Danish transport union 3F Transport has joined the dispute between Swedish union IF Metall and Elon Musk’s Tesla over the latter’s refusal to sign a collective agreement.
After six weeks of intense struggle and strike for a collective agreement at Tesla’s workshops in Sweden, the union IF Metall received support from the 3F Transport Danish union, which decided to enter a sympathy conflict with their Swedish counterparts.
As a result, harbour workers and drivers will not receive and transport Tesla’s cars to Sweden.
“With the sympathy strike, we are now putting further pressure on Tesla. Naturally, we hope that they will come to the negotiating table as soon as possible and sign a collective agreement,” said Jan Villadsen, chairman of 3F Transport, in a press release.
Several Swedish trade unions have recently challenged Tesla, demanding that the company enter into collective agreements for its workshops.
But Tesla CEO Elon Musk firmly opposes this. “I disagree with the idea of unions. I think the unions naturally try to create negativity in the company and create a sort of “lords and peasants situation”, he said in an interview with The New York Times.
On his own social media platform X, Musk wrote that the situation “is insane” and decided last week to sue the Swedish Transport Administration and Postnord as the strike prevents his company from obtaining car licence plates.
Musk has not yet responded to the Danish sympathy strike.
“Even if you’re one of the richest people in the world, you can’t just make your own rules. We have some labour market agreements in the Nordic region, and you have to comply with them if you want to run a business here,” Villadsen wrote in the press release.
“Solidarity is the cornerstone of the labour movement and extends across national borders. That is why we are now taking the tools we have and using them to ensure collective agreements and fair working conditions,” he concluded.
(Charles Szumski | Euractiv.com)
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