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Teslastrejken: en försmak på arbetarklassens styrka - Revolution
The Tesla strike: a foretaste of the strength of the working class
Builders, painters, dockers, factory workers, electricians, postal workers: all are now acting together to win collective agreements for the workers at Tesla, in a battle that has become a decisive showdown. In Denmark, Norway and Finland, dock and truck workers have announced that they will join the fight.
For a man who otherwise does not hesitate to cross-certainly write the most hair-raising nonsense on his private kingdom X (formerly Twitter), Elon Musk has been remarkably silent about the Tesla strike. He escaped only a short sentence, when the full strength of the sympathy strikes in Sweden became known:
- This is crazy, he wrote.
A crazy world indeed, where ordinary workers challenge his power – and prove they can win!
No wonder he "doesn't agree with the idea of unions", as he expressed a few days later in one of his many rambling interviews. He doesn't like things that “create a lord and peasant thing,” to quote his crystal clear rationale
for the New York Times.
Obviously, he rather prefers the relationship of capitalist and wage slave, where the latter goes to the factory hat in hand and is expected to thank and check for the crumbs from the boss's table. This is precisely what his workers are now fighting against.
Mr. Musk's unusual reticence is hardly due to newfound modesty. The problem is that all surveys indicate solid support for the Tesla workers' right to a collective agreement. And the fight in Sweden may inspire more of his workers worldwide to organize against his exploitation. The more attention the strike gets, the more people are inspired.
Tesla's lousy conditions
In a letter to all Swedes who bought a Tesla, the company says that their employees are "rewarded" with "fair conditions and a good working environment". That is, of course, a lie.
The average salary for the car mechanics at Tesla in Sweden is below the average for the industry. Pension payments are also lower. The workers' productivity is evaluated according to a rating system from one to five, where those who get a one - i.e. not productive enough - risk being fired.
The final salary each month is set according to a piecework system, where it is measured how long it takes each worker to complete various tasks. Everything to push the work rate up to the maximum.
Tesla's allegedly favorable conditions for the workers consist only of a stock option program - but which can only be redeemed after a four-year period. How unreliable this is is not only visible in the ups and downs of the stock market. Tesla made it crystal clear themselves by
threatening to withdraw the built-in options for those on strike. This "benefit" is now used as yet another tool to force the workers to their knees.
Olof Sjöström is an electric car technician at Tesla, and shows the breadth of consequences of Tesla's anti-union policy
in DN.
- No one knows the working hours act or the work environment act. Managers have no idea which chemicals we work with and no risk assessments are made, he explains.
He explains that people do not dare to raise the problems.
- The basic security does not exist, people can quit from one day to the next. It is not impossible that they fire everyone who goes on strike to avoid signing a contract.
In one sentence he sums up what the struggle is about from the workers' point of view.
- Foreign companies should not be allowed to come here and do whatever the hell they want.
A decisive battle
Before calling a strike, IF Metall spent six years trying to negotiate with and convince Tesla of the "advantages of collective agreements", as contract secretary Veli-Pekka Säikkälä put it in DI. They flatly refused.
The reason is not so much their Swedish operations, as the risk of workers in countries with large Tesla industries taking up the fight. Sweden is a very small part of the almost 130,000 employees (including subcontractors) worldwide who produce profits for Mr. Musk. The giant factory in Texas alone
collects over 12,000 workers, and in Mexico they are building an even bigger one. In Europe, it has the largest presence in Germany, with 11,000 employees.
The nervousness is palpable. In Germany, the Metall union has reported rapid membership growth at the Tesla factories, and to prevent a Swedish development, Tesla
gave a four percent wage increase to its German workers in one fell swoop .
In the US, Tesla workers have been trying for years to unionize their workplaces.
Most recently in February workers at Tesla in Buffalo tried to organize . Tesla responded by firing around thirty people. Now the United Auto Workers has a successful strike against America's three largest car manufacturers behind it, and is preparing for battle against Tesla.
- We just went on strike like we've never gone on strike before and now we're going to organize like we've never organized before, chairman Shawn Fain urged in November.
