Tesla’s Nordic labour dispute spreads as pension fund sells stock
TESLA’s Nordic labour dispute is starting to anger local investors, with a pension fund in Denmark now exiting the electric vehicle maker.
PensionDanmark has sold its holding of Tesla shares in protest over the company’s refusal to sign collective labour agreements with its workers, it said in an e-mail on Thursday (Dec 7).
The pensions manager did not disclose the size of its stake, but local media Frihedsbrevet reported that it was about 400 million kroner (S$77.5 million).
The dispute started in Sweden but has spread into neighbouring Denmark and Norway, where unions have warned they will block shipments of Tesla cars.
In Sweden, labour unions are no longer delivering the company’s mail or collecting its trash.
PensionDanmark said that it had contacted Tesla initially in an effort to persuade the company to sign a labour agreement.
“As the conflict now spreads to Denmark, and because of Tesla’s recent very categorical refusal to sign agreements in any country, we’ve come to the conclusion that we, as investors, at the moment aren’t able to influence the company,” the fund noted. “That’s why we’re now putting Tesla on our exclusion list.”
Jan Villadsen, the chairman of the 3F union that is behind the Danish strike, is also a member of PensionDanmark’s board. The fund has more than 800,000 members and 309 billion kroner in total assets.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has called the Swedish labour action “insane”.
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