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In Sweden, approximately 70 car mechanics continue to challenge among the globe's richest corporations – Tesla. This labor strike at the US carmaker's ten Swedish service centers has currently entered its second anniversary, and there is little sign for a resolution.

One striking worker has been at the electric car company's protest line since the autumn of 2023.

"It has been a tough period," remarks the 39-year-old. And as the nation's cold winter weather sets in, it's likely to become more challenging.

The mechanic devotes every start of the week alongside a fellow worker, standing outside an electric vehicle garage within a business district in Malmö. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides accommodation via a portable builders' van, plus hot beverages and light meals.

But it's business as usual nearby, where the service facility appears to operate at full capacity.

The strike concerns a matter that goes to the core of Swedish industrial culture – the authority for worker organizations to negotiate wages & conditions representing their workforce. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned industrial relations in Sweden for almost a century.

Currently approximately seventy percent of Scandinavia's employees are members to labor organizations, and ninety percent fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages across the nation occur infrequently.

It's an arrangement welcomed across the board. "We prefer the ability to bargain freely with the unions and sign collective agreements," states Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

However the electric car company has disrupted established practices. Vocal chief executive Elon Musk has stated he "disagrees" with the concept of labor organizations. "I just disapprove of anything that establishes a sort of hierarchical situation," he informed listeners in New York in 2023. "I think labor groups try to create conflict in a company."

Tesla entered the Scandinavian market back in 2014, and the metalworkers' union has long sought to secure a labor contract with the company.

"Yet they did not respond," states the union president, the organization's president. "We formed the belief that they attempted to avoid or evade discussing this with us."

She states the union eventually found no alternative except to announce industrial action, beginning on 27 October, last year. "Usually the threat suffices to make a warning," comments Ms Nilsson. "Employers usually signs the contract."

However not on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, who is of Latvian origin, started working with the automaker several years ago. He claims that wages & conditions were often dependent on the discretion of managers.

He recalls a performance review at which he says he was refused a salary increase on grounds that he "failing to meet Tesla's goals". Meanwhile, a coworker was said to have been rejected for increased compensation because he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, not everyone participated in the industrial action. The company had some 130 technicians working when the strike was called. IF Metall states that today around 70 of their represented workers are on strike.

Tesla has since replaced these with new workers, for which there is not occurred since the 1930s.

"Tesla has done it [found replacement staff] openly and systematically," states a labor researcher, a researcher at Arena Idé, a policy organization financed by Swedish trade unions.

"It's not illegal, this being crucial to recognize. However it violates all established practices. Yet Tesla doesn't care for conventions.

"They aim to become convention challengers. So if somebody informs them, listen, you are violating a standard, they see that as praise."

The company's Swedish subsidiary refused requests for interview in an email mentioning "record vehicle shipments".

Indeed, the automaker has granted just a single press discussion during the entire period after the strike started.

In March 2024, the local division's "country lead", Jens Stark, informed a business paper that it benefited the company better not to have a union contract, and rather "to collaborate directly with the team and give them optimal conditions".

The executive denied that the decision to avoid a collective agreement was one made at Tesla headquarters in the US. "We have authorization to take independent such decisions," he said.

The union is not entirely alone in its fight. The strike has received backing from several of labor organizations.

Port workers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Norway & Finland, are refusing to process the company's vehicles; waste is no longer removed from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; while recently constructed power points are not being connected to power networks in the country.

There is an example near the capital's airport, where twenty charging units stand idle. But a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, says Tesla owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There exists another charging station 10km from this location," he says. "Plus we are able to continue to purchase vehicles, we can maintain our cars, we can charge our electric cars."

With consequences significant on both sides, it's hard to envision an end to the deadlock. The union faces the danger of setting a precedent if it concedes the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

"The concern is that this could expand," states the researcher, "and ultimately {erode