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Across Sweden, around 70 automotive technicians persist to confront one of the globe's richest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This labor strike at the American automaker's 10 Scandinavian repair facilities has currently reached its second anniversary, and there is little indication for a settlement.

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

"It's a tough time," remarks the worker in his late thirties. And as the nation's cold winter weather sets in, it's likely to grow more challenging.

Janis spends every start of the week alongside a colleague, positioned near an electric vehicle garage on an industrial park in Malmö. The labor organization, IF Metall, provides accommodation via a mobile construction vehicle, plus hot beverages and sandwiches.

However it's operations continue normally across the road, where the service facility appears to be in full swing.

This industrial action concerns a matter that goes to the heart of Scandinavia's industrial culture – the right of trade unions to bargain for pay and conditions representing their workforce. This principle of collective agreement has underpinned labor dynamics in Sweden for nearly one hundred years.

Today some seventy percent of Swedish employees belong to labor organizations, and ninety percent are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages in Sweden are rare.

This is a system welcomed across the board. "We favor the right to negotiate directly with worker representatives and establish collective agreements," states a business representative from the Association of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

But Tesla has upset established practices. Outspoken chief executive the company leader has said he "opposes" with the idea of unions. "I simply disapprove of any arrangement that establishes a kind of hierarchical sort of thing," he told an audience at an event last year. "In my view the unions try to create conflict in a company."

The automaker came to the Scandinavian market back in the mid-2010s, and the metalworkers' union has for years wanted to establish a collective agreement with the company.

"Yet they did not respond," states the union president, the union's leader. "We formed the impression that they attempted to avoid or not discuss this with us."

She says the organization ultimately found no alternative than to call industrial action, which started in late October, last year. "Typically the threat suffices to make a warning," says the union leader. "The company typically agrees to the agreement."

But this did not happen in this case.

Janis Kuzma, originally from Latvia, began employment for Tesla in 2021. He claims that wages & conditions frequently subject to the discretion of supervisors.

He recalls a performance review at which he states he was refused a salary increase on grounds he was "not reaching Tesla's goals". Meanwhile, a coworker was reported to have been rejected for increased compensation because he had the "wrong attitude".

Nevertheless, some workers went out on strike. Tesla employed approximately one hundred thirty mechanics working at the time the strike was initiated. The union says currently around seventy of its members are on strike.

Tesla has long since replaced the striking workers with replacement staff, a situation there is not occurred since the era of the 1930s.

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

"It is not against the law, this being important to understand. But it violates all traditional norms. Yet the company doesn't care for conventions.

"They want to be norm breakers. Thus when somebody tells them, listen, you are breaking a standard, they perceive this as a compliment."

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

Indeed, the automaker has granted just a single press discussion during the entire period after the industrial action began.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", Jens Stark, told a business paper that it suited the company better to avoid a union contract, and rather "to work closely with the team and give them the best possible conditions".

Mr Stark rejected that the choice not to enter a collective agreement was one made at Tesla headquarters in the US. "Our division possesses a mandate to make independent such decisions," he said.

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

Dockworkers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Norway and neighboring states, decline to handle the company's vehicles; rubbish is no longer removed from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; while newly built charging stations are not being connected to power networks in the country.

Exists one such facility near the capital's airport, at which 20 charging units remain unused. But a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, states Tesla owners remain unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's an alternative power point 10km from here," he comments. "Plus we are able to continue to buy our cars, we can service our vehicles, we can power our electric cars."

With consequences high for all parties, it's hard to see a resolution to the deadlock. The union faces the danger of setting a precedent should it surrender the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

"The concern is how this could expand," states Mr Bender, "and ultimately {erode