Abstract
This report examines Tesla’s labour relations practices in Sweden, Germany and the United States, analysing how the company has systematically resisted trade union recognition and collective bargaining in three distinct national industrial relations contexts. Drawing on original research, the authors document the firm’s union-busting strategies and tactics — including a refusal to sign collective bargaining agreements, flooding works councils with anti union candidates, deploying strikebreakers and exploiting legal loopholes — as well as the responses of unions in the three countries.
The report situates Tesla’s behaviour within the context of broader workforce fragmentation and management practices: a young, relatively low-skilled and disproportionately migrant workforce; opaque pay structures and processes; hazardous working conditions; and unilateral managerialism. These grievances have driven organising efforts while also complicating union strategies. Elon Musk's opposition to collective representation is shown to be not merely rhetorical but embedded in management philosophy and operational practice.
The authors argue that Tesla represents a strategic threat beyond the auto sector: as a first mover in the battery electric vehicle market, the company may also be a first mover in normalising employer practices that undermine established European norms applying to industrial relations institutions. The report concludes with recommendations for trade unions in Europe on how to coordinate responses to transnational union-busting.