Elon Musk v labour unions: Sweden edition

Elon Musk,IG IF, boss of Tesla has gone to great lengths to keep unions away from his electric-car maker’s 127,000 workers at its “gigafactories” in America, China and Europe. Even in Germany, land of harmonious relations between workers and bosses, the powerful metalworkers’ union, Metall, has no say at the company’s local plant in Grünheide, near Berlin. Mr Musk’s latest challenge—a strike by some 130 mechanics at ten Tesla service workshops in Sweden—looks like a trifle. But it may yet prove consequential.The Swedish strikers are members of Metall, which represents the country’s metalworkers. They downed tools on October 27th, demanding collective-bargaining rights. Mr Musk ignored them at first. That dismissive stance became harder to maintain as other workers joined them in sympathy strikes. Postal workers refused to deliver licence plates for Tesla cars, dockers to unload Teslas from ships and cleaners to scrub the firm’s showrooms.