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In Sweden, around seventy car technicians persist to confront among the globe's richest companies – Tesla. The labor strike at the American automaker's 10 Swedish service centers has now entered its second anniversary, with minimal sign of a resolution.

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

"It's a tough period," states the worker in his late thirties. With the nation's cold winter weather arrives, it is expected to become even tougher.

The mechanic devotes each Monday with a colleague, standing near an electric vehicle garage within a business district in Malmö. The labor organization, IF Metall, provides accommodation in the form of a mobile construction vehicle, plus hot beverages and sandwiches.

However it's business as usual across the road, at which the service facility appears to be in full swing.

This industrial action involves a matter that goes to the core of Swedish industrial culture – the authority of trade unions to negotiate wages and conditions representing their workforce. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has supported industrial relations in Sweden for nearly one hundred years.

Currently some seventy percent of Swedish employees belong of a trade union, and 90% are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages in Sweden are rare.

It's a system supported by all parties. "We favor the right to bargain freely with the unions and sign labor contracts," states Mattias Dahl from the Association of Swedish Businesses business organization.

But the electric car company has upset established practices. Vocal CEO the company leader has said he "disagrees" with the idea of unions. "I simply disapprove of any arrangement which creates a kind of lords and peasants sort of thing," he told an audience at an event in 2023. "In my view labor groups try to create negativity within businesses."

The automaker entered the Scandinavian market back in the mid-2010s, while the metalworkers' union has long sought to secure a labor contract with the automaker.

"Yet they did not respond," states Marie Nilsson, the organization's leader. "We formed the impression that they attempted to hide away or evade discussing the matter with our representatives."

She states the organization eventually found no alternative except to announce a strike, which started in late October, 2023. "Usually it's enough to make a warning," says the union leader. "The company typically agrees to the agreement."

But not on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, who is from Latvia, began employment for Tesla several years ago. He asserts that pay and work terms were often dependent on the discretion of managers.

He remembers a performance review at which he says he was refused a salary increase on grounds he was "failing to meet company targets". Meanwhile, a coworker was reported to have been rejected for a pay rise due to having an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, not everyone went out on strike. Tesla employed approximately 130 mechanics employed at the time the strike was called. The union says that today approximately seventy of their represented workers are participating in the action.

The automaker has long since substituted these with replacement staff, for which that has not occurred since the era of the 1930s.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly & systematically," says German Bender, an analyst at Arena Idé, a policy organization financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

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

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

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary refused attempts for interview in an email citing "all-time high deliveries".

Indeed, the company has given only one press discussion in the two years after the strike began.

Earlier this year, the local division's "country lead", Jens Stark, informed a business paper that it benefited the organization better to avoid a collective agreement, and instead "to work closely with employees and provide workers optimal terms".

Mr Stark denied that the decision not to enter a collective agreement was determined at Tesla headquarters in the US. "Our division possesses a mandate to make our own such choices," he stated.

The union is not entirely isolated in its fight. This industrial action has received backing from several of labor organizations.

Port workers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries and neighboring states, decline to process the company's vehicles; rubbish is not collected from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; and recently constructed charging stations are not being connected to power networks in the country.

There is an example close to the capital's airport, where 20 chargers stand idle. However Tibor Blomhäll, the president of an owner's club the Swedish Tesla association, says Tesla owners remain unaffected by the strike.

"There exists another charging station six miles from this location," he comments. "Plus we are able to still buy our cars, we can maintain our vehicles, we can power our electric cars."

With stakes high for all parties, it's hard to envision a resolution to the stand-off. IF Metall risks establishing a pattern if it concedes the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

"The worry is that this could expand," says the researcher, "and ultimately {erode