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In Sweden, approximately 70 car mechanics continue to challenge among the globe's wealthiest companies – Tesla. This labor strike targeting the US carmaker's 10 Scandinavian service centers has now entered two years of duration, and there is minimal sign of a resolution.

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

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

The mechanic devotes every start of the week alongside a fellow worker, standing near a Tesla service center within an industrial park in Malmö. His union, IF Metall, supplies accommodation in the form of a portable builders' van, plus coffee & sandwiches.

But it remains business as usual nearby, where the workshop appears to be at full capacity.

The strike involves a matter that reaches to the core of Swedish labor traditions – the right of trade unions to bargain for wages & working terms representing their members. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has supported labor dynamics across the nation for almost one hundred years.

Today some 70% of Swedish workers belong of a trade union, while 90% fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes across the nation occur infrequently.

This is a system supported across the board. "We favor the ability to negotiate directly with worker representatives and establish collective agreements," says Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Businesses employer group.

But Tesla has upset established practices. Vocal chief executive Elon Musk has stated he "opposes" with the concept of unions. "I simply disapprove of any arrangement which creates a kind of hierarchical sort of thing," he told listeners in New York last year. "In my view the unions attempt to create negativity in a company."

The automaker entered Sweden starting in 2014, and the metalworkers' union has for years sought to secure a labor contract with the company.

"Yet they did not respond," states Marie Nilsson, the union's president. "And we got the belief that they tried to avoid or not discuss this with us."

She states the union ultimately saw no other option except to call industrial action, which started in late October, 2023. "Typically it's enough to issue the threat," comments Ms Nilsson. "Employers usually signs the contract."

But not in this case.

Janis Kuzma, who is from Latvia, started working with the automaker in 2021. He asserts that pay & conditions frequently dependent on the discretion of managers.

He remembers an evaluation meeting at which he says he was denied a salary increase on grounds that he "not reaching Tesla's goals". At the same time, a colleague was reported to have been rejected for a pay rise because having an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, some workers went out on strike. The company had approximately 130 technicians employed at the time the industrial action was called. IF Metall states that today around seventy of its members are on strike.

The automaker has since substituted the striking workers with new workers, a situation that has no precedent since the Great Depression.

"The company has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly and systematically," says a labor researcher, an analyst at Arena Idé, a policy organization supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It's not against the law, this being crucial to understand. However it violates all traditional practices. But Tesla doesn't care for conventions.

"They aim to become convention challengers. Thus when somebody tells them, hey, you are violating a norm, they see this as a compliment."

The company's Swedish subsidiary refused attempts for interview via correspondence mentioning "all-time high vehicle shipments".

In fact, the automaker has granted only one press discussion in the two years after the industrial action started.

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", the executive, informed a business paper that it benefited the organization more not to have a union contract, and rather "to work closely with employees and provide them the best possible conditions".

Mr Stark denied that the decision not to enter a collective agreement was one made by US leadership in the US. "We have a mandate to make our own such decisions," he said.

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

Dockworkers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries and neighboring states, are refusing to handle the company's vehicles; waste is no longer collected from Tesla's Swedish facilities; while recently constructed charging stations remain connected to power networks in the country.

Exists an example near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which twenty charging units stand idle. But Tibor Blomhäll, the president of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, says vehicle owners remain unaffected by the strike.

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

With stakes significant for all parties, it's hard to envision a resolution to the deadlock. The union faces the danger of establishing a pattern should it surrender the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

"The concern is that that would spread," says the researcher, "and ultimately {erode