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Across Sweden, approximately 70 car technicians continue to confront among the world's wealthiest companies – Tesla. The labor strike at the US carmaker's ten Scandinavian service centers has now entered two years of duration, with minimal indication of a resolution.

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

"It's a difficult period," states the worker in his late thirties. With Sweden's chilly seasonal conditions sets in, it's likely to become more challenging.

The mechanic spends each Monday with a fellow worker, standing outside a Tesla garage within a business district located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies shelter via a portable builders' van, as well as hot beverages & light meals.

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

This industrial action involves a matter that goes to the core of Swedish labor traditions – the right of trade unions to negotiate pay and conditions representing their members. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has supported labor dynamics in Sweden for nearly one hundred years.

Currently some 70% of Scandinavia's employees belong of a trade union, and 90% fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes in Sweden are rare.

This is a system welcomed by all parties. "We prefer the ability to bargain freely with the unions and sign labor contracts," says Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

But the electric car company has disrupted established practices. Outspoken chief executive Elon Musk has said he "opposes" with the idea of labor organizations. "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 generate negativity in a company."

The automaker entered the Scandinavian market back in the mid-2010s, and IF Metall has for years wanted to secure a labor contract with the company.

"But they did not reply," states Marie Nilsson, the union's leader. "We formed the impression that they attempted to avoid or not discuss the matter with our representatives."

She says the union ultimately found no alternative except to announce a strike, beginning in late October, last year. "Usually the threat suffices to issue a warning," comments Ms Nilsson. "Employers usually agrees to the agreement."

But not on this occasion.

Janis Kuzma, who is from Latvia, started working for Tesla in 2021. He claims that wages & work terms frequently subject to the discretion of managers.

He remembers a performance review where he says he was denied an annual pay rise on grounds that he "failing to meet company targets". Meanwhile, a coworker was said to have been rejected for increased compensation because having an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, not everyone went out on strike. Tesla had approximately one hundred thirty mechanics employed at the time the industrial action was initiated. The union says that today approximately seventy of its members are participating in the action.

The automaker has since replaced the striking workers with new workers, a situation there is not occurred since the 1930s.

"The company has done it [found replacement staff] openly & methodically," says a labor researcher, an analyst at Arena Idé, a policy organization supported by Swedish trade unions.

"It's not illegal, which is crucial to understand. However it goes against all established norms. Yet Tesla shows no concern about norms.

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

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary declined attempts for comment via correspondence mentioning "all-time high vehicle shipments".

Indeed, the company has given just a single press discussion in the two years since the industrial action started.

Earlier this year, the local division's "country lead", Jens Stark, told a financial publication that it benefited the organization better to avoid a union contract, and instead "to collaborate directly with the team and provide workers the best possible terms".

Mr Stark denied that the decision not to enter a labor contract was determined by US leadership overseas. "We have a mandate to make independent such choices," he said.

The union is not entirely alone in this conflict. The strike has been supported from several of labor organizations.

Dockworkers in neighbouring Denmark, Norway & Finland, are refusing to handle the company's vehicles; waste is no longer removed from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; and recently constructed charging stations remain linked to power networks across the nation.

Exists one such facility close to the capital's airport, where twenty chargers stand idle. But Tibor Blomhäll, the president of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, says vehicle owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There exists another charging station six miles from here," he comments. "And we can continue to purchase vehicles, we can service our vehicles, we can power our cars."

With consequences high on both sides, it is difficult to see a resolution to the deadlock. The union risks establishing a pattern if it concedes the principle of collective agreement.

"The worry is that that would spread," states Mr Bender, "and ultimately {erode