Danish pension fund PensionDanmark is dumping all of its Tesla stock and putting the U.S. EV maker on its exclusion list of the companies it chooses to invest in – or not. The fund is selling all of its Tesla shares due to Elon Musk’s refusal to enter into labour agreements with unions in Norway, Denmark and Sweden, according to Reuters.
Tesla is facing mounting pressure to enter into collective bargaining agreements overseas, as unions band together to boycott working on Elon Musk’s products. Workers are seeking better wages and benefits, but the company refuses to negotiate collectively with employees. Now, Tesla is facing backlash in other ways as one of the biggest pension funds in Denmark refuses to be an investor. Per Business Insider:
“In the light of the conflict spreading to Denmark and Tesla’s latest and very categorical denial to reach collective agreements in any country, we have reached the conclusion, that we as investors for the time being are unlikely to influence the company,” a spokesperson for PensionDenmark told Business Insider in an emailed statement. “Therefore, we are placing Tesla on our exclusion list.”
To provide some background in the latest volley from labor groups against Tesla, 130 of its mechanics went on strike in late October after Tesla rejected entering into a collective bargaining agreement with its EV techs in Sweden.
Not long afterwards, in late November, about 50 unionised Swedish metal workers also went on strike in a show of support for the mechanics. That meant the company was down one major supplier.
And soon after that, some dockworkers and dealerships said they would also refuse to handle Tesla products, prompting Elon Musk to call the multiple strikes against his EV company “insane” via Twitter (also known as X):
This is insane
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 23, 2023
Tesla has a longstanding policy to not enter into collective agreements with neither workers nor unions, and the EV maker has claimed that its employees “have as good or better terms than those the Swedish union is demanding,” as Reuters reports.
Elsewhere, in Germany, Tesla made similar arguments while raising wages by four per cent. Unionised metalworkers responded by saying that Tesla’s offer for workers in Gruenheide, Germany, was 20 per cent below those offered under collective agreements. In other words, Tesla’s wage increases were way off the mark, highlighting why collective bargaining is vital for its workers.
Elon Musk and Tesla’s unwillingness to work with workers and labour unions, in general, has now cost it what could be a major investor. PensionDanmark did not disclose how large its Tesla holdings were when it dumped the stock, but the fund manages pensions for 823,000 Danes and wields $317 billion Danish kroner in assets, or about $46 billion USD at current exchange rates, which is no small amount.
Photo: Christian Marquardt-Pool (Getty Images)
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