Scandinavia

The business model and mentality of Elon Musk and the Tesla, SpaceX and X he leads are the exact opposite of what we know as the Scandinavian model, especially in the labor market.

The billionaire, who is having increasing headaches with strikes and boycotts that are gradually spreading throughout Scandinavia, is beginning to be convinced of this from personal experience.

The problem began in October with Sweden and Tesla’s official garage in the country, and has now spread to neighboring Denmark, Norway and Finland.

It also covered other sectors related to the supply of cars or parts for them.

The latest news is that the electric car company has lost an appeal filed in Sweden over the refusal of the country’s post office to deliver the car’s license plates.

PostNord workers decided to support the rest of the strikers against Tesla. The court ruled that until a decision is reached in the case, postal workers cannot be forced to make deliveries.

It’s not just them – dockworkers, drivers, mechanics and cleaners are also boycotting Musk’s company, or planning to.

Formally, the actions are in support of the mechanics who serve Tesla in Sweden, led by the union IF Metall.

However, observers believe that the increasingly large-scale action shows the determination of unions to defend their rights and those of workers, as well as the Scandinavian model of the labor market.

About 120 mechanics went on strike over Tesla’s refusal to sign a collective labor agreement (CBA) with workshop workers. The company has a principled position against this type of agreement on a global level and claims that the staff gets just as good conditions anyway without the union’s intervention. In Sweden, however, a collective labor agreement is common practice and 90 percent of workers in the country have one.

The purpose of the KTD is to guarantee basic labor rights – salary, retirement, working hours, days off, overtime, vacations.

This is a model specific to Sweden, and its purpose is to regulate the labor market without additional state intervention – only with agreements between trade unions and business.

Musk, however, disagrees with the idea of ​​union involvement. “I don’t like anything that creates a master-servant relationship,” he declared.

The ideological difference is huge, and as a result, Tesla faced the first workers’ strike in its history. Sweden on the other hand – with probably the biggest battle to preserve the trade union model for decades.

Photo: Getty Images

Musk doesn’t like the idea of ​​unions at all.

This is not just a fight for Tesla workers, but for the preservation of the union model, explained Marie Nilsson, the president of IF Metall.

“If we allow companies like Tesla to operate without collective bargaining agreements, it will open the door for other international companies and other types of industries,” she explained.

Therefore, the union is ready for a long protest – “as long as it takes”.

Due to the fundamental threat to the model and the local tradition of solidarity in such cases, the IF Metall strike covered 8 Tesla sites in Sweden – warehouses and car dealerships, and 8 more unions joined in support of their colleagues.

Dock workers refuse to load and unload the American company’s cars at all Swedish ports, the electricians at the charging stations do not work on the Tesla ones, there is a boycott by the painters, by the cleaners of the workshops, by people who are responsible for deliveries and mail for the company, including and on license plates.

The largest taxi company in Stockholm stopped buying the brand’s cars.

Photo: Getty Images

The boycott against Tesla is serious.

In Norway, the largest union in the private sector, Fellesförbundet, has announced that it will block Tesla deliveries to Sweden from Norwegian ports. “Norway will not be a transit country and help Tesla,” they announced from there. This will happen if the company does not agree to the demands of the Swedish unions by December 20.

In Finland, the transport workers’ union AKT also plans to block Musk’s company vehicles to Sweden from all ports, again from December 20.

In Denmark, they took the same form of boycott of electric cars for Sweden.

“Even if you’re one of the richest people in the world, you can’t make your own rules,” commented Jan Viladsen, chairman of the Danish transport union.

The largest pension fund, PensionDanmark, announced that it will sell all its shares in Tesla for nearly 70 million dollars because of the company’s problem with workers’ rights.

The boycott, in addition to image damage, can also cause direct damage to the car manufacturer. The Nordic countries are one of the key markets for Tesla. Norway and Sweden are in the top 5 of the brand’s best-selling cars worldwide for 2022.

Musk spoke about the wave of strikes succinctly. “This is madness,” he wrote in X.

According to Jesper Hammark, a specialist in economic history at the University of Gothenburg, the strike is to defend the Scandinavian model from the American one.

“I would guess that Tesla will not stay in Sweden without a collective agreement. The union will win – the issue is too important to bend,” he commented, quoted by the Guardian.