Swedish Workers Are Uniting Against Tesla

New submitter doc1623 shares a report from Wired: Swedish workers are uniting against Tesla. [Starting Friday], cleaners will stop cleaning Tesla showrooms, electricians won't fix the company's charging points, and dockworkers will refuse to unload Tesla cargo at all Swedish ports. What started as a strike by Tesla mechanics is spreading, in something Swedish unions describe as an existential battle between Elon Musk's carmaker and the conventions they say make the country's labor market fair and efficient. The standoff in Sweden is the biggest union action the company has faced anywhere in the world. Sweden doesn't have laws that set working conditions, such as a minimum wage. Instead these rules are dictated by collective agreements, a type of contract that defines the benefits employees are entitled to, such as wages and working hours. For five years, industrial workers' union IF Metall, which represents Tesla mechanics, has been trying to persuade the company to sign a collective agreement. When Tesla refused, the mechanics decided to strike at the end of October. Then they asked fellow Swedish unions to join them. Some unions that joined the blockade are expanding their actions in an effort to be more effective. Since November 7, union members working at four Swedish ports have been refusing to unload Tesla cargo. Tomorrow, the blockade will be extended to all ports in Sweden. "We don't want to unload any Tesla cars," says Jimmy Asberg, who is president of the dockworkers' branch of Sweden's transport union and works at Gavle port. "We are going to allow every other car [to dock], but the Tesla cars, they will stay on the ship." He hopes Tesla will understand how important this issue is for workers in the country. "Not just dockworkers but for all workers in Sweden." The Swedish Building Maintenance Workers' Union will also join the Tesla blockade on Friday at 12 pm local time, "simply because the [IF] Metall Workers Trade Union asked us to," says ombudsman 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 city 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 of Tesla's addresses in Sweden. "Tesla is trying to gain competitive advantages by giving the workers worse wages and conditions than they would have with a collective agreement," said Seko's union president, Gabriella Lavecchia, in a statement. "It is of course completely unacceptable."

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