Tesla’s Sweden manager: “No internal pressure for collective bargaining agreements”

Tesla’s head of Sweden, Jens Stark, is now breaking the silence in the conflict with the union. He says there is no “internal pressure” to introduce collective agreements.

IF Metall’s strike against Tesla has been going on for almost five months, with 120 people on strike, while a number of other unions in Sweden and other Nordic countries have introduced so-called sympathy measures to support the strike. These measures have included not unloading Tesla cars at Swedish ports, not sending out license plates with Postnord, and not picking up garbage at Tesla facilities.

Union representatives have appeared in various media, but Tesla’s Swedish subsidiary, TM Sweden, has remained silent. Now, however, they have decided to break the silence about the strike. The company’s Swedish manager Jens Stark believes that many of the employees do not want the collective agreement that IF Metall is striking for.

– There is no pressure at all internally to introduce a collective agreement, and since it is voluntary and our employees have excellent benefits and pay that they are happy with, we have used our legal right not to sign, he told financial tabloid Dagens Industri.

Despite the concessions, the company has managed to keep operations running as usual, according to Stark. Among other things, transportation is done by truck instead of by sea, license plates are sent directly to customers’ homes, and even waste management has been resolved. The latest negotiations took place on November 6, and Stark says they are open to dialogue, but stand by their previous decisions.