On Friday, September 13, Nordic Left MEPs Li Andersson, Per Clausen and Jonas Sjöstedt will visit Tesla’s workshop in Umeå, Sweden, to show their support for and have a dialogue with the striking workers.
Tesla is using the EU’s Posting of Workers Directive to fly in strike-breakers from outside, to its workshops in Sweden to block the legal dispute over collective agreements. In order to stop Tesla from misusing EU laws to attack the fundamental right to strike, MEPs Li Andersson (Finland), Per Clausen (Denmark) and Jonas Sjöstedt (Sweden) of the European Parliament’s Left group are calling on the European Commission to close the loopholes in the directive to safeguard workers’ right to strike.
– We cannot have EU rules abused to undermine workers’ rights. We are going to Umeå to have a dialogue and show solidarity with the strikers and to remind the incoming Commission of the urgency to address this issue, says Li Andersson, who is also the chair of the European Parliament’s Employment Committee.
– This is also a story about an American billionaire coming to Europe and not wanting to respect the rules and protections of workers, this time even trying to misuse EU rules to suppress hard-won workers’ rights, says Per Clausen. He is a member of the European Parliament’s Employment Committee, and a former auto-worker in Sweden.
– This strike is not just about Tesla workers in Sweden, it affects all European workers all over the European Union. We cannot let any company use EU rules to roll back rights that the workers’ movement has fought for so many years. There can be no green transition if we at the same time attack workers’ rights, says Jonas Sjöstedt, who used to work at the Volvo car factory in Umeå.
The MEPs have on several occasions proposed measures to stop the directive from being used to block legal workplace conflicts, among those an open letter to Commissioner Nicolas Schmit, a written question to the European Commission and an oral question to President Ursula von der Leyen.
Place: Tesla workshop, Fatvägen 1, Umeå.
Time: 10:30.
Trailer for the visit
A trailer for the visit was released on social media on 11. September, you can find it hereunder:
More about the visit
You can read more about the Nordic Left MEPs visit to the striking Tesla-workers here:
- Politico Europe, 13. september: Brussels Playbook
- AgenceEurope, 12. september: Posting of workers, three MEPs from The Left in European Parliament travel to Sweden to protest against Tesla’s practices
- AgenceEurope, 12. september: Détachement de travailleurs, trois eurodéputés du groupe La Gauche au PE se rendent en Suède pour manifester contre les pratiques de Tesla
- Vänsterpartiet, 10. september: Jonas Sjöstedt (V) besöker strejkarna vid Teslas verkstad i Umeå.
- Centuro Global 5. september: Could Tesla Force the EU to Change its Rules on Posted Workers?
