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Across Sweden, approximately seventy automotive mechanics persist to confront one of the globe's richest corporations – Tesla. This industrial action at the US automaker's 10 Scandinavian repair facilities has currently entered two years of duration, and there is minimal indication of a resolution.

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

"It has been a tough time," remarks the worker in his late thirties. With the nation's chilly seasonal conditions sets in, it's likely to grow more challenging.

Janis devotes each Monday with a colleague, positioned outside an electric vehicle garage within an industrial park located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides accommodation in the form of a mobile construction vehicle, plus coffee and light meals.

But it remains operations continue normally nearby, at which the service facility seems to be in full swing.

This industrial action concerns an issue that reaches to the heart of Scandinavia's labor traditions – the right for worker organizations to bargain for wages and working terms on behalf of their members. This principle of collective agreement has supported industrial relations in Sweden for nearly a century.

Currently some seventy percent of Swedish workers belong of a trade union, and ninety percent fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes in Sweden are rare.

This is an arrangement welcomed by all parties. "We favor the right to negotiate directly with the unions and sign collective agreements," states Mattias Dahl from the Association of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

But Tesla has disrupted the apple cart. Vocal CEO Elon Musk has stated he "disagrees" with the idea of labor organizations. "I just don't like any arrangement that establishes a sort of lords and peasants sort of thing," he told listeners in New York last year. "In my view labor groups attempt to create negativity within businesses."

Tesla entered the Scandinavian market starting in 2014, and the metalworkers' union has long wanted to secure a collective agreement with the company.

"Yet they did not reply," says Marie Nilsson, the organization's president. "And we got the impression that they attempted to avoid or not discuss the matter with us."

She states the union ultimately saw no alternative except to announce a strike, beginning on 27 October, 2023. "Usually the threat suffices to issue a warning," comments the union leader. "Employers typically signs the agreement."

But this did not happen in this case.

The striking mechanic, who is from Latvia, began employment with the automaker several years ago. He claims that wages & work terms frequently dependent on the discretion of managers.

He recalls an evaluation meeting where he says he was denied an annual pay rise on grounds he was "failing to meet company targets". Meanwhile, a colleague was reported to have been rejected for increased compensation due to he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, some workers went out on strike. Tesla had approximately 130 technicians working at the time the industrial action was initiated. The union states currently approximately seventy of their represented workers are on strike.

Tesla has long since substituted the striking workers with new workers, for which there is not occurred since the Great Depression.

"The company has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly & systematically," says a labor researcher, a researcher at Arena Idé, a think tank financed by Swedish trade unions.

"It is not illegal, this being important to understand. However it goes against all established norms. But Tesla shows no concern about norms.

"They aim to become convention challengers. Thus when anyone tells them, hey, you are violating a norm, they see this as a compliment."

The company's local division declined requests for comment via correspondence mentioning "all-time high vehicle shipments".

In fact, the automaker has granted only one press discussion in the two years since the strike started.

In March 2024, the local division's "country lead", the executive, told a financial publication that it suited the organization better not to have a union contract, and rather "to work closely with the team and give workers optimal terms".

Mr Stark rejected that the choice to avoid a collective agreement was determined by US leadership overseas. "We have authorization to make independent such decisions," he stated.

The union is not completely alone in its fight. This industrial action has been supported from several of other unions.

Port workers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Norway and Finland, decline to handle Teslas; rubbish is not removed from Tesla's Swedish facilities; and recently constructed power points remain linked to the grid across the nation.

Exists one such facility near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which 20 charging units remain unused. But Tibor Blomhäll, the leader of an owner's club the Swedish Tesla association, states Tesla owners are unaffected by the strike.

"There exists an alternative power point six miles from this location," he says. "Plus we are able to continue to buy our cars, we can service our vehicles, we can power our electric cars."

With stakes significant on both sides, it is difficult to envision an end to the stand-off. IF Metall risks setting a precedent should it surrender the principle of negotiated labor contracts.

"The concern is how that would spread," says the researcher, "and ultimately {erode