By Gwladys Fouche and Marie Mannes
OSLO/STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Tesla (NASDAQ:) investor KLP might ask the automaker’s annual normal assembly to handle CEO Elon Musk’s reluctance to interact in collective bargaining, the Norwegian pension fund mentioned on Thursday.
A strike by Tesla mechanics in Sweden, among the many nation’s longest labour disputes, has for months disrupted the automaker’s operations and attracted the priority of a number of Nordic institutional buyers.
On Monday, Musk mentioned “the storm had handed on that entrance”. However the strike is continuous and the union main the motion instructed Reuters this week it could ramp it up.
KLP, Norway’s largest pension fund, was a signatory to a December letter despatched by Nordic buyers expressing their concern concerning the strike in Sweden and Tesla’s reluctance to acknowledge a proper to collective bargaining.
“That Elon Musk is saying that the ‘storm has handed’ is simply his option to underestimate the battle and the problem,” Kiran Aziz, KLP’s head of accountable investments, instructed Reuters.
“The battle remains to be going and Musk does not likely wish to perceive that collective bargaining is the spine of the Nordic labour mannequin.”
Tesla didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark. It has beforehand mentioned its Swedish workers have pretty much as good, or higher, phrases than these the union is demanding.
Aziz mentioned Tesla had not answered the December letter, and KLP was now “making an attempt to determine learn how to escalate”.
When KLP disagrees with the administration of an organization in its portfolio, it first tries to determine a dialogue with the corporate, earlier than shifting to stipulate its expectations to the board, Aziz mentioned.
“The subsequent step with Tesla could possibly be submitting a shareholder proposal at its annual normal assembly,” she mentioned, with out elaborating on its contents.
“We’ll proceed to pursue this subject no matter what Musk thinks so one recommendation could be that Tesla begins to reply on queries from buyers.”
KLP holds 900,000 Tesla shares value some 1.7 billion crowns ($157 million). Final summer time it eliminated Tesla shares from its sustainable funds.
“We did that earlier than the strikes started, as a result of our portfolio managers have been seeing that it might come to some controversy,” Aziz mentioned. “The Tesla holdings remains to be within the different funds.”
($1 = 10.8039 Norwegian crowns)
