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Across Sweden, around seventy automotive mechanics continue to confront one of the globe's wealthiest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The labor strike at the American carmaker's 10 Swedish service centers has now entered two years of duration, and there is little indication for a settlement.

One striking worker has been at the Tesla protest line starting from the autumn of 2023.

"It's a tough time," remarks the worker in his late thirties. And as the nation's chilly winter weather arrives, it is expected to grow even tougher.

The mechanic devotes each Monday with a fellow worker, positioned outside a Tesla garage on a business district in Malmö. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides accommodation via a portable builders' van, as well as hot beverages and light meals.

But it's operations continue normally across the road, where the workshop appears to operate in full swing.

This industrial action involves an issue that goes to the heart of Scandinavia's industrial culture – the authority for worker organizations to negotiate pay and working terms representing their workforce. This principle of collective agreement has underpinned industrial relations in Sweden for nearly a century.

Currently approximately seventy percent of Swedish employees are members to labor organizations, and ninety percent fall under by a collective agreement. Strikes in Sweden are rare.

This is a system supported by all parties. "We prefer the right to negotiate freely with worker representatives and sign labor contracts," states Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

But the electric car company has upset established practices. Outspoken CEO Elon Musk has said he "opposes" with the concept of labor organizations. "I just don't like any arrangement that establishes a sort of hierarchical situation," he told an audience in New York in 2023. "In my view labor groups attempt to create negativity within businesses."

Tesla came to the Scandinavian market back in the mid-2010s, while the metalworkers' union has long sought to secure a collective agreement with the automaker.

"But they did not reply," states Marie Nilsson, the union's president. "And we got the impression that they attempted to avoid or not discuss the matter with us."

She says the union ultimately saw no other option than to call a strike, beginning in late October, 2023. "Typically it's enough to make the threat," says Ms Nilsson. "Employers usually agrees to the contract."

But this did not happen on this occasion.

Janis Kuzma, originally of Latvian origin, began employment for Tesla in 2021. He claims that pay and conditions were often dependent on the whim of supervisors.

He recalls a performance review where he states he was denied an annual pay rise because he was "not reaching Tesla's goals". Meanwhile, a colleague was reported to be turned down for a pay rise because having an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, not everyone went out in the industrial action. The company employed approximately 130 mechanics employed at the time the strike was initiated. The union says that today approximately 70 of its members are participating in the action.

Tesla has long since replaced the striking workers with replacement staff, a situation that has not occurred since the Great Depression.

"The company has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly and systematically," says a labor researcher, an analyst at Arena Idé, a policy organization financed by Swedish trade unions.

"It is not illegal, this being crucial to understand. However it violates all established practices. Yet the company doesn't care about norms.

"They want to become norm breakers. Thus when anyone informs them, hey, you are breaking a norm, they perceive this as praise."

The company's Swedish subsidiary refused requests for interview in an email citing "all-time high vehicle shipments".

Indeed, the company has given just a single media interview during the entire period since the strike started.

In March 2024, the local division's "national manager, Jens Stark, informed a business paper that it benefited the company better to avoid a collective agreement, and rather "to work closely with employees and give workers optimal terms".

The executive rejected that the decision to avoid a labor contract was determined by US leadership overseas. "Our division possesses authorization to make independent such decisions," he stated.

IF Metall is not entirely alone in its fight. This industrial action has been supported by a number of other unions.

Dockworkers in neighbouring Denmark, Norway and neighboring states, are refusing to process Teslas; waste is not removed from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; while newly built charging stations remain linked to power networks across the nation.

Exists one such facility near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, where twenty chargers remain unused. But Tibor Blomhäll, the leader of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, says Tesla owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There exists another charging station six miles from here," he comments. "And we can still purchase vehicles, we can service our vehicles, we can power our electric cars."

With consequences high on both sides, it is difficult to see an end to the stand-off. The union risks setting a precedent if it concedes the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

"The worry is how this could expand," says the researcher, "and eventually {erode