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In Sweden, approximately seventy automotive technicians persist to confront one of the world's wealthiest companies – Tesla. The labor strike at the American automaker's ten Scandinavian service centers has now reached its second anniversary, with little indication of a resolution.

One striking worker has been at the electric car company's protest line starting from October 2023.

"It has been a difficult period," remarks the worker in his late thirties. With the nation's chilly seasonal conditions sets in, it is expected to become even tougher.

The mechanic spends each Monday alongside a fellow worker, positioned near a Tesla service center within a business district in Malmö. The labor organization, IF Metall, provides shelter in the form of a mobile construction vehicle, plus hot beverages & sandwiches.

However it remains business as usual across the road, where the service facility appears to be in full swing.

This industrial action involves a matter that reaches to the heart of Swedish industrial culture – the authority for worker organizations to negotiate wages & conditions on behalf of their members. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has supported industrial relations in Sweden for nearly one hundred years.

Currently some seventy percent of Scandinavia's employees belong to labor organizations, and 90% are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes in Sweden occur infrequently.

This is an arrangement supported by all parties. "We favor the right to negotiate directly with the unions and sign labor contracts," says Mattias Dahl from the Association of Swedish Businesses employer group.

But Tesla has disrupted the apple cart. Vocal CEO Elon Musk has stated he "opposes" with the concept of labor organizations. "I just don't like anything that establishes a kind of lords and peasants situation," he told an audience at an event in 2023. "In my view the unions attempt to create negativity in a company."

The automaker entered the Scandinavian market back in 2014, while IF Metall has long sought to secure a labor contract with the automaker.

"Yet they wouldn't respond," says Marie Nilsson, the union's leader. "We formed the impression that they attempted to avoid or not discuss this with us."

She states the union eventually saw no alternative except to announce a strike, beginning in late October, last year. "Usually the threat suffices to issue the threat," comments the union leader. "The company usually agrees to the agreement."

But this did not happen on this occasion.

Janis Kuzma, who is from Latvia, started working with the automaker several years ago. He asserts that wages and work terms were often subject to the whim of managers.

He remembers an evaluation meeting where he states he was refused a salary increase on grounds that he "not reaching Tesla's goals". Meanwhile, a colleague was reported to be turned down for increased compensation because having an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, some workers went out in the industrial action. Tesla employed some one hundred thirty mechanics working at the time the industrial action was called. IF Metall states that today around seventy of their represented workers are on strike.

Tesla has long since replaced these with new workers, a situation there is no precedent since the era of the Great Depression.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly and methodically," states German Bender, an analyst at Arena Idé, a think tank financed by Swedish trade unions.

"It's not against the law, which is important to recognize. But it goes against all traditional practices. Yet the company shows no concern about norms.

"They want to be norm breakers. So if anyone tells them, hey, you are violating a standard, they perceive this as a compliment."

The automaker's local division refused requests for interview in an email mentioning "all-time high deliveries".

In fact, the automaker has given just a single press discussion during the entire period since the industrial action began.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, the executive, informed a business paper that it suited the company more to avoid a collective agreement, and rather "to collaborate directly with employees and provide workers the best possible terms".

Mr Stark rejected that the decision to avoid a labor contract was determined by US leadership in the US. "Our division possesses a mandate to make our own such choices," he said.

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

Port workers in neighbouring Denmark, Norway and neighboring states, decline to process Teslas; rubbish is not collected from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; while recently constructed charging stations are not being connected to power networks in the country.

Exists an example near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which twenty charging units stand idle. But Tibor Blomhäll, the president of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, states vehicle owners are unaffected by the strike.

"There's an alternative power point six miles from this location," he says. "Plus we are able to continue to purchase vehicles, we can service our vehicles, we can charge our electric cars."

With consequences significant on both sides, it's hard to envision an end to the deadlock. The union risks establishing a pattern should it surrender the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

"The concern is that that would spread," states the researcher, "and ultimately {erode