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Swedish postal workers join mechanics and dockers in strike against Tesla

Swedish postal workers are halting deliveries to Tesla repair shops as part of a strike over the US company's refusal to sign a collective bargaining agreement.

Swedish postal workers join mechanics and dockers in strike against Tesla
Several other unions have also announced solidarity action unless Tesla signs a collective bargaining agreement. Photo: Johan Nilsson/TT

Some 130 mechanics at 10 Tesla repair shops in seven cities across Sweden first walked off the job on October 27th, according to trade union IF Metall.

The strike has since been expanded to include other repair shops that service Tesla among other car brands, and dock workers have stopped unloading Tesla cars at all Swedish ports.

On Monday, the Swedish Union for Service and Communications Employees (Seko), said it had started blocking deliveries and pickups of mail and packages via postal companies PostNord and CityMail at all Tesla workplaces in Sweden.

This meant spare parts and components would not be delivered to Tesla sites, according to the union.

“By refusing to play by the rules here in Sweden Tesla is trying to gain a competitive advantage by giving workers worse wages and conditions than they would have had with a collective agreement,” Seko president Gabriella Lavecchia said in a statement.

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.

In late October, 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.

According to IF Metall, Tesla had told them it would not sign a collective bargaining agreement because they “don’t do that anywhere in the world.”

In addition to IF Metall, nine other unions have announced “sympathy measures”, including the Swedish Building Workers’ Union announcing last week it would stop servicing and repairs on Tesla facilities as of November 28th.

Despite this, several Swedish media have reported that the impact of the strike has so far been limited, and IF Metall has accused the electric carmaker of systematically using strike breakers to circumvent the strike.

Tesla has also found other ways to deliver new cars to Sweden, notably by road.

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SWEDISH TRADITIONS

Why is Pentecost not a public holiday in Sweden?

Danes and Norwegians will get to enjoy three days off this weekend because of Pentecost and Whit Monday. But not Swedes. Why?

Why is Pentecost not a public holiday in Sweden?

Whit Monday, also known as Pentecost Monday (or annandag pingst in Swedish), falls on the day after Pentecost Sunday, marking the seventh Sunday after Easter.

It is a time when Christians commemorate the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples of Jesus, an event described in the Bible.

It was long a public holiday in Sweden, a country which is very secular today but where the old religious holidays still live on. In fact, up until 1772, the third and fourth day of Pentecost were also holidays.

In 2005, Whit Monday also got the boot, when it was replaced by National Day on June 6th. The Social Democrat prime minister at the time, Göran Persson, saw the opportunity to combine calls for National Day to get a higher status in Sweden with increasing work hours.

The inquiry into scrapping Whit Monday as a public holiday looked into May 1st, Ascension Day or Epiphany as alternative victims of the axe, but in the end made its decision after “all churches and faith associations in Sweden agree that Whit Monday is the least bad church holiday to remove”.

Because Whit Monday always falls on a Monday, whereas June 6th some years falls on a Saturday or Sunday, this means that Swedish workers don’t always get an extra day off for National Day.

This is still a source of bitterness for many Swedes.

And so it came to pass in those days, that apart from the occasional grumbling about Göran Persson, Whit Monday now passes by largely unnoticed to most people in Sweden. Unless they are active church-goers, or go to Norway or Denmark, where it’s still a public holiday.

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