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In Sweden, approximately seventy car mechanics continue to confront one of the world's richest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The industrial action targeting the US automaker's ten Swedish service centers has now entered two years of duration, with little indication for a settlement.

One striking worker has been at the Tesla protest line since October 2023.

"It has been a tough period," 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 each Monday alongside a fellow worker, positioned outside an electric vehicle service center within a business district located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, IF Metall, supplies accommodation via a portable construction vehicle, as well as coffee & sandwiches.

However it remains business as usual nearby, where the service facility seems to operate in full swing.

This industrial action involves a matter that reaches to the heart of Swedish industrial culture – the authority for worker organizations to bargain for pay and conditions on behalf of their members. This principle of collective agreement has underpinned labor dynamics in Sweden for nearly one hundred years.

Currently some 70% of Scandinavia's workers belong of a trade union, while 90% are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages across the nation occur infrequently.

This is an arrangement welcomed by all parties. "We favor the right to negotiate directly with worker representatives and sign labor contracts," states a business representative of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

However Tesla has upset established practices. Outspoken CEO the company leader has stated he "opposes" with the concept of unions. "I just disapprove of any arrangement that establishes a kind of lords and peasants sort of thing," he informed listeners in New York in 2023. "I think labor groups try to create negativity in a company."

Tesla entered Sweden starting in the mid-2010s, and the metalworkers' union has long sought to establish a collective agreement with the company.

"Yet they did not reply," says the union president, the union's president. "We formed the belief that they attempted to avoid or evade discussing the matter with our representatives."

She says the organization eventually found no other option except to announce industrial action, which started on 27 October, 2023. "Typically the threat suffices to issue a warning," comments Ms Nilsson. "Employers typically agrees to the contract."

But not in this case.

The striking mechanic, who is from Latvia, began employment with the automaker several years ago. He asserts that wages and conditions frequently 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 company targets". At the same time, a colleague was reported to have been rejected for increased compensation due to he had the "wrong attitude".

However, not everyone went out on strike. Tesla had approximately 130 technicians working at the time the strike was initiated. The union says that today around 70 of their represented workers are on strike.

Tesla has long since substituted the striking workers with replacement staff, a situation that has no precedent since the 1930s.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly and methodically," states German Bender, an analyst at a research institute, a policy organization financed by Swedish trade unions.

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

"They aim to be norm breakers. So if somebody informs them, listen, you are violating a norm, they perceive this as a compliment."

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary refused attempts for interview via correspondence citing "record vehicle shipments".

Indeed, the company has given only one media interview in the two years after the strike started.

Earlier this year, the local division's "country lead", the executive, told a financial publication that it suited the company better not to have a collective agreement, and instead "to collaborate directly with the team and provide workers optimal conditions".

The executive denied that the choice to avoid a labor contract was one made at Tesla headquarters in the US. "We have authorization to take our own such decisions," he said.

IF Metall is not completely isolated in its fight. This industrial action has been supported from several of labor organizations.

Dockworkers in nearby Denmark, Norway & Finland, decline to process Teslas; waste is no longer removed from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; while recently constructed power points remain connected to the grid in the country.

Exists one such facility close to the capital's airport, at which twenty chargers stand idle. However Tibor Blomhäll, the president of an owner's club the Swedish Tesla association, says Tesla owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There exists an alternative power point 10km from here," he says. "And we can still purchase vehicles, we can maintain our cars, we can charge our electric cars."

With stakes significant for all parties, it is difficult to envision a resolution to the deadlock. The union risks setting a precedent if it concedes the principle of collective agreement.

"The worry is how this could expand," says Mr Bender, "and ultimately {erode