The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) is joining the call to stop public subsidies to Elon Musk’s companies – although for quite different reasons to US President Donald Trump.
Musk’s companies have been awarded EU contracts worth more than 350 million Euros since 2023 alone, according to information published by the European Commission last month.
That includes three ongoing contracts worth 158 million Euro given to Tesla, despite the fact that Musk’s company has been named among firms that “benefit financially by continuing to violate trade union and human rights.”
Musk says he disagrees with the entire concept of trade unions and Tesla has sparked a historic strike at its plant in Sweden by refusing to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement.
The ETUC is calling on the Commission to use its upcoming revision of its public procurement directives to ban companies from public funding if they do not respect the right to collective bargaining.
ETUC General Secretary Esther Lynch said:
“Donald Trump’s comments about public subsidies for Elon Musk’s business empire bring to mind the old saying that even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
“The companies of Elon Musk – or indeed any other union-buster – should not be receiving hundreds of millions of Euros in European money while violating the rights of European workers.
“It is high time that the European Commission ensures that its funding rules prevent blank cheques being dished out to billionaires and require recipients to meet the very basic requirement to at least sit down and talk about fair pay and conditions.
“Huge sums of European money are disappearing into the offshore accounts of CEOs rather being put back into the pockets of European workers who spend it in the European economy.
“More generally, this sorry episode should be warning to our leaders to stop Europe’s drift towards corporate capture and stand-up for Europe’s proud tradition of social democracy to which collective bargaining is central.”
