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In Sweden, approximately seventy automotive technicians continue to confront among the globe's richest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This industrial action targeting the American carmaker's 10 Swedish service centers has now reached two years of duration, and there is little sign of a settlement.

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

"It's a tough time," states the 39-year-old. With Sweden's chilly seasonal conditions sets in, it's likely to grow more challenging.

The mechanic devotes each Monday alongside a fellow worker, standing outside a Tesla garage on an industrial park in Malmö. The labor organization, IF Metall, provides shelter in the form of a portable builders' van, plus coffee and light meals.

But it remains business as usual across the road, at which the workshop seems to be at full capacity.

The strike concerns an issue that goes to the heart of Swedish labor traditions – the right of trade unions to bargain for wages & conditions on behalf of their members. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has supported labor dynamics across the nation for almost a century.

Today some 70% of Scandinavia's employees are members to labor organizations, while ninety percent are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes across the nation are rare.

This is an arrangement welcomed across the board. "We favor the right to bargain freely with the unions and establish labor contracts," states a business representative from the Association of Swedish Businesses employer group.

However the electric car company has disrupted the apple cart. Vocal CEO the company leader has stated he "disagrees" with the concept of unions. "I simply don't like any arrangement which creates a kind of hierarchical sort of thing," he told an audience at an event last year. "I think labor groups try to generate negativity in a company."

Tesla entered the Scandinavian market back in 2014, while IF Metall has long wanted to establish a collective agreement with the automaker.

"Yet they did not reply," says Marie Nilsson, the union's president. "And we got the impression that they attempted to hide away or evade discussing this with our representatives."

She says the union eventually saw no alternative except to call industrial action, beginning on 27 October, 2023. "Typically the threat suffices to issue the threat," comments Ms Nilsson. "The company typically agrees to the contract."

However this did not happen on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, originally from Latvia, began employment for Tesla several years ago. He claims that pay and conditions were often subject to the whim of supervisors.

He recalls an evaluation meeting at which he says he was denied a salary increase because he was "not reaching company targets". Meanwhile, a coworker was reported to have been rejected for a pay rise due to having an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, not everyone went out on strike. The company had approximately one hundred thirty technicians working at the time the industrial action was initiated. The union states that today around 70 of its members are participating in the action.

Tesla has since replaced these with new workers, for which that has not occurred since the era of the Great Depression.

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

"It is not against the law, which is crucial to recognize. But it goes against all established practices. But Tesla shows no concern for conventions.

"They want to become convention challengers. Thus when anyone informs them, hey, you are violating a standard, they see that as praise."

The company's Swedish subsidiary refused requests for interview in an email citing "record vehicle shipments".

Indeed, the company has given just a single press discussion in the two years after the strike began.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", the executive, informed a financial publication that it suited the company more not to have a collective agreement, and instead "to work closely with the team and provide workers the best possible terms".

Mr Stark rejected that the decision not to enter a labor contract was determined at Tesla headquarters overseas. "We have authorization to make independent such decisions," he said.

The union is not completely isolated in this conflict. The strike has been supported by a number of other unions.

Port workers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Norway & Finland, are refusing to handle Teslas; waste is not removed from Tesla's Swedish facilities; while newly built charging stations are not being connected to power networks in the country.

Exists an example close to Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which twenty chargers remain unused. However Tibor Blomhäll, the president of an owner's club the Swedish Tesla association, states vehicle owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There exists another charging station 10km from this location," he comments. "Plus we are able to continue to purchase vehicles, we can service our cars, we can charge our electric cars."

With consequences significant on both sides, it's hard to see an end to the stand-off. IF Metall risks setting a precedent if it concedes the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

"The concern is that this could expand," states the researcher, "and eventually {erode