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Across Sweden, around seventy car technicians continue to challenge among the world's richest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The labor strike at the US automaker's ten Scandinavian repair facilities has currently reached two years of duration, and there is little sign of a resolution.

One striking worker has remained at the Tesla protest line since the autumn of 2023.

"It has been a tough time," states the 39-year-old. And as Sweden's chilly winter weather sets in, it is expected to become more challenging.

The mechanic devotes every start of the week with a colleague, standing near an electric vehicle garage on a business district in Malmö. His union, IF Metall, provides accommodation in the form of a portable builders' van, as well as coffee and sandwiches.

However it's business as usual across the road, at which the service facility appears to operate in full swing.

This industrial action involves an issue that goes to the heart of Scandinavia's industrial culture – the right of trade unions to negotiate wages & conditions representing their members. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has supported industrial relations in Sweden for nearly a century.

Today some 70% of Swedish employees are members to labor organizations, and 90% fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages in Sweden are rare.

This is an arrangement welcomed by all parties. "We prefer the right to negotiate freely with the unions and sign collective agreements," says a business representative from the Association of Swedish Businesses employer group.

But Tesla has disrupted the apple cart. Outspoken chief executive the company leader has said he "opposes" with the concept of unions. "I simply don't like anything that establishes a sort of lords and peasants sort of thing," he informed listeners in New York in 2023. "In my view labor groups attempt to generate conflict within businesses."

The automaker entered the Scandinavian market starting in the mid-2010s, and IF Metall has long sought to secure a collective agreement with the automaker.

"But they did not respond," states the union president, the union's leader. "We formed the belief that they attempted to hide away or not discuss the matter with our representatives."

She says the organization eventually found no other option except to call a strike, which started on 27 October, last year. "Typically the threat suffices to make the threat," comments Ms Nilsson. "The company usually signs the agreement."

But not on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, originally from Latvia, started working for Tesla several years ago. He claims that pay & conditions frequently subject to the discretion of supervisors.

He remembers an evaluation meeting at which he says he was refused an annual pay rise on grounds he was "not reaching company targets". Meanwhile, a coworker was reported to be turned down for a pay rise because he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, some workers went out on strike. Tesla employed some one hundred thirty technicians employed when the strike was called. IF Metall states that today around 70 of their represented workers are on strike.

Tesla has long since substituted these with replacement staff, for which that has not occurred since the era of the 1930s.

"The company has done it [found replacement staff] openly and systematically," states a labor researcher, a researcher at Arena Idé, a policy organization supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not against the law, which is crucial to understand. However it violates all established practices. Yet Tesla shows no concern about norms.

"They want to become convention challengers. So if anyone informs them, listen, you are breaking a norm, they see that as a compliment."

The company's local division declined attempts for comment via correspondence mentioning "record vehicle shipments".

In fact, the automaker has granted just a single media interview during the entire period since the industrial action started.

In March 2024, the local division's "country lead", the executive, informed a financial publication that it benefited the company better not to have a union contract, and rather "to collaborate directly with the team and give them optimal terms".

The executive denied that the choice not to enter a labor contract was one made by US leadership in the US. "Our division possesses authorization to take our own such choices," he stated.

IF Metall is not completely isolated in its fight. This industrial action has received backing by a number of other unions.

Port workers in nearby Denmark, Nordic countries and neighboring states, decline to handle Teslas; waste is not removed from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; and recently constructed power points are not being linked to the grid across the nation.

There is an example near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which twenty charging units stand idle. However Tibor Blomhäll, the leader of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, says Tesla owners remain unaffected by the labor dispute.

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

With consequences significant on both sides, it's hard to see an end to the deadlock. IF Metall risks establishing a pattern if it concedes the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

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