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In Sweden, approximately 70 automotive mechanics continue to confront one of the world's richest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This labor strike at the American carmaker's 10 Swedish repair facilities has now reached its second anniversary, with minimal sign for a resolution.

One striking worker has been on the electric car company's protest line since October 2023.

"It has been a difficult period," remarks the 39-year-old. With the nation's cold seasonal conditions sets in, it's likely to grow even tougher.

The mechanic spends each Monday with a colleague, positioned near an electric vehicle garage on an industrial park in Malmö. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides shelter in the form of a portable builders' van, plus hot beverages and sandwiches.

But it remains operations continue normally nearby, where the workshop appears to operate at full capacity.

The strike involves an issue that goes to the core of Swedish industrial culture – the right for worker organizations to negotiate pay & conditions on behalf of their members. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has supported labor dynamics in Sweden for almost a century.

Currently some 70% of Swedish workers belong of a trade union, while 90% fall under by a collective agreement. Strikes across the nation occur infrequently.

This is a system supported by all parties. "We favor the ability to negotiate freely with the unions and establish collective agreements," says a business representative from the Association of Swedish Businesses business organization.

However Tesla has upset established practices. Outspoken chief executive Elon Musk has said he "disagrees" with the idea of unions. "I just disapprove of anything which creates a kind of lords and peasants situation," he informed an audience at an event in 2023. "In my view labor groups attempt to generate negativity in a company."

The automaker entered the Scandinavian market starting in 2014, while the metalworkers' union has for years wanted to secure a labor contract with the automaker.

"Yet they did not respond," states the union president, the union's president. "And we got the impression that they attempted to hide away or evade discussing this with us."

She states the union eventually saw no other option than to call industrial action, beginning on 27 October, 2023. "Typically the threat suffices to issue a warning," comments Ms Nilsson. "Employers usually signs the agreement."

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 wages & work terms were often dependent on the discretion of managers.

He remembers a performance review at which he states he was refused an annual pay rise on grounds that he "failing to meet Tesla's goals". At the same time, a coworker was said to be turned down for increased compensation due to having the "wrong attitude".

However, not everyone participated on strike. Tesla had approximately 130 mechanics working at the time the industrial action was initiated. The union says currently around seventy of its members are on strike.

The automaker has since substituted these with replacement staff, a situation there is not occurred since the 1930s.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly and methodically," states a labor researcher, a researcher at a research institute, a think tank supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It's not illegal, this being crucial to understand. But it goes against all established practices. But Tesla doesn't care about norms.

"They aim to be convention challengers. Thus when somebody tells them, listen, you are violating a standard, they perceive this as praise."

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

Indeed, the company has given just a single press discussion during the entire period since the industrial action started.

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", the executive, told a financial publication that it suited the organization more not to have a collective agreement, and instead "to collaborate directly with the team and give them the best possible terms".

Mr Stark rejected that the choice to avoid a labor contract was one made by US leadership in the US. "Our division possesses authorization to take independent such decisions," he said.

The union is not completely isolated in this conflict. The strike has been supported by a number of labor organizations.

Port workers in nearby Denmark, Nordic countries and Finland, decline to handle Teslas; rubbish is no longer collected from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; and newly built charging stations remain connected to power networks across the nation.

Exists one such facility close to the capital's airport, where twenty chargers remain unused. But a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, says vehicle owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's an alternative power point 10km from here," he says. "Plus we are able to continue to buy our cars, we can service our cars, we can power our cars."

With stakes high on both sides, it's hard to see an end to the deadlock. The union faces the danger of establishing a pattern should it surrender the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

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