Spotify also had a breakdown with unions and its workforce. With no where near the fall out that Tesla is getting. Surely that is a bigger deal than Tesla service centres!?
Anti Elon, anti American sentiment?
Anti Elon, anti American sentiment?
I don't think so. It's a cultural thing: Sweden, and the Nordic countries more generally, have a strong cultural heritage of unions representing the interests of workers. There are elements of protection not included in law - for example minimum wage - that are instead covered by union protection.
Tesla has taken a position that it will not sign up to collective bargaining globally - and so won't engage with the unions on it. That creates a fissure: a difference in policy.
So it's not anti-American. It's a refusal to accept the terms on which a corporation wants to engage. A similar situation happened with Klarna and Spotify as others have pointed out.
It might verge on anti-Musk, but only because this kind of thing is in "red rag to a bull" territory for him. He is utterly recalcitrant generally: backing down isn't in his nature. It would seem that has only stiffened the resolve of the Nordic workers and unions.
But even then it's equally valid to see Musk as "Anti-Sweden": unwilling to respect cultural norms in a country he wants his company to operate in.
What makes Tesla different from Klarna and Spotify is that Tesla has a global policy to never sign. So Tesla’s Swedish company is prohibited by Tesla to do any kind of negotiation, and that escalates things drastically.
The "heritage" between the three is also different. Klarna and Spotify are/was Swedish, they know what going up against a union means, and it often involves going against multiple unions as they all help each other.
Tesla clearly have no idea what they were going against, as what is happening now is such an obvious fallout from not understanding the country they're operating in.
Klarna tried to basically 1:1 copy the anti-union campaign of Spotify, but it failed that time on account of the unions having learned to cope with that type of propaganda. Klarna is now under a union contract.
Tesla has refused to negotiate. Even then, it still took five years before the conflict escalated.
At some point negotiations with Spotify will have to be restarted. It's likely not an option for Spotify to exit the country completely, which is perfectly possible for Tesla.
Spotify is Swedish and there is currently no ongoing strike. If you look for articles in Swedish, you'll see plenty.