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Across Sweden, approximately seventy car mechanics continue to confront among the world's richest companies – Tesla. The labor strike at the US carmaker's ten Scandinavian service centers has now reached two years of duration, with minimal indication of a settlement.

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

"It has been a difficult time," remarks the 39-year-old. And as Sweden's chilly seasonal conditions sets in, it's likely to become more challenging.

The mechanic devotes every start of the week alongside a fellow worker, positioned outside a Tesla service center within a business district in Malmö. The labor organization, IF Metall, supplies shelter via a mobile construction vehicle, as well as coffee & sandwiches.

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

This industrial action involves an issue that goes to the core of Scandinavia's industrial culture – the authority of trade unions to negotiate pay and working terms representing their workforce. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned industrial relations across the nation for almost a century.

Today approximately 70% of Scandinavia's workers are members of a trade union, and ninety percent fall under by a collective agreement. Strikes in Sweden are rare.

This is an arrangement welcomed across the board. "We favor the ability to negotiate freely with the unions and sign labor contracts," states a business representative from the Association of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

But Tesla has upset established practices. Vocal CEO the company leader has said he "opposes" with the concept of labor organizations. "I just don't like anything which creates a sort of lords and peasants sort of thing," he informed listeners at an event in 2023. "In my view the unions try to create negativity in a company."

Tesla entered Sweden starting in the mid-2010s, while the metalworkers' union has for years sought to establish a collective agreement with the company.

"But they wouldn't reply," states Marie Nilsson, the organization's leader. "And we got the impression that they attempted to hide away or evade discussing this with us."

She says the union ultimately saw no other option than to call a strike, which started in late October, 2023. "Usually it's enough to make a warning," comments Ms Nilsson. "The company typically agrees to the contract."

However not in this case.

The striking mechanic, originally from Latvia, started working for Tesla several years ago. He claims that pay & conditions frequently dependent on the whim of supervisors.

He remembers an evaluation meeting where he says he was denied an annual pay rise on grounds he was "failing to meet Tesla's goals". At the same time, a colleague was reported to be rejected for increased compensation because having the "wrong attitude".

Nevertheless, some workers participated on strike. Tesla employed some 130 technicians working at the time the industrial action was called. The union states currently around seventy of their represented workers are participating in the action.

Tesla has long since replaced the striking workers with replacement staff, for which there is not occurred since the 1930s.

"Tesla has done it [found replacement staff] openly & methodically," says a labor researcher, a researcher at a research institute, a policy organization financed by Swedish trade unions.

"It is not illegal, which is important to recognize. However it goes against all established norms. Yet the company shows no concern for conventions.

"They want to be norm breakers. Thus when somebody informs them, listen, you are breaking a norm, they perceive this as a compliment."

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

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

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, Jens Stark, informed a business paper that it benefited the company more not to have a collective agreement, and rather "to work closely with the team and give workers optimal terms".

Mr Stark denied that the decision not to enter a labor contract was one made at Tesla headquarters in the US. "Our division possesses authorization to take our own such choices," he said.

The union is not completely alone in this conflict. This industrial action has received backing by a number of labor organizations.

Dockworkers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries & Finland, decline to handle Teslas; rubbish is no longer removed from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; while newly built charging stations are not being connected to the grid across the nation.

Exists an example near the capital's airport, where twenty chargers stand idle. But Tibor Blomhäll, the president of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, says Tesla owners remain unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's another charging station 10km from this location," he says. "And we can still purchase vehicles, we can maintain our vehicles, we can power our electric cars."

With stakes high on both sides, it is difficult to envision a resolution to the deadlock. The union faces the danger of setting a precedent if it concedes the principle of negotiated labor contracts.

"The concern is how this could expand," says the researcher, "and eventually {erode