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Across Sweden, around 70 automotive mechanics persist to challenge among the globe's richest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This labor strike at the American carmaker's 10 Scandinavian service centers has currently reached two years of duration, with minimal indication for a settlement.

One striking worker has remained at the Tesla protest line since October 2023.

"It's a difficult time," states the worker in his late thirties. With Sweden's cold winter weather arrives, it's likely to become more challenging.

The mechanic spends every start of the week with a fellow worker, standing near a Tesla garage within an industrial park in Malmö. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides shelter in the form of a mobile construction vehicle, as well as coffee & light meals.

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

The strike concerns a matter that reaches to the core of Scandinavia's industrial culture – the right of trade unions to negotiate wages & working terms representing their workforce. This principle of collective agreement has supported industrial relations across the nation for almost a century.

Currently some seventy percent of Scandinavia's workers are members to labor organizations, while ninety percent fall under by a collective agreement. Strikes across the nation are rare.

This is an arrangement welcomed by all parties. "We prefer the ability to negotiate freely with the unions and sign labor contracts," states Mattias Dahl from the Association of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

But Tesla has upset established practices. Vocal chief executive Elon Musk has stated he "disagrees" with the idea of labor organizations. "I just don't like anything which creates a sort of hierarchical sort of thing," he informed listeners at an event in 2023. "I think the unions attempt to create negativity in a company."

Tesla came to Sweden back in 2014, while the metalworkers' union has for years wanted to secure a labor contract with the automaker.

"But they wouldn't respond," states Marie Nilsson, the organization's leader. "We formed the belief that they tried to avoid or not discuss the matter with our representatives."

She states the organization eventually found no alternative than to announce a strike, beginning in late October, 2023. "Usually it's enough to make a warning," comments Ms Nilsson. "The company usually agrees to the contract."

But this did not happen on this occasion.

Janis Kuzma, who is from Latvia, started working for Tesla several years ago. He asserts that wages & work terms frequently subject to the whim of supervisors.

He recalls an evaluation meeting at which he states he was refused an annual pay rise because he was "not reaching Tesla's goals". Meanwhile, a colleague was reported to have been turned down for increased compensation because he had the "wrong attitude".

However, not everyone went out on strike. The company employed approximately 130 mechanics working at the time the industrial action was initiated. IF Metall states currently around 70 of its members are on strike.

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

"Tesla has done it [found replacement staff] openly and systematically," states a labor researcher, a researcher at a research institute, a think tank financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

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

"They aim to be convention challengers. Thus when somebody informs them, hey, you are breaking a norm, they perceive that as praise."

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary declined requests for comment in an email citing "record deliveries".

Indeed, the company has granted just a single media interview in the two years since the industrial action started.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", the executive, informed a financial publication that it benefited the company better not to have a union contract, and instead "to work closely with employees and give them the best possible conditions".

Mr Stark rejected that the choice not to enter a collective agreement was one made at Tesla headquarters overseas. "Our division possesses a mandate to take independent such decisions," he said.

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

Dockworkers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Norway & Finland, decline to handle Teslas; waste is not removed from the automaker's Swedish facilities; and newly built charging stations are not being linked to power networks across the nation.

There is an example close to Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which twenty chargers stand idle. But a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, says vehicle owners remain unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's another charging station 10km from here," he comments. "And we can still buy our cars, we can maintain our vehicles, we can power our cars."

With consequences significant on both sides, it is difficult to see an end to the deadlock. IF Metall faces the danger of establishing a pattern should it surrender the principle of collective agreement.

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