Tesla sues Swedish transport agency over license plate dispute
Tesla on Monday sued the Swedish Transport Agency over a strike by postal workers that has blocked the delivery of license plates for Tesla cars, the latest escalation of a widening battle between Swedish unions and the U.S. electric vehicle maker.
A month ago, technicians at seven Tesla repair shops in Sweden left their jobs. Since then, hundreds of workers from other sectors across the country have joined the action, aiming to get Tesla to sign a collective bargaining agreement with mechanics union IF Metall.
Dockers, electricians, painters and postal workers have all joined the strike and are refusing to provide the company with their services. Last week, about 50 metal workers at a factory that produces aluminum parts for Tesla’s factory in Germany walked off their jobs.
On November 20, postal workers joined the action and refused to deliver mail or packages to Tesla’s facilities, including the license plates.
That prompted Elon Musk, the automaker’s CEO, to call out the widespread issue seems “insane” in a post on X, formerly Twitter – his first public comment on the strikes. Although Sweden is a relatively small market for Tesla and no cars are made in the country, the company’s Model Y is a bestseller among Swedes.
On Monday, Tesla took legal action and filed complaints against the Transport Agency, which oversees the production of the license plates, and the postal company PostNord. It argued that Tesla employees should be able to pick up the license plates at the agency, bypassing postal workers.
The agency has “a constitutional obligation to provide license plates to vehicle owners,” Tesla said, according to a copy of the lawsuit obtained by The Associated Press.
The withholding of license plates “cannot be described in any other way than as a unique attack on a company operating in Sweden,” the automaker said in the lawsuit, according to The AP. It called on the district court to fine the agency 1 million kroner. , or $95,400, unless Tesla was allowed to “retrieve license plates” within three days of the court ruling.
The Transport Agency does not “share” Tesla’s view that it is not meeting its obligation to produce the license plates for newly registered vehicles in Sweden, said Mikael Andersson, a spokesman for the agency.
But because postal workers have joined the strike against Tesla, they are not being delivered, Andersson said. “That is why Tesla has decided to have the issue tested in court, which is their right,” he said.
Tesla did not respond to requests for comment.
Later Monday, a Swedish news outlet, Aftonbladet, quoted Tesla’s lawyer, Johannes Ericson, as saying that the Norrköping District Court had ruled in favor of Tesla on Monday afternoon and ordered the agency to deliver the license plates. directly to the manufacturer on an interim basis. Neither the court nor Mr. Ericson responded to requests to confirm the report.
Sweden has a long history of organized labor, and the right to strike is enshrined in the country’s constitution, which also allows a union in one sector to call on unions representing workers in other professions to take targeted action against a company. Over the past month, hundreds of employees across the country have joined IF Metall to pressure Tesla to come to the bargaining table.
Tesla has resisted efforts by its more than 127,000 employees around the world to organize.