SHARE
COPY LINK

STRIKES

Tesla strike widens as Swedish union expands blockade

Sweden's metalworkers' union is expanding its strike against Tesla, a week after mechanics walked off the job over the electric carmaker's refusal to sign a collective bargaining agreement.

Tesla strike widens as Swedish union expands blockade
The picket line outside one of Tesla's workshops in Sweden. Photo: Jessica Gow/TT

The first stage of the strike affected some 130 mechanics at 10 Tesla workshops in seven cities of across Sweden, according to trade union IF Metall.

On Friday, the strike was expanded to include some 470 more workers at another 17 facilities that service many brands of vehicles where a “blockade” on repairing Tesla cars had been put in place.

“It’s important to remember that these people are going to work as usual and carry out their tasks on other car models, but they don’t service Tesla specifically during the conflict,” IF Metall union spokesman Jesper Pettersson told AFP.

Pettersson said the union had met with Tesla during the week and another meeting was planned for Monday, but did not wish to comment on how the negotiations were going.

Negotiated sector-by-sector, collective agreements are the basis of the Swedish labour market model, covering almost 90 percent of all Swedish employees and guaranteeing standard wages and working conditions.

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

Despite being union members, they cannot benefit from industry-wide collective bargaining agreements.

Tesla founder and chief Elon Musk has consistently rejected calls to allow the company’s 127,000 employees worldwide to unionise.

The Swedish Transport Workers’ union has also announced “sympathy measures” in support of IF Metall’s strike, threatening to block the “loading and unloading of Tesla cars” at four Swedish ports, starting on November 7th unless an agreement is reached.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.
For members

BUSINESS

India among top investment destinations for Swedish companies

Saudi Arabia, the UAE and India are the top investment destinations for Swedish companies, meaning that businesses are planning on increasing their investments in these markets over the next 12 months.

India among top investment destinations for Swedish companies

“The stars are aligned for India. They have got a lot of internal investment programmes started, have acquired internal stability and managed to navigate the geopolitical situation in such a way that no one has any doubts any longer,” said Business Sweden CEO Jan Larsson.

Swedish businesses are in general less optimistic than last year about the global business scene, due to a struggling European economy and escalating trade wars between the US and China, according to a new Global Business Climate Survey 2024 by Business Sweden.

Despite this, many of the 24 countries in the report maintained a generally positive outlook, with scores over 3 on a 5-point scale, where 1 equals very poor and 5 very good. 

Overall, just six percent of respondents perceived the business climate as very good, 31 percent as good, 45 percent as neutral, 15 percent as poor and 2 percent as very poor.

There are also some markets where sentiment has improved slightly since last year: Brazil, South Africa, South Korea, the UK and Spain. 

At the other end of the scale, interest in investing in giant markets such as China and Germany appears to be on the wane, along with Taiwan and Mexico.

“Doing business in Germany comes with a lot of administrative work compared to Sweden, which is time consuming and costly,” EWAB Engineering GmbH managing director Fredrik Almcrantz said in the report. “Digitalisation doesn’t replace paperwork related to compliance with rules and regulations, it is just an added layer on top of traditional routines.”

Almost a third (65 percent) of Swedish businesses surveyed expect revenue to grow and plan to increase their global investments in the year ahead. A clear majority (70 percent) of companies were profitable last year, while 12 percent reached break-even and 13 percent reported negative results.

The Netherlands and France had the highest percentage of profitable Swedish companies, while the highest share of companies making a loss were reported in South Korea and Germany.

India, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia are among the countries on the list identified as having the most favourable business climates for Swedish companies, while Germany, Mexico and the Netherlands were rated lowest on the list.

India, Brazil and Indonesia also had the highest share of companies saying that the Swedish brand contributes “to an extent or great extent” to their success in those markets. At the other end of the scale were the United States, Canada and Saudi Arabia.

“In the Indonesian market, Swedish products are generally considered to be high quality, robust and durable,” said M. Syahrul Mohideen, area sales manager at ScanBox Thermoproducts AB.

SHOW COMMENTS