The struggle over Elon Musk’s pay package deal and the vote over whether or not to maneuver Tesla’s headquarters to Texas have been the primary focus of consideration forward of the corporate’s shareholders assembly on Thursday, however not for buyers from Nordic international locations.
Tesla’s main shareholders in Sweden, Denmark and Norway are as an alternative seeking to the assembly to deliver the difficulty of labor rights on the automaker to the fore.
Behind the marketing campaign is the strike of Tesla’s mechanics in Sweden. Now stretching into its sixth month, the dispute has drawn in unions from throughout the area which have joined in blockades aimed toward bringing the U.S. carmaker to the negotiating desk to succeed in a collective settlement with its Swedish employees.
A number of of the most important shareholders within the Nordic international locations are urging others to again a proposal that may require Tesla to respect the correct of employees to assemble.
Tesla didn’t reply to a request for remark. It has remained immune to unions in Europe, even in international locations with robust traditions of organized labor. Mr. Musk has expressed his disdain for organized labor. “I disagree with the concept of unions,” he mentioned at the DealBook Summit in New York final yr.
None of Tesla’s factories are unionized, doubtlessly giving the corporate a bonus over rivals like Ford Motor, Common Motors and Volkswagen that should pay union wages. However in the US, Tesla is a major goal for the United Car Staff union, which is in a powerful place after successful the biggest wage will increase in years just lately for employees at unionized vegetation.
The proposal up for vote on Thursday was put ahead by Folksam Group, an insurance coverage firm from Sweden, together with a Canadian pension fund and fairness funds from the US. Collectively they’re calling on Tesla’s board to undertake a coverage that may decide to “noninterference and good religion bargaining in accordance with internationally acknowledged human rights requirements with respect to freedom of affiliation and collective bargaining,” in line with a submitting with the U.S. Securities and Alternate Fee.
Amongst these backing the proposal, which is up for vote on Thursday, are KLP, Norway’s largest pension fund, which holds 900,000 Tesla shares value some 1.7 billion Norwegian crowns, or $162 million.
“We as a long-term investor count on that firms we put money into will adhere to the very best worldwide requirements in its enterprise operations, particularly after they have enterprise operations throughout the globe the place the requirements might differ from nation to nation,” mentioned Kiran Aziz, KLP’s head of accountable investments.
The Norwegian fund was one in every of a number of buyers from the Nordic international locations to ship a letter to Tesla’s administration final yr addressing the difficulty of labor rights.
Regardless of the strike and the marketing campaign by these Nordic shareholders, Mr. Musk enjoys a powerful following amongst lots of Sweden’s tech-savvy drivers. Nonetheless, a majority of Swedes have expressed help for the strike. Tesla offered 20,400 automobiles in Sweden final yr, and the Mannequin Y is the nation’s greatest vendor.
Tesla mechanics who’re members of the IF Metall union walked off their jobs in late October. Dozens stay on strike and the union has been picketing the corporate’s amenities throughout Sweden.
The union say Tesla is flouting Sweden’s custom of collective agreements. About 90 p.c of Swedish employees are lined by these agreements, which additionally apply to nonunion workers and set work situations throughout industries.
Tesla has refused to interact within the strategy of collective bargaining that units such an settlement, arguing that the corporate pays its employees competitively and complies with native labor legal guidelines.
That has not stopped the union from rallying greater than a dozen different labor organizations to help its aspect by sympathy measures, that are allowed below Swedish regulation. For a number of months, employees from different industries have been refusing to offer Tesla with providers starting from unloading of its automobiles at ports, to trash removing to the supply of recent license plates.
Final month, Sweden’s largest union, Unionen, joined the trouble with a walkout by employees who perform gear inspections for the corporate.
Tesla has to this point discovered workarounds and has managed to maintain its enterprise going with out vital disruptions for purchasers.
KLP, the Norwegian pension fund, has additionally mentioned that it might vote in opposition to Mr. Musk’s $46.5 billion pay package deal. Though the vote on pay is unrelated to the labor dispute, the fund mentioned that “the overall award worth stays extreme” regardless of Tesla’s vital progress. KLP additionally voted in opposition to the pay package deal in 2018.
Main shareholders seem divided over whether or not to help the pay package deal, which was nullified by a decide at a Delaware courtroom in January. Tesla is now asking shareholders to approve the pay package deal and Mr. Musk has been lobbying shareholders for help over the social media platform X, which he owns.
In response to a put up by Mr. Musk urging small buyers to be allowed to vote, some Swedish retail brokerage companies broke with custom in Europe by saying they might enable their prospects to forged votes on the annual basic assembly on Thursday, after they obtained requests to take action.
“We all the time need to do our greatest to satisfy our prospects’ requests, and determined to make an exception this time and to make it potential for them to vote at this particular Tesla annual basic assembly,” mentioned Sofia Svavar, a spokeswoman for Avanza, a web-based financial institution primarily based in Stockholm.
Jack Ewing contributed reporting.
