Swedish Workers At War With Elon Musk - Tesla Strike One Year On

“KONFLIKT!” (strike!), the workers’ banner says in bold letters, followed by the subtitle: “I Sverige kör vi med kollektivavtal” (“In Sweden, we operate under collective bargaining agreements”).

The battle between bilionaire boss Elon Musk and Swedish workers has gone on for a year now but workers are determined to see this battle through. Janis Kuzma was the first worker to strike last October. He explains conditions in the factory he works in:

“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." Workers faced huge stress from a demanding management: “Many of them were often off sick because they were physically and mentally exhausted.”

A worker from the “IF Metall” union, in the Umeå workshop, was illegally sacked for taking part in the strike. No valid reason was given by the company to justify the dismissal. Stand up for your right to unionise and Musk’s management crew will sack you!

The workers have been demanding that Musk respect a collective bargaining agreement. These agreements are not compulsory under Swedish law but 90% of workers are covered by one.

Socialists have problems with collective agreements that contain, for example, no strike clauses as they tie workers into subordination to negotiations at the top of the unions rather than seeing the exercise of rank and file worker power as the key to victory.

But Musk has refused to recognise the workers’ right to organise at all. Workers have every right to join a union and fight for better wages and conditions - particularly considering the terrible conditions reported by workers in Musk’s factories.

Tesla have even said that workers’ rights are not part of “the company’s concept.”

Workers must see any struggle for unionisation as part of a wider struggle to change the balance of power within the unions - taking power away from overpaid bureaucrats and putting it into the hands of the rank and file worker.

The Tesla strike is inspiring other Swedish workers to join them in solidarity - the postal workers have refused to handle mail belonging to Tesla while dock workers are refusing to unload cars chartered on ships entering Sweden.

Power workers have said if the strike drags on they will stop power to Musk’s plants. Danish, Norwegian and Finnish workers have joined in solidarity actions by blockading Tesla goods.

When workers fight together no boss can stand in our way - but we are often hampered by union leaders who are afraid that unleashing the full power of the working class will unseat them.

Billionaire Musk has resorted to bringing in scab labour to break the strike -he doesn’t care if this has led to reported drops in the quality of the cars being produced, his main aim is to break the working class pickets.

The strike has even caused the board of Tesla to try pressure Musk into accepting some of the workers’ demand but greedy capitalist shareholders rejected these proposals. Tesla sold 16,478 cars in Sweden in the first nine months of this year

Musk tries to use the culture war to offer himself as an critic of the system, but in fact both Amazon’s fake liberal boss Jeff Bezos and hero of the far right Elon Musk and the whole billionaire boss class are the exploiters and enemies of all workers.

The Swedish strike pulls the mask off and shows the class interests at play.

Striking worker Janis Kuzma isn’t going to back down, no matter how much pressure the billionaire boss of Tesla piles on. Kuzma offered the following inspiring words: “I’ll stay on strike for months or even years to get this collective agreement. I’m doing it less for myself than for the next generation, to ensure that they have good working conditions”.