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Across Sweden, around 70 car technicians continue to challenge one of the world's richest companies – Tesla. The labor strike at the American carmaker's 10 Scandinavian service centers has now reached its second anniversary, and there is minimal indication for a resolution.

One striking worker has been at the electric car company's picket line starting from the autumn of 2023.

"It has been a tough period," remarks the 39-year-old. And as the nation's chilly seasonal conditions sets in, it is expected to grow more challenging.

The mechanic devotes every start of the week with a fellow worker, standing outside an electric vehicle service center within a business district located in southern Sweden. His union, IF Metall, supplies shelter via a portable builders' van, as well as hot beverages & light meals.

But it remains operations continue normally across the road, at which the workshop seems to operate in full swing.

This industrial action involves a matter that reaches to the heart of Swedish industrial culture – the right of trade unions to negotiate wages & conditions representing their workforce. This principle of collective agreement has supported industrial relations in Sweden for almost one hundred years.

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

It's a system welcomed across the board. "We prefer the right to bargain directly with the unions and establish collective agreements," states a business representative of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

But Tesla has upset established practices. Vocal chief executive Elon Musk has stated he "opposes" with the idea of labor organizations. "I just don't like anything which creates a sort of lords and peasants situation," he informed an audience at an event in 2023. "In my view the unions try to create negativity within businesses."

Tesla came to Sweden back in the mid-2010s, and the metalworkers' union has long sought to secure a collective agreement with the automaker.

"But they wouldn't respond," says the union president, the union's president. "And we got the impression that they tried to hide away or evade discussing this with our representatives."

She states the organization eventually found no other option except to announce a strike, beginning on 27 October, 2023. "Typically it's enough to issue the threat," comments the union leader. "Employers usually signs the contract."

However this did not happen in this case.

Janis Kuzma, who is of Latvian origin, started working with the automaker in 2021. He asserts that pay & conditions were often subject to the whim of managers.

He remembers a performance review at which he states he was denied an annual pay rise because he was "failing to meet company targets". Meanwhile, a colleague was said to have been rejected for a pay rise because having an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, not everyone went out in the industrial action. Tesla had approximately 130 technicians working at the time the industrial action was called. IF Metall says currently around seventy of their represented workers are participating in the action.

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

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly and methodically," states a labor researcher, an analyst at a research institute, a policy organization supported by Swedish trade unions.

"It's not illegal, this being important to recognize. But it violates all traditional norms. But Tesla doesn't care about norms.

"They aim to become norm breakers. So if anyone informs them, hey, you are violating a norm, they see that as a compliment."

The company's Swedish subsidiary refused attempts for comment in an email citing "record vehicle shipments".

In fact, the company has granted just a single media interview during the entire period after the strike started.

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", the executive, informed a business paper that it suited the organization more to avoid a union contract, and instead "to collaborate directly with the team and provide them the best possible conditions".

Mr Stark denied that the decision to avoid a collective agreement was determined by US leadership overseas. "Our division possesses authorization to make our own such choices," he said.

IF Metall is not completely isolated in its fight. This industrial action has been supported from several of labor organizations.

Dockworkers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries and neighboring states, are refusing to handle Teslas; waste is no longer removed from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; while recently constructed charging stations are not being connected to the grid across the nation.

Exists an example near the capital's airport, at which 20 chargers remain unused. But a Tesla enthusiast, the president of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, states vehicle owners are unaffected by the strike.

"There exists another charging station six miles from here," he says. "And we can still buy our cars, we can service our vehicles, we can charge our electric cars."

With stakes significant for all parties, it is difficult to see a resolution to the stand-off. The union risks setting a precedent should it surrender the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

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