Tesla faces widening strike in Sweden as unions double down

Tesla is facing expanding industrial action in Sweden after a new union stepped in to support a nearly year-long strike by workshop staff.

The electric-vehicle maker will from Oct. 10 encounter hurdles servicing its charging network in the biggest Nordic country after the Vision trade union announced a blockade in sympathy with the IF Metall strike that began in October 2023.

Vision’s members that are employed by municipal energy companies will no longer service, repair or run maintenance tasks at Tesla’s EV charging stations, according to a statement published on the trade union’s website.

The sympathy action comes in the wake of a strike by Tesla technicians who are members of IF Metall, one of Scandinavia’s biggest blue-collar labor unions.

On Oct. 27 last year, staff at 10 of the automaker’s Swedish repair shops struck over their employer’s refusal to sign a collective agreement — a written contract that’s common in Sweden that sets out key employment terms like wages, working hours and leave policies — and have continued the protest since.
 

“We need to protect the Swedish model when it’s threatened,” said Vision’s Eva-Lotta Nilsson, referring to the ubiquity of collective agreements.

The dispute continues to hamper Tesla’s operations in the Nordic region as sympathy actions from other trade unions has spread to dockworkers in neighboring Denmark, Finland and Norway. Since December, Tesla has had to transport its cars bound for Sweden via trucks from continental Europe.

While Tesla’s Model Y was the best-selling new car in Sweden this year through August, sales of the model were down 8.8 percent, according to Mobility Sweden data.

The blockade has also extended beyond deliveries to registration plates and even trash collection at Tesla premises.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has previously called the situation “insane” and has been fighting back in Sweden with lawsuits to limit the conflict’s impact.