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In Sweden, around 70 automotive mechanics persist to challenge one of the globe's wealthiest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The labor strike at the US carmaker's 10 Scandinavian service centers has now reached its second anniversary, and there is minimal sign for a settlement.

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

"It's a tough time," states the 39-year-old. And as Sweden's cold seasonal conditions arrives, it is expected to become more challenging.

The mechanic spends each Monday alongside a fellow worker, positioned outside an electric vehicle service center within an industrial park located in southern Sweden. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies accommodation via a mobile construction vehicle, as well as hot beverages & sandwiches.

However it remains operations continue normally across the road, where the service facility seems to be in full swing.

This industrial action concerns a matter that goes to the heart of Scandinavia's labor traditions – the right of trade unions to bargain for wages & conditions on behalf of their members. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has supported industrial relations in Sweden for almost a century.

Currently approximately seventy percent of Scandinavia's employees are members of a trade union, while ninety percent fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages across the nation are rare.

This is a system supported across the board. "We prefer the right to bargain freely with worker representatives and establish collective agreements," states a business representative from the Association of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

However the electric car company has upset established practices. Vocal chief executive Elon Musk has said he "opposes" with the concept of labor organizations. "I just disapprove of any arrangement which creates a kind of lords and peasants sort of thing," he told an audience in New York last year. "In my view the unions attempt to generate negativity in a company."

The automaker came to Sweden back in the mid-2010s, and IF Metall has for years sought to secure a collective agreement with the company.

"Yet they did not respond," states Marie Nilsson, the organization's leader. "And we got the belief that they attempted to hide away or not discuss this with us."

She states the organization eventually found no other option except to call industrial action, beginning in late October, last year. "Typically it's enough to make a warning," comments Ms Nilsson. "The company usually agrees to the contract."

But not on this occasion.

Janis Kuzma, originally of Latvian origin, started working for Tesla several years ago. He asserts that pay & work terms were often subject to the discretion of managers.

He recalls an evaluation meeting at which he says he was refused an annual pay rise because that he "failing to meet company targets". Meanwhile, a coworker was said to have been turned down for increased compensation due to he had the "wrong attitude".

Nevertheless, some workers went out in the industrial action. The company had some 130 technicians working when the industrial action was called. The union states currently around 70 of its members are participating in the action.

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

"The company has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly & systematically," states German Bender, a researcher at a research institute, a think tank supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not illegal, which is important to recognize. However it violates all established practices. Yet the company doesn't care about norms.

"They aim to be norm breakers. Thus when anyone tells them, hey, you are breaking a norm, they perceive this as praise."

The company's local division refused attempts for interview in an email mentioning "all-time high deliveries".

In fact, the company has given just a single press discussion in the two years after the industrial action started.

Earlier this year, the local division's "national manager, the executive, told a financial publication that it suited the company more not to have a union contract, and instead "to collaborate directly with the team and give workers the best possible conditions".

Mr Stark rejected that the choice not to enter a labor contract was determined by US leadership in the US. "Our division possesses a mandate to take independent such decisions," he stated.

IF Metall is not entirely alone in this conflict. This industrial action has been supported from several of labor organizations.

Dockworkers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries & neighboring states, decline to process Teslas; waste is no longer removed from Tesla's Swedish facilities; while newly built charging stations remain connected to the grid in the country.

There is one such facility close to Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which twenty chargers stand idle. But a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of an owner's club the Swedish Tesla association, states Tesla owners are unaffected by the strike.

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

With consequences high on both sides, it's hard to envision an end to the stand-off. The union risks setting a precedent if it concedes the principle of collective agreement.

"The concern is how this could expand," states the researcher, "and ultimately {erode