If workers in Germany and the United States fight for better conditions, it will hurt billionaire Musk's profits. He cannot allow that. Therefore, the Swedish workers must be crushed.
Swedish workers cannot afford to lose either. Musk opposes the collective agreements precisely because they guarantee wages, employment conditions, insurance, working environment, etc., precisely because they protect against raw exploitation of the workers.
If you lose out on Tesla, other companies will follow.
- If we were to say that a large company like Tesla does not need a collective agreement, then it will be very difficult to motivate others to have a collective agreement, explains IF Metall's Veli-Pekka Säikkälä in Dagens Arbete.
Attacks on a new level
Tesla's systematic use of strike breakers in particular is a declaration of war against the entire labor movement. You have to go back 90 years to see the middle class using it on such a scale in Sweden.
The decisive battle then took place in Ådalen. In May 1931, the military was called in to "protect" strikebreakers in Ådalen. At a demonstration, they shot dead five unarmed workers. Hundreds of thousands responded by going out in mass demonstrations across the country. A full-scale general strike broke out in the whole of Ådalen, where the workers, through LO, in practice took control of society.
It was the mass struggle of the 1930s that forced the bourgeoisie to change strategy. The large profits during the post-war economic boom then made it more practical for capital to buy labor peace, rather than risk major conflicts.
But it has been more than 40 years since capitalism was able to offer any real improvements for workers in Sweden. And with the current crisis, on the contrary, the bourgeoisie is on the offensive.
During the Löfvén government, LAS was weakened and the right to strike was curtailed. During almost two years of inflation crisis, the middle class has campaigned - together with the trade unions - for workers to pay through reduced real wages. The result is that real wages have fallen by almost 10 percent. The Kristersson government has triggered yet another wave of cuts in welfare, and - for the first time since the shots in Ådalen - opened up to calling out the military on the streets against civilians.
Not on a single issue has the bourgeoisie met any serious opposition from the labor movement – quite the opposite. This has allowed them to be all the more ruthless.
In relation to the current conflict, the citizens' interest organization Svenskt Näringsliv has largely been passive. For them, the "advantages of collective agreements" that IF Metall's Säikkälä talks about have been tangible. Every two years you have almost ritualistic conflicts with the union leadership, and then sign an agreement that binds the workers to a duty of peace - thus making, for example, strikes illegal - but does not mean a single significant improvement. During the last decades of offensive on the part of capital, from their point of view, this has been an excellent order. Therefore, they are not very fond of Musk's refusal to sign a collective agreement. Rather, the Swedish capitalists express irritation that Tesla is stirring the pot and provoking strikes, unnecessarily - from their point of view.
They are clearly troubled by the effectiveness of the sympathy strikes. The former eel-fishing state secretary PM Nilsson, later CEO of Timbro,
wrote in DI about how "Tesla is fighting for the freedom of all companies". His attitude is symptomatic of the attitude of the Swedish middle class: he defends IF Metall's right to (an ineffective) strike, but is infuriated by the sympathy measures.
Because despite the fact that the strike at Tesla itself can at best be described as partial – for example, they have opened a new service center in Jönköping where not a single worker is on strike – workers have effectively paralyzed the business.
- Port workers refuse to unload Tesla cars in all Swedish ports.
- The electricians refuse to perform service and repair at Tesla's workshops and charging stations.
- The janitors refuse to clean several of their workshops.
- The postal workers refuse to deliver to their workshops - which means, among other things, that they cannot get registration plates for the cars.
- The Musicians' Association has stopped certain music from being played in Tesla cars.
- Painters refuse to paint Tesla cars at over 100 companies.
- The construction workers refuse to perform service work, repairs and new and rebuilds on the Tesla.
It is Tesla's attempt to get around this that has forced the strike to become international. From December 20, the Danish, Norwegian and Finnish unions block all imports of Tesla cars to Sweden, both via port and truck.
In miniature we see here a brilliant example of the strength of the international working class. If the workers collectively decide to block Tesla, not even the richest man in the world can bully them. This is an inspiration to workers everywhere. No wonder that the Swedish capitalists have started grumbling about also restricting the right to strike in sympathy.
