Automotive News Europe — 2023-12-05
Automotive Industry
Denmark's largest union said it will support Swedish mechanics in their strike action against Tesla.
Harbor workers and drivers at the Danish 3F union will in about two weeks stop offloading Sweden-bound cars in Danish harbors and driving them to Sweden, preventing Tesla from circumventing a weeks-long blockade there.
"Like the companies, the trade union movement is global in the fight to protect workers," said the chairman of the 3F union's transport division, Jan Villadsen.
The union has filed a strike warning notice for December 4 to the Danish Employers' Association. The protest will not affect Tesla's operations in Denmark, a union spokesperson said.
Sweden is Tesla's fifth-biggest European market, and signing any agreement with the Swedish unions would set a precedent for the company.
Swedish labor groups have been taking industrial action against Tesla since October in a bid to force the EV maker to sign collective bargaining agreements with mechanics.
The strike has spread through sympathy actions, including stopping the delivery of mail to Tesla. The automaker's CEO, Elon Musk, has called the Swedish labor action "insane."
"Even if you are one of the richest people in the world, you can't just make your own rules," Villadsen said in a statement on Tuesday. "We have some agreements on the labor market in the Nordics, and you have to comply with them if you want to do business here."
Tesla has vehemently opposed unionization efforts in other countries where it operates. Yet collective bargaining agreements are standard practice in Sweden, covering around 90 percent of all working Swedes.
Norway risk
Tesla has been fighting back in Sweden, filing two lawsuits to limit the conflict's impact after the delivery of license plates to its new vehicles stopped. In the first, it won a temporary injunction granting it the right to take delivery of license plates directly from the transport agency's supplier.
In the second case, a Swedish court is expected to rule on an injunction this week on whether the postal service needs to deliver the plates that are currently stuck in the post.
There is a risk that sympathy action could also spread to Norway, where the United Federation of Trade Unions is considering a similar blockade. The group is monitoring the situation, spokesman John Trygve Tollefsen said.
Trade-union solidarity is an accepted part of the Scandinavian labor market, and cross-border strikes are not unheard of. In 2015, Sweden-based pilots joined a walk-out of Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA's Norway-based pilots.