“Want my colleagues to feel better” – Work

They have been two of the much talked about strike breakers during the strike at Tesla. For six months, they have worked despite IF Metall’s conflict to get a collective agreement with the electric car giant.

But now Niklas and Josef, who are both actually called something else, are on strike together with the four colleagues at the Malmö workshop who stopped working already in October.

Niklas says that the decision to continue working last fall was not because he was against the strike.

– There was uncertainty, concern about losing the job. I needed my income, he says.

“It’s been very difficult”

Colleague Josef was not in the union at the time and did not think it would be necessary for him to participate. He thought it would be resolved soon, that the company would sign an agreement.

Instead, months have passed without the boys’ experienced colleagues who went on strike already on October 27th having returned.

– I felt quite alone in the workshop. It was very difficult, says Josef.

The company has brought in new staff, but he notes that it takes time for new techniques to be learned and that the situation has therefore increased stress and reduced productivity.

– I like my colleagues. I want them to feel better and not be stressed all the time, he says about the decision to go on strike.

“Very immoral”

Decisive for him was also the email that owner Elon Musk recently sent to employees worldwide, with information about major cutbacks. Some employees are also said to have been informed at the same time that they will immediately lose their jobs.

– Then I learned that we mean nothing to the company. Workers were fired in a very immoral way, says Josef about employees in the US in particular having received very sudden notices that they have to quit.

He and Niklas talk, like the colleagues who have been on strike before, about a stressful work environment where safety is not a priority.

Niklas also says that the wage setting does not feel fair and believes that things would be different with a collective agreement.

Garbage piled up in the workshop

Tesla has hired new staff and worked to round out the conflict measures, both in Malmö and the rest of the country.

– It flows to a certain extent, but everyone is still affected, says Niklas about how it works in practice.

The premises have been cleaned despite the strike. The rubbish, on the other hand, has been collected in piles that took up a lot of space in the workshop, but then also collected in some way at regular intervals.

Joy of former strikers

Also sitting in the room is Jãnis Kuzma, who has been on strike since last fall and whom Arbetet has written about before – and his colleague whom we called Jonas in previous texts.

– I was very happy, says Jonas about the news that more of his colleagues from Tesla are now joining the strike.

– It means a lot, because it wasn’t easy for us either to make the decision to go on strike, says Jãnis Kuzma.

The work has sought Tesla, which declined to comment.