An almost four-month-long strike in Sweden against carmaker Tesla over its refusal to sign a collective wage agreement was extended on Wednesday, February 21, to include a blockade on charging stations, a union said.
Swedish union Seko said it would halt maintenance on, and the installation of, Tesla charging stations. The Swedish strike was launched by the metal workers' union IF Metall on October 27 when mechanics at 10 Tesla repair shops in seven cities walked off the job.
It has since grown into a larger conflict between Tesla and almost a dozen unions seeking to protect Sweden's labor model, including postal workers, dock workers and even spreading to neighboring Nordic countries.
The Swedish Union for Service and Communications Employees (Seko) said its measures included "the blocking of work on planning, preparation, new connections, network expansion, service, maintenance and repairs for all Tesla charging stations in Sweden." It said the industrial action would come into force on March 4.
Negotiated sector by sector, collective agreements with unions are the basis of the Nordic labor market model, covering almost 90% of all employees in Sweden and 80% in Denmark, and guaranteeing wages and working conditions.
Despite the fact that many of Tesla's employees in Sweden are union members, they cannot benefit from the collective bargaining agreements unless Tesla signs on to them. Tesla chief executive Elon Musk has long rejected calls to allow the company's 127,000 employees worldwide to unionize.
Earlier this week, the newspaper DN reported that IF Metall was struggling to get mechanics to participate in the strike and cited statistics from the Swedish National Mediation Office that showed that only about a third of the some 130 Tesla mechanics had actually walked off the job. IF Metall announced last week it would allow a temporary exemption to allow some repairs on older Tesla cars.