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In Sweden, around 70 automotive mechanics continue to confront one of the globe's richest companies – Tesla. This industrial action at the American automaker's 10 Swedish repair facilities has currently reached two years of duration, and there is minimal indication for a settlement.

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

"It has been a tough period," states the 39-year-old. With Sweden's cold winter weather arrives, it's likely to grow more challenging.

Janis spends every start of the week alongside a fellow worker, standing outside a Tesla service center within an industrial park located in southern Sweden. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides accommodation in the form of a mobile builders' van, plus hot beverages and sandwiches.

However it remains operations continue normally across the road, where the workshop appears to be at full capacity.

The strike involves a matter that goes to the heart of Scandinavia's labor traditions – the authority of trade unions to bargain for wages and conditions on behalf of their members. This principle of collective agreement has underpinned labor dynamics across the nation for nearly a century.

Today some 70% of Swedish workers are members of a trade union, and ninety percent fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages across the nation occur infrequently.

This is an arrangement welcomed by all parties. "We prefer the right to negotiate freely with the unions and establish collective agreements," states a business representative from the Association of Swedish Businesses business organization.

However Tesla has upset established practices. Outspoken CEO Elon Musk has said he "opposes" with the concept of unions. "I simply don't like any arrangement which creates a kind of hierarchical sort of thing," he told an audience in New York in 2023. "I think the unions try to create negativity in a company."

Tesla came to the Scandinavian market starting in the mid-2010s, while the metalworkers' union has long wanted to establish a labor contract with the automaker.

"Yet they wouldn't reply," states the union president, the union's leader. "And we got the impression that they tried to hide away or evade discussing the matter with our representatives."

She states the union ultimately saw no other option than to announce a strike, which started on 27 October, last year. "Typically it's enough to make a warning," comments Ms Nilsson. "Employers usually agrees to the contract."

However this did not happen in this case.

The striking mechanic, originally of Latvian origin, started working for Tesla several years ago. He claims that pay & conditions frequently dependent on the whim of supervisors.

He recalls an evaluation meeting where he says he was refused a salary increase on grounds that he "not reaching company targets". At the same time, a coworker was said to have been rejected for increased compensation due to having an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, not everyone went out in the industrial action. Tesla had some one hundred thirty mechanics employed when the industrial action was initiated. IF Metall states that today approximately seventy of their represented workers are on strike.

The automaker has long since substituted the striking workers with replacement staff, for which there is not occurred since the 1930s.

"The company has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly and systematically," says a labor researcher, an analyst at Arena Idé, a think tank supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It's not illegal, this being crucial to understand. But it goes against all traditional practices. But the company doesn't care for conventions.

"They aim to become norm breakers. So if anyone tells them, listen, you are violating a standard, they see that as praise."

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

Indeed, the company has granted just a single media interview during the entire period since the strike began.

In March 2024, the local division's "national manager, Jens Stark, told a financial publication that it benefited the company more not to have a collective agreement, and rather "to work closely with the team and provide them optimal conditions".

Mr Stark rejected that the choice not to enter a labor contract was determined at Tesla headquarters in the US. "Our division possesses authorization to make independent such decisions," he said.

IF Metall is not entirely isolated in this conflict. This industrial action has been supported by a number of other unions.

Dockworkers in nearby Denmark, Norway and Finland, decline to handle Teslas; waste is no longer collected from the automaker's Swedish facilities; while recently constructed power points are not being connected to the grid in the country.

There is one such facility near the capital's airport, at which twenty chargers stand idle. But a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, states vehicle owners remain unaffected by the strike.

"There exists an alternative power point six miles from this location," he comments. "Plus we are able to still purchase vehicles, we can maintain our cars, we can charge our cars."

With stakes high on both sides, it's hard to envision an end to the deadlock. The union faces the danger of establishing a pattern should it surrender the principle of collective agreement.

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