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STRIKES

Swedish union boss: ‘Culture clash’ behind strikes against Tesla

A series of strikes against Tesla over its refusal to sign a collective agreement is a clash between the Swedish and American way of 'doing business', a union boss said.

Published: 1 December 2023 06:36 CET
Swedish union boss: 'Culture clash' behind strikes against Tesla
Tesla workers striking outside the company's service centre in Malmö. Photo: Johan Nilsson/TT

Some 130 mechanics at 10 Tesla repair shops in seven cities across Sweden walked off the job on October 27th, and the strike has since grown into a larger conflict between the US giant and a slew of unions seeking to protect Sweden’s labour model.

In addition to the metalworkers union IF Metall, which launched the strike, nine other unions have announced “sympathy measures”, including dock workers and postal workers.

Marie Nilsson, head of IF Metall, told AFP that the foundation of the strike is failed negotiations to reach a collective wage agreement.

“We have tried to negotiate with them for a couple of years to reach our collective agreement, but they have declined that,” Nilsson said.

Collective agreements with unions are the basis of the Swedish labour market model, covering almost 90 percent of all employees and guaranteeing wages and working conditions.

Nilsson noted in Sweden there is no law regulating minimum wages, as wage levels are negotiated between unions and employers, adding that it’s “very important that this functions”.

Meanwhile, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has long rejected calls to allow the company’s 127,000 employees worldwide to unionise.

“I think this is kind of a clash between the Swedish or the European culture and the American way of doing business,” Nilsson said.

IF Metall – which has some 300,000 members – told AFP at the outset of the strike that “many” of Tesla’s workers in Sweden are members of IF Metall, but would not disclose an exact number.

Several Swedish media have reported that the impact of the walkout has so far been limited, while IF Metall has accused the electric carmaker of systematically using strike breakers to circumvent the labour action.

On November 20th, Swedish postal workers joined in and began halting deliveries to Tesla offices and repair shops.

As licence plates for new cars are only delivered by mail in Sweden, the blockade would potentially block new Teslas hitting the road, something Musk branded “insane”.

On Monday, Tesla filed lawsuits against the Swedish Transport Agency and mail carrier Postnord, which is owned by the Swedish and Danish states, to compel them to hand over licence plates and mail to the carmaker.

The transport agency said late Monday it had received a “provisional” court ruling requiring it to agree, within seven days, to Tesla collecting its number plates directly from the plate manufacturer.

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WORK PERMITS

Business leaders: Work permit threshold ‘has no place in Swedish labour model’

Sweden's main business group has attacked a proposal to exempt some jobs from a new minimum salary for work permits, saying it is "unacceptable" political interference in the labour model and risks seriously affecting national competitiveness.

Published: 25 April 2024 17:37 CEST
Updated: 26 April 2024 06:11 CEST
Business leaders: Work permit threshold 'has no place in Swedish labour model'

The Confederation of Swedish Enterprise said in its response to the government’s consultation, submitted on Thursday afternoon, that it not only opposed the proposal to raise the minimum salary for a work permit to Sweden’s median salary (currently 34,200 kronor a month), but also opposed plans to exempt some professions from the higher threshold. 

“To place barriers in the way of talent recruitment by bringing in a highly political salary threshold in combination with labour market testing is going to worsen the conditions for Swedish enterprise in both the short and the long term, and risks leading to increased fraud and abuse,” the employer’s group said.   

The group, which represents businesses across most of Sweden’s industries, has been critical of the plans to further raise the salary threshold for work permits from the start, with the organisation’s deputy director general, Karin Johansson, telling The Local this week that more than half of those affected by the higher threshold would be skilled graduate recruits Swedish businesses sorely need.   

But the fact that it has not only rejected the higher salary threshold, but also the proposed system of exemptions, will nonetheless come as a blow to Sweden’s government, and particular the Moderate Party led by Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, which has long claimed to be the party of business. 

The confederation complained that the model proposed in the conclusions of the government inquiry published in February would give the government and political parties a powerful new role in setting salary conditions, undermining the country’s treasured system of collective bargaining. 

The proposal for the higher salary threshold, was, the confederation argued, “wrong in principle” and did “not belong in the Swedish labour market”. 

“That the state should decide on the minimum salary for certain foreign employees is an unacceptable interference in the Swedish collective bargaining model, where the parties [unions and employers] weigh up various needs and interested in negotiations,” it wrote. 

In addition, the confederation argued that the proposed system where the Sweden Public Employment Service and the Migration Agency draw up a list of exempted jobs, which would then be vetted by the government, signified the return of the old system of labour market testing which was abolished in 2008.

“The government agency-based labour market testing was scrapped because of it ineffectiveness, and because it was unreasonable that government agencies were given influence over company recruitment,” the confederation wrote. 

“The system meant long handling times, arbitrariness, uncertainty for employers and employees, as well as an indirect union veto,” it added. “Nothing suggests it will work better this time.” 

For a start, it said, the Public Employment Service’s list of professions was inexact and outdated, with only 179 professions listed, compared to 430 monitored by Statistics Sweden. This was particularly the case for new skilled roles within industries like battery manufacturing. 

“New professions or smaller professions are not caught up by the classification system, which among other things is going to make it harder to recruit in sectors which are important for the green industrial transition,” the confederation warned. 

Rather than implement the proposals outlined in the inquiry’s conclusions, it concluded, the government should instead begin work on a new national strategy for international recruitment. 

“Sweden instead needs a national strategy aimed at creating better conditions for Swedish businesses to be able to attract, recruit and retain international competence.”

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