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In Sweden, around seventy automotive technicians continue to challenge among the world's richest companies – Tesla. This labor strike at the American carmaker's ten Scandinavian repair facilities has currently entered its second anniversary, with minimal indication of a resolution.

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

"It's a tough time," remarks the worker in his late thirties. With Sweden's cold winter weather arrives, it is expected to grow more challenging.

Janis spends each Monday with a colleague, standing near an electric vehicle garage on an industrial park in Malmö. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides accommodation via a mobile builders' van, as well as hot beverages & sandwiches.

However it remains business as usual across the road, at which the workshop seems to be in full swing.

This industrial action involves an issue that reaches to the heart of Scandinavia's industrial culture – the authority for worker organizations to bargain for wages and conditions representing their members. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has supported labor dynamics across the nation for nearly one hundred years.

Today some 70% of Swedish workers belong of a trade union, and 90% are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages in Sweden are rare.

This is a system welcomed by all parties. "We favor the right to bargain directly with the unions and establish labor contracts," states a business representative of the Confederation of Swedish Businesses business organization.

But Tesla has upset the apple cart. Vocal chief executive Elon Musk has said he "disagrees" with the idea of unions. "I simply disapprove of any arrangement which creates a kind of hierarchical situation," he informed an audience at an event last year. "In my view labor groups attempt to create conflict within businesses."

The automaker entered Sweden starting in the mid-2010s, and the metalworkers' union has long wanted to secure a collective agreement with the automaker.

"Yet they did not reply," says Marie Nilsson, the union's president. "We formed the impression that they tried to avoid or evade discussing this with our representatives."

She states the organization ultimately found no alternative than to announce a strike, which started on 27 October, 2023. "Typically it's enough to issue a warning," says Ms Nilsson. "The company typically agrees to the agreement."

However this did not happen in this case.

The striking mechanic, who is of Latvian origin, started working with the automaker in 2021. He asserts that pay & work terms frequently dependent on the discretion of managers.

He remembers an evaluation meeting where he states he was refused a salary increase because that he "not reaching company targets". Meanwhile, a colleague was said to have been rejected for increased compensation due to he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, some workers participated on strike. The company had approximately one hundred thirty mechanics employed when the strike was called. IF Metall says that today approximately 70 of its members are participating in the action.

The automaker has long since substituted these with replacement staff, for which that has no precedent since the era of the Great Depression.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly & systematically," states a labor researcher, an analyst at Arena Idé, a think tank supported by Swedish trade unions.

"It's not against the law, this being important to understand. However it goes against all established norms. Yet the company doesn't care about norms.

"They want to become convention challengers. So if anyone informs them, listen, you are breaking a norm, they see this as a compliment."

The company's local division declined attempts for comment in an email mentioning "record vehicle shipments".

Indeed, the company has granted just a single press discussion during the entire period since the strike started.

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, the executive, informed a business paper that it suited the company more not to have a collective agreement, and instead "to work closely with employees and provide workers optimal conditions".

Mr Stark denied that the choice not to enter a collective agreement was determined at Tesla headquarters overseas. "We have a mandate to make independent such choices," he said.

IF Metall is not entirely alone in its fight. This industrial action has received backing from several of other unions.

Port workers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries & neighboring states, are refusing to handle the company's vehicles; waste is not collected from the automaker's Swedish facilities; and newly built charging stations are not being linked to power networks across the nation.

There is an example close to Stockholm Arlanda Airport, where twenty charging units stand idle. However a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, 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 service our cars, we can charge our electric cars."

With stakes high on both sides, it's hard to envision a resolution to the deadlock. IF Metall faces the danger of establishing a pattern if it concedes the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

"The worry is that this could expand," states Mr Bender, "and ultimately {erode