Elon Musk is reportedly taking a zealot stance against union amid a strike in Sweden expanding and potentially now crippling operations for Tesla in the country.
Earlier this month, Tesla service workers in Sweden started striking in order to get included in a collective agreement.
The automaker has always had a hard stance against unions and it had been able to fend off unionization efforts at its manufacturing facilities.
This new effort seemed to be manageable for Tesla since it would just involve about 100 service workers in Sweden, but it has now grown into the most serious effort that Tesla had to deal with to date.
That’s because several other unions in the country have joined forces to mess with Tesla’s operations in order to put pressure on the company.
Port workers, electricians, and cleaning services that deal with Tesla in the country have refused to work with the company since the service workers announced the strike.
Elon Musk, who has been vocal about his disdain of unionization efforts at Tesla, has reportedly taken a hard stance against the strike in Sweden.
Tesla Sweden reportedly communicated to IF Metall, the union supporting the Tesla workers, that it was told directly by Musk not to sign any collective bargaining agreement.
The move has reportedly resulted in a complete standstill in the negotiation.
But now there’s another effort that might force Tesla to go back to the negotiation table.
PostNord workers, who deliver license plates for the Swedish Transport Agency, are now refusing to deliver license plates for Tesla.
Considering this is the only way the agency released license plates in Sweden, this could cripple Tesla’s deliveries in the country.
Musk commented on the situation – calling it insane:
While Musk finds the situation “insane”, it’s not clear if it will force him to relax his hard stance on unions or just reinforce it.
We will keep a close eye on this story.