is an obvious part of our working life and we can't accept that Tesla places itself on the outside," said the union's leader, Joern Eggum.
Tesla did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.