A wave of misinformation across English-language outlets claims that the strike at Tesla’s service and repair workshops in Sweden is over. In reality, the strike is still going, and remains as strong as ever.
Industrial action began in late October 2023, after the company refused to sign a collective agreement with the union representing workers, IF Metall. Tesla’s behaviour is driven by Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s refusal to acknowledge unions or engage in collective bargaining on principle.
Misinformation
Tesla fan site TeslaRati published an article on August 15, with the misleading headline, “Tesla Sweden finally makes IF Metall union give up 600-day strike”. This story was based on comments made by IF Metall union leader Marie Nielssen in a two-minute radio interview on June 27 with Swedish broadcaster Sveriges Radio.
Nielssen did not say in the interview that the strike was ending. Instead, she explained the union’s determination to secure sector-wide agreement standards: “There are different ways to do this, and the very simplest way is to sign a collective agreement. But right now that isn’t possible — or at least it hasn’t been possible so far — and so we have to find alternative solutions as well.
“So we are opening up for discussions, but in the end it’s about how you can guarantee security. That’s what it all comes down to in the end.”
The presenter mentioned in passing the prospect of Tesla accepting a sector-wide agreement by replicating its terms in individual work contracts through an arrangement between the union and management. Nielssen simply responded that this “could be one model, but there are different ways to resolve this”.
Further, she said: “The discussions are ongoing and they come and go in waves. This has now been going on for over 600 days.”
When Nielson was directly asked whether the union and management were any closer to an agreement, she said it was unclear.
Mediation collapses
National Mediation Institute’s Director General, Irene Wennemo concluded the mediation sessions between Tesla and IF Metall on September 3 and reported on the progress (or lack thereof) achieved since they began in October, 2023.
She told Sveriges Radio: “We have tried every possible way to get the parties closer to each other so that this conflict could end, but now we have reached a dead end and its best to close the case.
Wennemo said mediating the Tesla dispute was unlike any other she has been involved in due to the parties’ clash of ideologies. She said the Swedish branch of Tesla appears to have “very limited room for independent decisions”, confirming that the company’s refusal to sign a collective agreement is directed from the United States.
Such conclusions were also echoed by the union in a media statement that said the local management “currently does not have the mandate to sign collective bargaining agreements or to make any agreements involving unions, but the conflict continues.”
Despite Tesla Sweden making some concessions during mediation, including improvements to pay and conditions, these measures were limited, and the company continues to fall short of the basic standards set out in collective agreements elsewhere in the sector.
Key deficiencies include annual pay increases aligned with market rates, reduced working hours comparable to those at other car repair shops, and pension solutions on par with industry standards.
Tesla workers have also expressed frustration with the company’s unilateral management approach and its lack of genuine consultation.
Malmö-based mechanic Janis Kuzma told the media the company relies on a culture of overwork, which fosters burnout and suppresses employee dissent: “When we were at full capacity in the summer of 2023, there were 15 of us in the small workshop, we were stepping on each other’s toes … it circumvents rules and regulations on a daily basis … If you don’t agree with everything, if you have different views, you risk getting sacked.”
Kuzma said burnout has become a serious issue and many of his co-workers “were often off sick because they were physically and mentally exhausted”.
Further north, in Gothenburg, mechanic Tobias Eng Strömberg recounted that he initially enjoyed working for Tesla when he began at the company in 2017, particularly because he worked primarily on the premium Model S and Model X vehicles. However, conditions deteriorated in the early 2020s.
Strömberg said the company increasingly prioritised volume and rapid turnaround at the expense of working conditions: “Now the focus was on deliveries and volumes, a kind of mass production that affected the working environment.
“It became very different and we had nothing to say about it. I tried to make my voice heard so that we would get a little better, but nothing happened.”
Background
As previously reported, the strike at Tesla rapidly escalated into a national dispute, with solidarity actions spreading to other sectors.
For example, electricians refused to work on Tesla charging stations, postal workers placed bans on the delivery of Tesla number plates, and dockworkers declined to handle Tesla equipment.
The strike has also taken on an international dimension, with dockworkers in Finland, Denmark and Norway joining in solidarity actions.
In response, Tesla has resorted to the unprecedented measure of bringing in strike-breakers from across Sweden’s border.
The dispute has coincided with a decline in Tesla’s Swedish sales. In July, the company sold only 163 vehicles, representing a fall of 85.8% compared with the previous year, and 83.3% lower than in June.
This was Tesla’s weakest monthly result since October 2022. Over the first seven months of 2025, sales totalled 3774 vehicles, a reduction of 63.4%, compared with the 10,338 sold in the same period last year.
Importance
This dispute is critical because collective agreements are the foundation of the Nordic Model of labour regulation, where the state plays a limited role in industrial relations. Instead, the regulation of employment is largely managed by unions and employer organisations — known as “social partners”.
Sweden has no statutory minimum wage; wages and conditions are set through these voluntary negotiations.
Unlike Australia, which relies on enterprise-level bargaining, Sweden operates a multi-tiered bargaining system. Unions and employer associations negotiate sectoral agreements that establish industry-wide standards. These standards provide a baseline for all workers in the sector and are automatically extended to employees of member organisations.
With more than 88% of Swedish employers belonging to employer associations, these agreements cover the vast majority of workplaces.
For the small minority of employers outside these associations, unions can apply industrial pressure to ensure compliance with sectoral standards. As a result, more than 90% of Swedish workers are covered by collective agreements, compared with only 14% in Australia.
The Nordic model also permits supplementary local agreements at the enterprise level, provided they do not undercut industry standards. This articulated, two-tier system provides both stability and flexibility.
In contrast, Australia’s decentralised system allows enterprise agreements to displace awards, sometimes leading to inferior wages and conditions.
In the 1980s and ‘90s, many Australian employers used union-busting strategies to evade the industry-wide award system (not to be confused with the modern award system that exists today). Some enticed workers with exceptionally high wages (sometimes up to $1000 per week, a considerable sum at the time) in order to avoid signing collective agreements.
As more employers began to withdraw from the established system, this gradual erosion of collective bargaining paved the way for a decisive shift in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Under the John Howard government (1996–2007), the introduction of Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs) provided employers with a formal mechanism to bypass collective arrangements altogether. Some of the nation’s largest corporations, including Telstra, BHP and Rio Tinto, led this transformation, routinely offering employees individual contracts on a strict take-it-or-leave-it basis.
By the late 1990s and early 2000s, collective bargaining in Australia had largely collapsed. Union representation plummeted, and employers gained unprecedented unilateral power.
Corporations increasingly outsourced work to avoid collective agreements entirely, which drove down wages and conditions. After decades of union-busting, less than 10% of private sector workers are now covered by union agreements. Exploitation has become widespread, and wages have consistently lagged behind productivity growth.
By contrast, the Nordic approach has created stable wage floors, reduced competition based on labour costs, and prevented the “race to the bottom” seen in many Anglo-American countries. It has also maintained high trade union density, with more than 70% of Swedish workers belonging to unions.
If Tesla is permitted to stand outside this framework, it would create a dangerous precedent. Other multinational corporations could follow suit, undermining the coordinated system that has underpinned Sweden’s stability, fairness, and competitiveness for decades.
[Clive Tillman is a lawyer, a member of the National Tertiary Education Union and a PhD candidate in employment law at RMIT University in Melbourne. The views expressed in this article are his own and not of his employer, union or education provider.]