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Across Sweden, approximately 70 automotive mechanics persist to confront among the globe's richest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This industrial action targeting the US carmaker's 10 Swedish service centers has currently entered its second anniversary, and there is minimal sign of a settlement.

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

"It's a tough period," remarks the worker in his late thirties. And as the nation's chilly seasonal conditions sets in, it is expected to become even tougher.

The mechanic devotes every start of the week alongside a colleague, standing outside an electric vehicle service center on an industrial park in Malmö. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides accommodation via a mobile construction vehicle, plus hot beverages and sandwiches.

However it's operations continue normally nearby, where the workshop appears to be in full swing.

This industrial action involves an issue that reaches to the heart of Scandinavia's industrial culture – the authority of trade unions to bargain for wages & working terms on behalf of their workforce. This principle of collective agreement has supported labor dynamics in Sweden for nearly a century.

Currently some seventy percent of Swedish employees are members of a trade union, while ninety percent are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages in Sweden occur infrequently.

It's a system welcomed across the board. "We favor the right to bargain freely with worker representatives and establish labor contracts," says a business representative from the Association of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

However Tesla has disrupted established practices. Outspoken chief executive the company leader has said he "disagrees" with the idea of unions. "I just don't like any arrangement that establishes a sort of hierarchical situation," he informed listeners in New York in 2023. "In my view labor groups try to create conflict within businesses."

The automaker came to Sweden back in the mid-2010s, and the metalworkers' union has for years wanted to secure a collective agreement with the company.

"Yet they did not reply," states Marie Nilsson, the union's leader. "We formed the impression that they tried to avoid or evade discussing this with us."

She says the organization ultimately saw no other option except to call industrial action, beginning in late October, 2023. "Usually the threat suffices to issue a warning," says the union leader. "The company typically agrees to the agreement."

However this did not happen in this case.

Janis Kuzma, originally from Latvia, began employment for Tesla in 2021. He asserts that pay & work terms were often subject to the whim of managers.

He remembers a performance review at which he says he was denied a salary increase because he was "failing to meet company targets". Meanwhile, a colleague was said to be turned down for a pay rise due to having the "wrong attitude".

However, not everyone went out in the industrial action. The company employed some one hundred thirty technicians employed when the strike was called. IF Metall states that today approximately seventy of its members are on strike.

Tesla has since substituted the striking workers with new workers, for which there is no precedent since the era of the 1930s.

"The company has done it [found replacement staff] openly & methodically," states German Bender, a researcher at a research institute, a policy organization supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not against the law, this being crucial to recognize. But it violates all traditional practices. Yet Tesla doesn't care about norms.

"They want to become convention challengers. So if anyone informs them, hey, you are violating a norm, they perceive this as praise."

The automaker's local division declined attempts for interview in an email citing "all-time high vehicle shipments".

In fact, the automaker has granted only one media interview in the two years after the strike started.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", Jens Stark, informed a financial publication that it benefited the organization more not to have a union contract, and rather "to collaborate directly with employees and give workers the best possible conditions".

The executive denied that the decision to avoid a labor contract was determined by US leadership overseas. "We have authorization to make independent such decisions," he said.

IF Metall is not completely isolated in this conflict. This industrial action has been supported from several of labor organizations.

Dockworkers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries & Finland, decline to process the company's vehicles; waste is no longer collected from Tesla's Swedish facilities; while newly built power points are not being connected to the grid in the country.

There is an example near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, where 20 chargers remain unused. However Tibor Blomhäll, the leader of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, says Tesla owners are unaffected by the strike.

"There exists an alternative power point 10km from this location," he comments. "Plus we are able to continue to buy our cars, we can service our cars, we can power our electric cars."

With consequences high for all parties, it is difficult to see a resolution to the stand-off. The union risks setting a precedent if it concedes the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

"The concern is how that would spread," says the researcher, "and eventually {erode