New bidder doc1623 shares a report from Wired: Swedish workers are unite against Tesla. (Starting Friday), cleaners will stop cleaning Tesla showrooms, electricians will not repair the company’s charging stations, and dock workers will refuse to unload Tesla goods at all Swedish ports. What began as a strike by Tesla mechanics is expanding, in what Swedish unions describe as an existential battle between Elon Musk’s automaker and the conventions they say make the country’s labor market fair and efficient. The standoff in Sweden is the largest industrial action the company has faced anywhere in the world. Sweden has no laws setting working conditions, such as a minimum wage. Rather, these rules are dictated by collective bargaining agreements, a type of contract that defines the benefits employees are entitled to, such as wages and working hours. For five years, the industrial union IF Metall, which represents Tesla mechanics, has been trying to convince the company to sign a collective agreement. Faced with Tesla’s refusal, the mechanics decided to strike at the end of October. They then asked their Swedish union colleagues to join them.
Some unions that have joined the blockade are expanding their actions in an effort to be more effective. Since November 7, trade unionists working in four Swedish ports have refused to unload Tesla goods. Tomorrow the blockade will be extended to all Swedish ports. “We don’t want to unload any Tesla cars,” says Jimmy Asberg, president of the dockers’ branch of the Swedish Transport Union and working at the port of Gävle. “We will allow all other cars (to dock), but the Tesla cars will remain on the ship.” He hopes Tesla understands how important this issue is to the country’s workers. “Not just for dockworkers, but for all Swedish workers.”
Sweden’s Building Maintenance Workers’ Union will also join the Tesla blockade at noon local time on Friday, “simply because the Metal Workers’ Union (IF) asked us to,” the mediator said Torbjorn Jonsson, adding that the union has around 50 members. who clean Tesla locations. Four showrooms and service centers will be affected – three around Stockholm and one in the town of Umea. “Their workshops and showrooms will not be cleaned.” Three days later, on November 20, the Seko union, which represents postal workers, will stop delivering letters, spare parts and pallets to all Tesla addresses in Sweden. “Tesla is trying to gain competitive advantages by offering its workers worse wages and working conditions than they would have gotten under a collective bargaining agreement,” said The president of the Seko union, Gabriella Lavecchia, in a press release. “This is of course completely unacceptable.”
