Musk’s Scandinavian woes deepen as Tesla loses Swedish court case, Finnish union joins port blockade

Tesla‘s troubles with labor unions in Scandinavia deepened as it lost legal action against Sweden’s postal service over its refusal to deliver license plates to the U.S. electric vehicle giant.

The postal service’s workers blocked Tesla license plate deliveries late last month in a show of solidarity with mechanics striking over the company’s refusal to sign a collective bargaining agreement with employees, which is customary in Sweden.

Tesla took legal action while CEO Elon Musk branded the move “insane,” but a Swedish court ruled Thursday that PostNord will not be forced to deliver license plates for now.

Possibly more concerning for Musk, however, will be the sympathy strikes spreading throughout Scandinavia as fellow unions coalesce their support behind the region’s deeply entrenched principle of collective bargaining as a lynchpin of labor relations.

Union members across a host of Swedish industries have joined the secondary strike action with members of trade union IF Metall, who have been embroiled in an ongoing battle with Tesla for around six weeks.

Earlier this week, Denmark’s largest trade union announced its own sympathy strike to prevent Tesla cars being delivered to Danish ports and transported into Sweden.

Norway’s largest private sector union then on Wednesday announced its intention to begin blocking vehicle shipments destined for Sweden from Dec. 20.

Finnish transport workers’ union AKT on Thursday confirmed that a blockade on Tesla vehicles earmarked for Sweden would also come into force across all Finnish ports from Dec. 20.

AKT Chairman Ismo Kokko said collective agreements for workers were “an essential part of the Nordic labor market system,” according to Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat.

Meanwhile, one of Denmark’s largest pension funds on…