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In Sweden, around seventy car technicians continue to challenge among the globe's wealthiest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The labor strike targeting the US automaker's ten Swedish service centers has currently entered two years of duration, with minimal sign for a resolution.

One striking worker has been on the Tesla picket line starting from October 2023.

"It has been a tough time," remarks the 39-year-old. With Sweden's cold winter weather arrives, it's likely to grow even tougher.

Janis devotes each Monday with a fellow worker, standing near an electric vehicle garage within an industrial park in Malmö. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides accommodation via a portable builders' van, as well as coffee and sandwiches.

However it remains business as usual across the road, at which the service facility appears to be at full capacity.

This industrial action concerns an issue that goes to the heart of Swedish industrial culture – the right of trade unions to negotiate pay & working terms on behalf of their members. This principle of collective agreement has underpinned labor dynamics across the nation for nearly one hundred years.

Currently approximately 70% of Scandinavia's employees are members to labor organizations, and 90% fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes in Sweden are rare.

This is a system welcomed by all parties. "We prefer the ability to negotiate freely with the unions and sign labor contracts," says a business representative from the Association of Swedish Businesses business organization.

But the electric car company has disrupted established practices. Vocal chief executive Elon Musk has stated he "opposes" with the idea of labor organizations. "I just disapprove of any arrangement that establishes a sort of hierarchical sort of thing," he told listeners in New York in 2023. "In my view the unions try to generate conflict within businesses."

Tesla came to the Scandinavian market back in the mid-2010s, while IF Metall has long sought to secure a labor contract with the automaker.

"Yet they did not respond," says Marie Nilsson, the union's leader. "We formed the impression that they attempted to hide away or not discuss this with our representatives."

She states the organization ultimately saw no alternative except to call industrial action, beginning on 27 October, 2023. "Usually it's enough to issue the threat," says the union leader. "Employers typically agrees to the agreement."

However not on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, originally from Latvia, began employment for Tesla several years ago. He claims that pay & conditions were often dependent on the discretion of supervisors.

He recalls an evaluation meeting where he states he was denied an annual pay rise because that he "not reaching company targets". Meanwhile, a coworker was said to have been turned down for a pay rise because he had the "wrong attitude".

However, some workers participated in the industrial action. Tesla had approximately 130 mechanics employed at the time the strike was initiated. IF Metall states that today approximately 70 of their represented workers are on strike.

The automaker has long since substituted the striking workers with new workers, a situation that has not occurred since the 1930s.

"The company has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly & methodically," states German Bender, a researcher at a research institute, a think tank supported by Swedish trade unions.

"It is not illegal, which is crucial to understand. But it goes against all established norms. Yet Tesla doesn't care about norms.

"They want to become convention challengers. So if somebody tells them, listen, you are breaking a norm, they perceive this as praise."

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

In fact, the company has granted only one press discussion during the entire period after the strike began.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, Jens Stark, informed a business paper that it suited the company better not to have a union contract, and instead "to collaborate directly with employees and provide workers the best possible conditions".

The executive denied that the decision not to enter a labor contract was determined by US leadership overseas. "We have authorization to make our own such decisions," he stated.

IF Metall is not entirely isolated in this conflict. This industrial action has received backing by a number of other unions.

Dockworkers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries and Finland, are refusing to process Teslas; rubbish is no longer collected from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; while recently constructed charging stations remain linked to power networks across the nation.

There is one such facility near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which 20 charging units stand idle. However Tibor Blomhäll, the leader of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, states vehicle owners remain unaffected by the strike.

"There's an alternative power point six miles from here," he says. "And we can continue to purchase vehicles, we can service our cars, we can charge our electric cars."

With stakes high on both sides, it is difficult to see an end to the stand-off. The union risks setting a precedent should it surrender the principle of negotiated labor contracts.

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