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Across Sweden, approximately 70 car mechanics persist to challenge one of the world's richest companies – Tesla. This industrial action targeting the US automaker's ten Scandinavian repair facilities has currently reached two years of duration, with minimal sign for a settlement.

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

"It's a tough time," remarks the 39-year-old. And as the nation's chilly seasonal conditions sets in, it is expected to become even tougher.

The mechanic devotes every start of the week with a fellow worker, standing near an electric vehicle garage on an industrial park located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides accommodation via a portable builders' van, plus coffee & light meals.

However it remains business as usual across the road, where the service facility appears to be in full swing.

The strike concerns an issue that goes to the core of Scandinavia's labor traditions – the authority for worker organizations to bargain for pay and working terms on behalf of their members. This principle of collective agreement has underpinned labor dynamics across the nation for almost a century.

Currently approximately seventy percent of Scandinavia's workers are members of a trade union, and ninety percent fall under by a collective agreement. Labor stoppages in Sweden are rare.

This is a system welcomed by all parties. "We favor the ability to negotiate freely with worker representatives and establish labor contracts," says a business representative from the Association of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

But the electric car company has disrupted the apple cart. Outspoken chief executive Elon Musk has said he "opposes" with the concept of unions. "I simply don't like anything that establishes a sort of hierarchical sort of thing," he informed an audience at an event last year. "I think labor groups try to create conflict in a company."

Tesla entered the Scandinavian market back in 2014, and the metalworkers' union has long sought to establish a labor contract with the automaker.

"But they did not respond," states the union president, the union's leader. "We formed the belief that they attempted to hide away or not discuss this with our representatives."

She says the organization eventually saw no alternative except to announce industrial action, beginning on 27 October, last year. "Typically it's enough to issue a warning," comments Ms Nilsson. "Employers usually signs the agreement."

However not in this case.

The striking mechanic, originally of Latvian origin, began employment for Tesla several years ago. He claims that pay and work terms were often subject to the discretion of supervisors.

He remembers an evaluation meeting where he states he was denied a salary increase on grounds he was "failing to meet Tesla's goals". Meanwhile, a coworker was reported to have been rejected for increased compensation because he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, not everyone participated in the industrial action. The company had approximately 130 technicians working at the time the industrial action was called. IF Metall states currently around 70 of their represented workers are on strike.

Tesla has since replaced the striking workers with replacement staff, for which there is not occurred since the era of the Great Depression.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly & systematically," states a labor researcher, a researcher at a research institute, a policy organization financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It's not against the law, which is crucial to recognize. But it violates all traditional practices. But Tesla doesn't care about norms.

"They want to be convention challengers. So if anyone tells them, listen, you are violating a standard, they perceive this as praise."

The company's local division refused attempts for interview via correspondence mentioning "record vehicle shipments".

In fact, the company has granted just a single press discussion in the two years since the strike started.

In March 2024, the local division's "national manager, the executive, informed a business paper that it suited the organization more to avoid a union contract, and rather "to work closely with the team and provide workers optimal conditions".

The executive denied that the decision to avoid a collective agreement was determined by US leadership in the US. "We have authorization to take independent such decisions," he said.

The union is not completely alone in its fight. This industrial action has received backing from several of labor organizations.

Dockworkers in neighbouring Denmark, Nordic countries & neighboring states, are refusing to process Teslas; rubbish is no longer collected from Tesla's Swedish facilities; while recently constructed charging stations remain connected to the grid in the country.

Exists one such facility near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, where twenty charging units stand idle. But Tibor Blomhäll, the president of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, says vehicle owners are unaffected by the strike.

"There exists another charging station six miles from this location," he says. "And we can continue to buy our cars, we can maintain our cars, we can charge our cars."

With stakes high on both sides, it's hard to see a resolution to the stand-off. The union risks establishing a pattern if it concedes the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

"The worry is how this could expand," states the researcher, "and eventually {erode