Op-Ed: The Tesla strike never achieved its goal. Yet it was necessary and yielded some positive results, writes German Bender.

After nearly three years, the Tesla strike is over. The day after the announcement, I wrote in DN Debatt about three lessons from the strike: weak international regulation, shortcomings in tax rules and social security systems, and the need for conditions attached to government subsidies.

Here, I want to discuss something else—namely, whether the strike was a failure and a mistake. These are two different questions, and I will answer them in reverse order.

A Significantly Greater Risk

As is well known, the strike ended without a collective bargaining agreement and has therefore been described as a failure by both IF Metall and a number of critics. On a fundamental level, they are right: the goal of the strike was to reach a collective bargaining agreement with Tesla, and that goal was not achieved.

But a failure is not necessarily a mistake.

Suppose IF Metall had chosen not to go on strike and instead allowed Tesla to carry on without a fight. In that case, the risk that other companies would try the same thing would have been significantly greater. Anyone who might be considering refusing to sign a collective bargaining agreement now knows what it can cost: years of conflict against a united labor movement.

The cost to Tesla was tens of millions in overhead expenses and a ruined reputation. The question is whether any other companies are prepared to pay that price to avoid something as effective and widely appreciated as collective bargaining agreements.

To me, the answer is crystal clear: the strike was absolutely not a mistake.

Does that mean the timing was well chosen?

An investigation is needed to find the answer

Opinions differ on that point, as I showed in my book *Head-On Collision: The Tesla Strike and the Struggle for the Future* (Bokförlaget Atlas 2025). Veli-Pekka Säikkälä, contract secretary for IF Metall when the strike began, believes they should have organized and perhaps issued a strike notice earlier, before Tesla had a chance to grow so large in Sweden. He is echoed by his counterpart Martin Wästfelt at Unionen and Urban Pettersson, president of Elektrikerna.

But when I interviewed Transport’s chair, Tommy Wreeth, he tended to take the opposite view: that the conflict might have been better postponed until the union had more members—and members more willing to engage in industrial action—in place.

Whether the timing was well-chosen and how well the strike was subsequently managed from an operational standpoint are some of the many questions that IF Metall’s own investigation needs to address.

That said, the claim that the strike was a failure is not as clear-cut as it appears.

The strike actually had a number of positive effects, even though it failed to achieve its overall goal.

Not Without a Union Struggle

Early in the strike, Tesla announced that it had improved conditions for employees “in accordance with provisions that might be included in a collective bargaining agreement”; among other things, it had introduced a part-time retirement option and an occupational pension starting at age 22, and had granted all employees an annual pay raise and a wellness allowance.

A company that refuses to sign a collective bargaining agreement thus describes its own improvements by comparing them to the collective bargaining agreement. This would not have happened without the union struggle.

Another positive effect is that the strike has served as an educational experience. Many people now know more about how the Swedish model works and what rights and obligations they themselves have than they did before the strike. More people than ever before have heard of and understand terms such as collective bargaining agreement, strike notice, blockade, solidarity action, picket line, and strike-breaker.

This is knowledge that no PR campaign could have bought.

The mechanics who went on strike for nearly three years did so for more than just themselves—they fought for all of us. In the process, they and their colleagues secured better working conditions; they forced a national debate that the entire country followed; and they made it more costly for any future employer considering the same course of action.

We shouldn’t beat around the bush: the strike was a failure in terms of its overall goal. But that doesn’t mean it was a complete failure.

And it certainly doesn’t mean the strike was a mistake.

On the contrary, it was necessary.

German Bender is the head of research at Arena Idé and a labor market researcher affiliated with the Stockholm School of Economics and Harvard.

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