Put hard against hard - for a combative labor movement!
Seven in ten think the Tesla strike is right - only one in ten opposes it. 83 percent think it is important that Swedish collective agreements should apply in Sweden.
This reflects quite well the objective power relations between the classes in Sweden. The working class – that is, those of us who sell our labor for wages – make up the overwhelming majority of society. In addition, they have a level of organization that is almost unparalleled internationally. Although it has fallen in recent years, it is still around 60 percent for LO, and over 70 percent for TCO.
And the unions' strike funds are almost overflowing. IF Metall alone is sitting on
ten billion kroner. If necessary, the strike at Tesla could be maintained "for about 500 years", according to the press officer. Objectively speaking, the working class has never in history been as strong as it is now.
Nevertheless, the unions have not taken a single serious, meaningful fight in twenty years. During capital's offensive, they have only backed down and backed down, while the workers' conditions have worsened all along the line. When during the last year
argued **against** salary increases for workers – in a situation of massive corporate profits – there must be some kind of record of shooting themselves in the foot.
They did everything to avoid having to fight Tesla. But if you were to back down on the issue of collective agreements, you would be giving up your own right to exist. Time and again, the IF Metall leadership emphasizes that this is all the battle is about, from their point of view.
- We just want to get a collective agreement in Sweden. We're good at Musk, emphasized Säikkälä, secretary of agreements in SvD.
He also admitted something that is painfully obvious to anyone who has followed the strike.
- We are not used to going on strike.
The metal newspaper Dagens arbete aptly described the first day of the strike as
“any gray autumn day”, “raw and cold”.
This was the decisive first day. From the rest of the country, the reports sound even paler. No wonder they failed so miserably to stop the strike-breaking.
The employees at the Tesla workplaces are organized by the Union. They have refused to take them out on strike, as they believe they need to negotiate longer with Tesla first and build a "stronger position". It is hard to imagine a greater idiocy. If IF Metall wins a collective agreement, it will be easy for the Union to do the same. If IF Metall loses, it will be difficult for the Union to win alone. Morale and self-confidence is a crucial issue in strikes. If the officials go on strike, it will strengthen the resolve of the workshop workers enormously. United we stand, divided we fall.
IF Metall has tried to get more out by raising the strike compensation to 130 percent of the salary, and promising legal measures to support those who lose their jobs because they strike. But even if one were to eventually win in the labor court, that misses the point. The workers want a job to go to when the strike is over. To get everyone out, you need to show the workers that you will win. This is particularly true because until now they have only submitted to the demands of the capitalists.
The passive support that currently exists from the strike must be made active. That all union leaders have expressed their support is good, but you have to start mobilizing in the workplaces. The issue of the right to collective agreements affects everyone.
Just by mobilizing the protection agents and the trade unions, thousands would come out in support demonstrations across the country - and if they seriously start discussing the issue in the workplaces, we are rather talking about tens of thousands.
Such a move would do a hundred times more to convince the workers who are not yet on strike at Tesla to do so than even the sugariest offers from IF Metall management. If you can make the partial strike complete, it doesn't matter how much Elon Musk tries to circumvent the sympathy measures.
But to seriously mobilize people, you would have to show that you are prepared to fight for more than just the same old collective agreement, with working conditions that are already unsustainable. The battle must be made the first step in a counter-offensive against capital: against the ever-increasing pressure in the workplace and to immediately recover the real wage fall of recent years.
Instead of "*sugar* in Musk" like Säikkälä, someone like Transport's Tommy Wreeth should talk about how it can lead to
"a fight against Tesla in the whole world". The potential is clearly there. That is why Elon Musk is so determined to defeat the Swedes.
All this would break with decades of class work politics on the part of the Swedish unions, but it is exactly what is needed. Class cooperation during the crisis of capitalism only means that workers give way to the demands of capitalists. It must be over.
- Mobilize widely against Tesla's strike-breaking! Keep expanding the sympathy strikes!
- For a combative labor movement!
- Long live the strength of the working class - long live international solidarity! Together we can win!
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