The Tesla strike, the longest Swedish strike in a hundred years, has ended after 1,021 days. On October 27, 2023, about forty mechanics stopped work at ten workshops around Sweden. Almost three years later, their union IF Metall has not reached its goal: to sign a collective agreement with Tesla's Swedish subsidiary TM Sweden.
During the strike, support increased. At the most, about eighty mechanics were out on strike, opinion polls showed that a large majority of the population supported the union's demands, and both Tesla's and Elon Musk's reputation fell steadily in polls. Still, they didn't quite get there. The world's richest man, also a supporter of Donald Trump and of far-right parties in Europe, is now victorious.
Tesla won a victory of attrition, one of the scenarios I wrote about in my book "Frontal collision - The Tesla strike and the fight for the future" (Bokförlaget Atlas 2025). The company was able to outlast its striking employees thanks to almost inexhaustible resources and Elon Musk's deeply anti-union beliefs.
Close to a hundred industrial action notices were issued during the years of the strike, but Tesla managed to circumvent or resist most of them. Fourteen trade unions in four countries stopped mail delivery, cleaning, waste management, electrical work at workshops and charging stations and unloading of cars in ports. None of this managed to force a signature.
Tesla has so far lost every legal process it initiated against Postnord, the Swedish Transport Agency and electricity grid companies. It has been forced to pay multi-million sums in court costs and attorneys' fees. In the end, most of the striking mechanics were bought out with confidentiality clauses. Without striking members, IF Metall chose to call off the strike.
In addition, loopholes were skilfully found in the Swedish labor market model. The company replaced the strikers with posted staff from its workshops in at least fourteen European countries, moved the production of a blocked component to a factory abroad and shipped cars by truck and ferry when dock workers blocked car ships in Nordic ports.
Global companies willing to take significant financial and reputational costs can seriously challenge Swedish unions
Despite all this, we can state that the Swedish model's sanctions bite companies that are rooted in Sweden. A company the same size as Tesla (around 400 employees in Sweden), but with all production and all suppliers in the country, would likely have been forced to the negotiating table in a few weeks or without a strike at all. But global companies that are willing to take significant financial and reputational costs can seriously challenge Swedish trade unions.
There is no law or rule in the Swedish model that compels an employer to sign or follow a collective agreement. Only norms - and we know that people like Elon Musk and Donald Trump take pride in breaking them.
Does the Swedish model stand and fall with the Tesla strike? No.
The institutions functioned as they should. The right to sympathy measures is constitutionally protected and lacks proportionality requirements, which made it possible to gather large parts of the trade union movement. IF Metall's conflict fund was sufficient by a wide margin. The government kept an arm's length distance. The courts have ruled in favor of the union in all instances so far (one case in the Supreme Court is still awaiting a decision).
If the strongest trade union movement in the world fails to sign a collective agreement with Tesla, the question is raised as to where it could succeed
But we should not pretend that the outcome is bad. And not just for Sweden. If the strongest trade union movement in the world fails to sign a collective agreement with Tesla, the question is raised as to where it could succeed. It is a concern for trade union movements in all countries where there are anti-union global companies that want to take market shares in the future economy, the green and digital labor market where the jobs will be created.
Swedish trade unions and employers are traditionally skeptical of political interference in the labor market. The reasons for this are good and rooted in the Swedish model. Nevertheless, there are three aspects that should be reviewed in light of the Tesla strike.
1. International sympathy measures and EU rules. Global corporations have the world as their playing field and can move labor, services and capital across borders fairly unimpeded, while unions are largely bound by national regulations. Tesla was able to move strike breakers with the help of the EU's posting directive, which the Left Party has wanted to stop through a so-called "lex Tesla". The possibilities of demanding a so-called European works council (European works council) at Tesla have not been tested either.
Anyone who goes on strike for a longer period of time loses their income-based social insurance and tax deductions
2. The security systems and tax regulations. They are not built for long conflicts. IF Metall chose in January 2024 to pay tax on the conflict compensation so that the members would not be taxed at zero and lose sickness benefit-based income, pension payments and the possibility of tax deductions for, for example, mortgages and rut/root. Two years later, the Swedish Tax Agency determined that, according to the Income Tax Act, conflict compensation must be tax-free. Around eighty strikers were thus subsequently zero-rated and lost their sickness benefit-based income, SGI. Anyone who goes on strike for a longer period of time loses their income-based social insurance and tax deductions. The right to strike is constitutionally protected and it is not reasonable that administrative technicalities should limit it.
3. Social requirements for business support. The Swedish electric car market, like that of other countries, is partly built with public funds such as purchase premiums, reduced benefit values and support for charging infrastructure. None of it has been connected with demands for social conditions. It cannot be the task of the Swedish state to facilitate the establishment of companies that refuse to sign collective agreements. If the transition is to be fair, demands for social conditions, including collective agreements, must be written into the political instruments that finance it. Otherwise, we will gradually build an ecologically sustainable economy that becomes socially unsustainable.
The strikers at Tesla took a fight for us all and have earned their place as heroes in Swedish labor market history. Let us learn from their struggle so that no more have to struggle in vain.
