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Across Sweden, approximately seventy automotive technicians continue to confront one of the world's richest companies – Tesla. The labor strike targeting the US automaker's 10 Scandinavian service centers has currently entered two years of duration, with little indication of a settlement.

One striking worker has been on the Tesla picket line since October 2023.

"It has been a tough time," states the worker in his late thirties. And as the nation's chilly seasonal conditions arrives, it's likely to grow more challenging.

Janis spends every start of the week with a colleague, standing outside a Tesla garage on an industrial park in Malmö. His union, IF Metall, provides shelter in the form of a portable construction vehicle, plus hot beverages & light meals.

But it's business as usual across the road, where the service facility seems to operate at full capacity.

This industrial action involves a matter that goes to the core of Scandinavia's industrial culture – the authority for worker organizations to bargain for pay and working terms on behalf of their workforce. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned industrial relations in Sweden for almost a century.

Currently some 70% of Swedish workers are members to labor organizations, while 90% fall under by a collective agreement. Strikes across the nation occur infrequently.

It's an arrangement welcomed by all parties. "We favor the ability to negotiate directly with worker representatives and sign collective agreements," says Mattias Dahl from the Association of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

However Tesla has disrupted the apple cart. Outspoken chief executive Elon Musk has stated he "disagrees" with the concept of labor organizations. "I simply disapprove of any arrangement that establishes a kind of hierarchical sort of thing," he told an audience in New York last year. "I think the unions try to create negativity within businesses."

Tesla came to the Scandinavian market back in 2014, while IF Metall has long wanted to establish a labor contract with the company.

"Yet they wouldn't respond," states Marie Nilsson, the organization's leader. "And we got the belief that they tried to hide away or evade discussing this with us."

She says the union ultimately saw no other option except to announce a strike, beginning in late October, last year. "Usually the threat suffices to make a warning," comments Ms Nilsson. "Employers typically agrees to the agreement."

But this did not happen on this occasion.

Janis Kuzma, originally of Latvian origin, started working with the automaker several years ago. He claims that wages and work terms were often subject to the discretion of supervisors.

He remembers a performance review at which he says he was denied a salary increase on grounds that he "not reaching Tesla's goals". At the same time, a colleague was said to be rejected for increased compensation because he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, not everyone participated in the industrial action. The company employed some 130 mechanics working when the industrial action was called. IF Metall states that today around 70 of their represented workers are on strike.

Tesla has long since substituted the striking workers with new workers, a situation that has not occurred since the Great Depression.

"The company has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly & methodically," states a labor researcher, a researcher at a research institute, a policy organization financed by Swedish trade unions.

"It's not against the law, this being crucial to recognize. However it violates all established practices. But the company doesn't care about norms.

"They aim to be convention challengers. So if anyone informs them, listen, you are breaking a norm, they perceive this as a compliment."

The company's Swedish subsidiary declined requests for interview in an email mentioning "record vehicle shipments".

In fact, the automaker has given just a single press discussion in the two years since the industrial action began.

Earlier this year, the local division's "national manager, Jens Stark, informed a business paper that it suited the company more to avoid a union contract, and instead "to collaborate directly with the team and give workers the best possible terms".

The executive denied that the choice to avoid a labor contract was one made at Tesla headquarters overseas. "We have a mandate to take our own such choices," he said.

IF Metall is not completely alone in this conflict. The strike has received backing from several of labor organizations.

Port workers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Norway & neighboring states, are refusing to handle Teslas; waste is not collected from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; and recently constructed power points are not being linked to the grid across the nation.

Exists an example near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which 20 chargers remain unused. However Tibor Blomhäll, the president of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, says Tesla owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's another charging station six miles from here," he says. "And we can continue to purchase vehicles, we can service our vehicles, we can power our electric cars."

With stakes high on both sides, it is difficult to see an end to the deadlock. The union risks establishing a pattern if it concedes the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

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