Elon Musk has decried a wave of “insane” strikes focused on Tesla workshops in Sweden, as workers target the US electric car manufacturer in a strike calling for collective bargaining rights.
In what has been portrayed as the largest fight in decades to save Sweden’s union model from global labour practices, the powerful trade union IF Metall has been leading a strike across eight Tesla workplaces in Sweden for five weeks.
It is the first time workers for the US carmaker have gone on strike and on Thursday, Musk, the tech billionaire and chief executive of Tesla, made his feelings clear, writing on X, formerly Twitter: “This is insane.”
There’s definitely benefit to working within the law when you’re able - it allows for things like hyper-effective multi-sector strikes that wouldn’t otherwise happen (see Sweden). That said, under different circumstances, illegal strikes are necessary to get the job done.
Biden breaking the rail strike was terrible, but a product of the circumstances at that point - since then, he’s made some surprisingly big pro-union moves that will almost certainly increase union membership and bear fruit down the road.