Tesla sues Swedish agency as striking workers halt delivery of license plates of its new vehicles

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Tesla has filed a lawsuit against the Swedish Transport Agency as striking workers in the Scandinavian country halted the delivery of license plates of new vehicles manufactured by the Texas-based automaker, reported Sweden’s Dagens Industri on Monday.

Mikael Andersson, a press spokesman for the agency, told local broadcaster SVT that the lawsuit was filed early morning “so we have not seen it yet.”

“We need to hear their reasoning first before we can give any further comment,” Andersson told SVT.

Leading business paper Dagens Industri reported that Tesla — which is non-unionized globally — was suing the government agency because not accessing the registration plates “constitutes an unlawful discriminatory attack directed at Tesla.”

On Oct. 27, 130 members of the powerful metalworkers’ union IF Metall walked out at seven workshops across the country where the popular electric cars are serviced, demanding that the carmaker sign a collective bargaining agreement, which most employees in Sweden have. Tesla has no manufacturing plant in Sweden, but has several service centers.

Swedish mechanics stopped servicing Tesla cars since the strike.

The postal workers’ union joined others in a wave of sympathy with IF Metall’s demands. Dockworkers at Sweden’s four largest ports also stopped the delivery of Tesla vehicles to put more pressure on the automaker to comply with the metal workers’ demands.

Last week, Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter which he owns, that it was “insane” that Swedish postal workers were refusing to deliver license plates of new vehicles.

IF Metall earlier said that Tesla Sweden has “refused to sign a collective agreement and violates basic principles in the Swedish labor market.” It called such agreements “the backbone of the Swedish model.”

The union also asked for the understanding of consumers, saying, “we are doing this for the sake of our members, to ensure that they have safe working conditions.”

Dagens Industri wrote that Tesla demanded the district court make sure the Swedish Transport Agency delivered its license plates.