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Across Sweden, approximately seventy automotive technicians continue to confront one of the globe's wealthiest corporations – Tesla. The industrial action at the US automaker's ten Scandinavian repair facilities has now entered two years of duration, and there is little sign for a resolution.

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

"It has been a difficult period," states the 39-year-old. With the nation's cold seasonal conditions sets in, it is expected to become more challenging.

The mechanic devotes each Monday alongside a colleague, standing near an electric vehicle garage on an industrial park in Malmö. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides accommodation via a mobile construction vehicle, plus hot beverages & light meals.

However it's operations continue normally across the road, where the workshop seems to be at full capacity.

This industrial action concerns an issue that goes to the core of Scandinavia's industrial culture – the right for worker organizations to bargain for pay and working terms representing their workforce. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has supported industrial relations across the nation for almost a century.

Today approximately 70% of Scandinavia's employees are members to labor organizations, and 90% fall under by a collective agreement. Labor stoppages in Sweden are rare.

It's a system welcomed by all parties. "We prefer the right to negotiate directly with the unions and sign labor contracts," states Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

However the electric car company has upset established practices. Vocal chief executive the company leader has said he "opposes" with the idea of labor organizations. "I just don't like anything that establishes a sort of hierarchical sort of thing," he told an audience in New York in 2023. "In my view labor groups attempt to generate conflict within businesses."

Tesla came to the Scandinavian market back in 2014, and IF Metall has for years wanted to secure a collective agreement with the company.

"Yet they did not respond," says the union president, the union's leader. "We formed the impression that they tried to hide away or evade discussing this with us."

She says the union ultimately saw no alternative than to call industrial action, beginning on 27 October, last year. "Typically the threat suffices to issue a warning," comments the union leader. "The company typically signs the agreement."

But not on this occasion.

Janis Kuzma, originally from Latvia, started working for Tesla in 2021. He asserts that wages & work terms were often dependent on the discretion of supervisors.

He recalls an evaluation meeting at which he states he was denied a salary increase on grounds he was "failing to meet company targets". At the same time, a coworker was reported to have been turned down for a pay rise due to having an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, some workers went out on strike. Tesla had some one hundred thirty mechanics employed when the industrial action was called. IF Metall states currently approximately 70 of its members are on strike.

The automaker has since replaced the striking workers with replacement staff, a situation there is no precedent since the Great Depression.

"The company has done it [found replacement staff] openly & systematically," says a labor researcher, an analyst at Arena Idé, a think tank supported by Swedish trade unions.

"It is not against the law, which is crucial to understand. But it goes against all established practices. Yet Tesla doesn't care about norms.

"They want to be convention challengers. So if anyone tells them, hey, you are violating a standard, they perceive that as a compliment."

The company's local division refused requests for interview in an email mentioning "record vehicle shipments".

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

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", the executive, told a business paper that it benefited the organization more not to have a collective agreement, and rather "to collaborate directly with the team and give workers optimal conditions".

Mr Stark rejected that the choice to avoid a collective agreement was determined at Tesla headquarters overseas. "We have a mandate to make our own such decisions," he said.

The union is not entirely alone in this conflict. The strike has been supported from several of labor organizations.

Port workers in nearby Denmark, Nordic countries and Finland, decline to process Teslas; waste is no longer collected from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; and newly built charging stations are not being connected to the grid across the nation.

There is an example near the capital's airport, where twenty chargers remain unused. However Tibor Blomhäll, the president of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, says vehicle owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's an alternative power point 10km from this location," he says. "And we can continue to purchase vehicles, we can service our vehicles, we can charge our cars."

With stakes high on both sides, it's hard to envision an end to the stand-off. IF Metall faces the danger of setting a precedent should it surrender the principle of collective agreement.

"The concern is how that would spread," says Mr Bender, "and ultimately {erode