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Across Sweden, approximately seventy automotive mechanics persist to confront one of the globe's richest companies – Tesla. This industrial action targeting the American carmaker's 10 Scandinavian service centers has now entered its second anniversary, with minimal indication of a settlement.

One striking worker has remained on the electric car company's picket line starting from the autumn of 2023.

"It's a difficult time," states the 39-year-old. And as the nation's cold seasonal conditions arrives, it is expected to become even tougher.

The mechanic spends every start of the week with a colleague, positioned outside a Tesla service center on a business district in Malmö. The labor organization, IF Metall, supplies shelter in the form of a mobile builders' van, as well as coffee and light meals.

However it remains business as usual nearby, at which the workshop appears to operate at full capacity.

This industrial action involves a matter that reaches to the heart of Swedish industrial culture – the right of trade unions to negotiate wages & working terms on behalf of their members. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has supported labor dynamics across the nation for nearly one hundred years.

Currently some 70% of Scandinavia's workers are members of a trade union, while ninety percent are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages in Sweden occur infrequently.

This is a system welcomed by all parties. "We favor the ability to negotiate directly with worker representatives and sign labor contracts," states Mattias Dahl from the Association of Swedish Businesses employer group.

But Tesla has upset established practices. Outspoken chief executive Elon Musk has stated he "disagrees" with the concept of unions. "I simply disapprove of anything that establishes a sort of hierarchical situation," he told listeners at an event in 2023. "I think the unions attempt to generate negativity within businesses."

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

"But they wouldn't reply," says the union president, the union's president. "We formed the belief that they tried to hide away or evade discussing this with our representatives."

She states the union eventually saw no alternative than to announce industrial action, which started on 27 October, last year. "Usually it's enough to issue the threat," comments the union leader. "The company typically agrees to the agreement."

However not in this case.

The striking mechanic, originally of Latvian origin, began employment with the automaker several years ago. He asserts that pay and conditions frequently dependent on the discretion of managers.

He remembers a performance review at which he states he was denied an annual pay rise on grounds he was "failing to meet Tesla's goals". At the same time, a coworker was said to be rejected for increased compensation because he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, not everyone went out in the industrial action. The company employed some 130 technicians working at the time the strike was initiated. The union states that today approximately seventy of its members are on strike.

The automaker has long since substituted these with replacement staff, a situation that has no precedent since the era of the Great Depression.

"The company has done it [found replacement staff] openly and methodically," says German Bender, a researcher at Arena Idé, a policy organization financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

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

"They aim to be norm breakers. So if anyone informs them, hey, you are breaking a standard, they perceive this as a compliment."

The company's Swedish subsidiary refused requests for interview via correspondence mentioning "record vehicle shipments".

Indeed, the company has given just a single media interview in the two years since the industrial action started.

Earlier this year, the local division's "country lead", Jens Stark, told a financial publication that it suited the company more to avoid a collective agreement, and instead "to collaborate directly with employees and give them optimal conditions".

The executive denied that the choice not to enter a collective agreement was one made by US leadership overseas. "Our division possesses a mandate to take independent such choices," he stated.

The union is not entirely isolated in this conflict. This industrial action has received backing by a number of labor organizations.

Dockworkers in neighbouring Denmark, Nordic countries & Finland, are refusing to process Teslas; waste is no longer collected from the automaker's Swedish facilities; and recently constructed charging stations remain linked to the grid across the nation.

There is an example near the capital's airport, at which twenty charging units remain unused. But Tibor Blomhäll, the leader of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, says Tesla owners remain unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's another charging station six miles from here," he says. "Plus we are able to continue to purchase vehicles, we can maintain our cars, we can charge our cars."

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

"The worry is that that would spread," says the researcher, "and ultimately {erode