Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, has criticised postal workers’ joining the strike at the car manufacturer’s Swedish site on Thursday.
Post-sector workers have begun halting deliveries to Tesla facilities and workshops on Monday, standing in solidarity with the ongoing strike by metalworkers’ union, IF Metall. The union is striking over Tesla’s refusal to establish a collective wage agreement.
The decision could potentially prevent new Tesla cars from hitting the roads, as the Swedish Transport Agency’s license plates, crucial for driving, are only delivered by the postal group, Postnord, according to the daily newspaper, Dagens Industri.
Musk responded to a user who posted about the issue on X, formerly known as Twitter, stating that the situation was "nonsensical".
Nine trade unions
The new plates are sent out by Postnord, confirmed Mikael Andersson, the Press Relations Officer of the Transport Agency, in an email to AFP. Andersson stated that the agency is bound by a contractual agreement made between Postnord and Swedish government agencies.
Besides IF Metall, nine other unions have voiced solidarity for Tesla workers, including the construction union which announced plans to stop maintaining Tesla sites from the 28th of November.
In Sweden, collective agreements are negotiated sector by sector and form the foundation of the Swedish labour market model. They cover nearly 90% of all Swedish employees, guaranteeing minimum wages and working conditions.
Although Tesla workers are unionised, they do not benefit from sector-specific collective agreements because the company has not signed the labour deal.
Tesla, the US electric car specialist, has consistently rejected calls for unionisation among its global workforce of 127,000 employees.
