Elon Musk’s electric car company has suffered a reversal of fortune in its ongoing battle with Sweden’s labor unions. Turns out, Teslas won’t be getting license plates in the Nordic country—at least, not for the foreseeable future.
Tesla has been in deep shit with the unions of Scandinavia ever since it failed to ratify a collective bargaining agreement with a group of Swedish mechanics in October. Those mechanics, who are part of a prominent Swedish Union, IF Metall, proceeded to go on strike, which spurred other regional labor unions to support their effort. Recently, workers with Sweden’s post office, PostNord, stopped delivering license plates to Tesla as an act of solidarity with the striking workers.
Predictably, Tesla’s response to this action was to sue the government of Sweden. This spurred a Swedish court last week to rule that the Swedish Transport Agency, the parent agency of Sweden’s post office, was obligated to deliver license plates to the EV company. However, The Guardian now reports that those license plates won’t have to be delivered after all—at least not for now. A Swedish court decided that PostNord workers should not be forced to deliver license plates if they don’t want to. This latest judgement is an “interim decision” that will be in effect until a “final ruling,” The Guardian reports.
PostNord’s cessation of Tesla license plate deliveries has made things difficult for the electric vehicle company, and other Swedish workers—including electricians, dock workers, cleaners, and drivers—have all abandoned (or are threatening to abandon) the company as well if it fails to bargain with the mechanics. Tesla’s organized labor problem appears to be spreading, too. Workers in Denmark and Norway have also instigated actions against the car company as a show of solidarity. This makes it all the more ironic that, in a recent interview, Elon admitted: “I disagree with the idea of unions.” Apparently, the feeling is mutual.