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Across Sweden, around 70 car technicians persist to confront among the world's richest companies – Tesla. This labor strike at the US automaker's 10 Scandinavian service centers has now reached two years of duration, with little indication for a resolution.

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

"It has been a tough time," states the worker in his late thirties. And as the nation's chilly winter weather arrives, it's likely to grow more challenging.

Janis spends every start of the week with a fellow worker, positioned outside a Tesla service center on a business district located in southern Sweden. His union, IF Metall, provides shelter via a portable builders' van, as well as coffee and light meals.

However it's operations continue normally across the road, where the workshop seems to be at full capacity.

This industrial action concerns an issue that goes to the core of Swedish labor traditions – the right of trade unions to negotiate wages and working terms representing their members. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned labor dynamics across the nation for almost one hundred years.

Today some seventy percent of Scandinavia's employees are members to labor organizations, and ninety percent fall under by a collective agreement. Strikes across the nation occur infrequently.

It's a system supported across the board. "We prefer the ability to negotiate freely with the unions and establish collective agreements," states a business representative of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

But Tesla has upset established practices. Vocal chief executive Elon Musk has said he "opposes" with the idea of labor organizations. "I simply don't like anything which creates a sort of hierarchical sort of thing," he told an audience in New York last year. "I think labor groups try to generate conflict in a company."

The automaker came to Sweden back in the mid-2010s, and IF Metall has long wanted to establish a labor contract with the automaker.

"Yet they did not respond," says the union president, the organization's leader. "And we got the impression that they attempted to hide away or evade discussing the matter with us."

She says the union eventually saw no alternative than to call industrial action, which started on 27 October, last year. "Typically it's enough to make the threat," says Ms Nilsson. "The company typically signs the contract."

However this did not happen in this case.

The striking mechanic, who is of Latvian origin, began employment for Tesla in 2021. He asserts that wages and conditions frequently subject to the discretion of managers.

He recalls a performance review at which he states he was denied an annual pay rise on grounds he was "not reaching company targets". At the same time, a coworker was reported to be rejected for a pay rise because he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, some workers participated on strike. The company employed approximately one hundred thirty technicians employed when the strike was initiated. The union states currently approximately 70 of their represented workers are participating in the action.

Tesla has since substituted the striking workers with replacement staff, a situation there is no precedent since the era of the Great Depression.

"Tesla has done it [found replacement staff] openly & systematically," says a labor researcher, a researcher at Arena Idé, a policy organization financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not illegal, which is important to recognize. However it goes against all established practices. But Tesla doesn't care about norms.

"They aim to be convention challengers. Thus when somebody tells them, listen, you are violating a standard, they perceive this as praise."

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

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

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", the executive, informed a business paper that it benefited the company more to avoid a collective agreement, and rather "to collaborate directly with the team and provide them the best possible terms".

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

IF Metall is not completely isolated in this conflict. The strike has been supported by a number of labor organizations.

Dockworkers in neighbouring Denmark, Norway & neighboring states, decline to handle Teslas; waste is no longer removed from Tesla's Swedish facilities; and recently constructed charging stations remain linked to power networks across the nation.

Exists one such facility close to the capital's airport, at which 20 charging units stand idle. However a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, says Tesla owners remain unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There exists another charging station 10km from this location," he says. "And we can continue to buy our cars, we can service our cars, we can power our electric cars."

With stakes significant for all parties, it's hard to envision a resolution to the deadlock. The union risks establishing a pattern if it concedes the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

"The concern is how this could expand," states Mr Bender, "and ultimately {erode