Tesla suffered a pair of setbacks in Scandinavia this week. In Sweden, a court withdrew a temporary injunction allowing it to pick up license plates for its vehicles, while in Norway, fresh solidarity actions are being threatened against the company.
Tesla has been locking horns with Swedish union, IF Metall, since October, when the mechanics represented by it went on strike. They complained that the automaker’s refusal to sign a collective agreement with its workers was contrary to business practices in the country and that feeling has been shared by other unions in the country, who joined the mechanics in denying Tesla their services.
In November, Swedish dockworkers stopped handling vehicles shipped into the country by the automaker, and last week they were joined by members of Denmark’s harbor workers’ union. Now, FriFagbeveglese reports that Norwegian union members are following suit, saying they will not handle Tesla models bound for Sweden, out of solidarity with the unionized workers in their neighboring country.
Read: Go Dock Yourself: Danish Dockworkers Join Swedish Strike Against Tesla
“The right to collective bargaining agreements is a natural part of the labor market in the Nordics and we cannot accept that Tesla stands outside of this system,” Jorn Eggum, the president of Norway’s United Federation of Trade Unions, as translated by Google.
The organization said that its actions would take effect on December 20, but added that it was too early to reveal the measures it will employ. However, it clarified that any Teslas bound for Norway — one of Europe’s most EV-hungry nations — would continue to be allowed into the country.
With Finnish workers also considering similar action, unions representing workers in all of Sweden’s neighbors and the entire Nordic region may soon be on the mechanics’ side, making it difficult to circumvent local boycotts there. That may mean that Tesla has to truck its EVs into the country, which is its fifth-largest market in Europe.
Meanwhile, back in Sweden, a court reversed a legal win that Tesla had previously earned. Bloomberg reports that an appeals court withdrew a temporary injunction allowing the automaker to pick up license plates for its vehicles from the national issuer.
Although the Transport Agency has not officially boycotted Tesla, Sweden’s postal service has. Due to a contractual obligation, it feels that it can only use PostNord to deliver license plates, effectively cutting the automaker off.
Tesla’s Swedish subsidiary quickly filed two lawsuits, and earned a temporary injunction, forcing the Transport Agency to allow it to pick up plates itself while the case was being heard. However, that privilege has now been revoked by an appeals court. No final decision on the case has been reached.
