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Across Sweden, approximately 70 automotive technicians continue to confront among the globe's richest corporations – Tesla. This industrial action at the American automaker's ten Scandinavian repair facilities has now entered two years of duration, and there is little sign for a settlement.

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

"It has been a tough time," remarks the 39-year-old. And as the nation's chilly seasonal conditions arrives, it is expected to grow even tougher.

The mechanic devotes each Monday alongside a fellow worker, positioned outside a Tesla service center within a business district in Malmö. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides accommodation via a mobile builders' van, plus coffee & light meals.

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

The strike concerns a matter that goes to the heart of Swedish labor traditions – the right for worker organizations to negotiate pay & working terms on behalf of their members. This concept of collective agreement has supported labor dynamics in Sweden for nearly a century.

Currently approximately seventy percent of Scandinavia's employees are members to labor organizations, and ninety percent are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages across the nation occur infrequently.

It's an arrangement supported by all parties. "We prefer the ability to negotiate freely with the unions and establish labor contracts," says Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

However the electric car company has disrupted the apple cart. Vocal CEO the company leader has said he "opposes" with the concept of labor organizations. "I simply don't like any arrangement which creates a sort of lords and peasants sort of thing," he informed listeners at an event last year. "I think labor groups attempt to generate conflict in a company."

Tesla came to Sweden back in 2014, while IF Metall has for years sought to secure a collective agreement with the company.

"But they wouldn't respond," says the union president, the organization's leader. "We formed the impression that they tried to hide away or evade discussing this with us."

She states the organization eventually found no alternative than to announce a strike, beginning in late October, last year. "Typically it's enough to issue the threat," says the union leader. "The company usually signs the agreement."

But this did not happen in this case.

Janis Kuzma, originally of Latvian origin, began employment with the automaker in 2021. He asserts that pay & conditions frequently subject to the whim of managers.

He remembers an evaluation meeting at which he states he was refused an annual pay rise because that he "failing to meet company targets". At the same time, a colleague was reported to have been rejected for a pay rise because having the "wrong attitude".

Nevertheless, some workers went out in the industrial action. Tesla had approximately 130 technicians working when the industrial action was initiated. IF Metall states that today approximately seventy of its members are participating in the action.

The automaker has long since substituted these with new workers, a situation there is no precedent since the 1930s.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly & methodically," states a labor researcher, an analyst at Arena Idé, a policy organization supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not illegal, which is crucial to recognize. However it goes against all established practices. But the company shows no concern about norms.

"They want to become norm breakers. Thus when somebody informs them, listen, you are violating a standard, they see that as a compliment."

The automaker's local division declined requests for interview via correspondence mentioning "record deliveries".

Indeed, the automaker has granted only one press discussion in the two years since the strike began.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, Jens Stark, told a business paper that it suited the organization better to avoid a collective agreement, and rather "to work closely with the team and give workers optimal conditions".

Mr Stark denied that the choice not to enter a labor contract was one made by US leadership in the US. "Our division possesses authorization to make independent such choices," he said.

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

Port workers in nearby Denmark, Norway & Finland, are refusing to process the company's vehicles; waste is no longer collected from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; and recently constructed charging stations are not being linked to the grid across the nation.

There is an example close to the capital's airport, where 20 charging units remain unused. However Tibor Blomhäll, the president of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, states vehicle owners remain unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's an alternative power point 10km from here," he comments. "And we can continue to purchase vehicles, we can maintain our vehicles, we can charge our cars."

With consequences high on both sides, it is difficult to envision an end to the deadlock. The union risks establishing a pattern should it surrender the principle of collective agreement.

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