Elon Musk v labour unions: Sweden edition
Elon Musk, boss of Tesla, has gone to great lengths to keep unions away from his electric-car maker’s 127,000 workers at its “gigafactories” in America, China and Europe. Even in Germany, land of harmonious relations between workers and bosses, the powerful metalworkers’ union, IG Metall, has no say at the company’s local plant in Grünheide, near Berlin. Mr Musk’s latest challenge—a strike by some 130 mechanics at ten Tesla service workshops in Sweden—looks like a trifle. But it may yet prove consequential.
The Swedish strikers are members of IF Metall, which represents the country’s metalworkers. They downed tools on October 27th, demanding collective-bargaining rights. Mr Musk ignored them at first. That dismissive stance became harder to maintain as other workers joined them in sympathy strikes. Postal workers refused to deliver licence plates for Tesla cars, dockers to unload Teslas from ships and cleaners to scrub the firm’s showrooms.
On November 27th Tesla filed lawsuits against the Swedish Transport Agency and the national postal service over their workers’ refusal to deliver licence plates for its cars. On the same day the court ruled that Tesla would be allowed to collect the plates directly from the transport agency’s offices. But the strike continues. IF Metall vows to pay the strikers’ wages for months, even years, if that is what it takes.
2023-11-30 10:24:54
Link from www.economist.com
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