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Across Sweden, around seventy automotive mechanics continue to challenge one of the world's wealthiest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This labor strike at the US automaker's 10 Scandinavian repair facilities has currently reached two years of duration, with minimal indication of a settlement.

One striking worker has been at the Tesla protest line since the autumn of 2023.

"It has been a difficult time," states the 39-year-old. And as the nation's cold seasonal conditions arrives, it's likely to grow more challenging.

The mechanic spends every start of the week with a colleague, positioned outside an electric vehicle service center within a business district located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies shelter via a portable construction vehicle, as well as hot beverages & light meals.

But it remains business as usual across the road, where the workshop seems to operate at full capacity.

The strike involves a matter that reaches to the core of Scandinavia's industrial culture – the authority of trade unions to negotiate wages & working terms representing their members. This concept of collective agreement has supported labor dynamics across the nation for nearly one hundred years.

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

This is an arrangement supported across the board. "We favor the right to bargain directly with worker representatives and establish labor contracts," says Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

But the electric car company has upset established practices. Outspoken CEO the company leader has said he "disagrees" with the idea of unions. "I simply disapprove of any arrangement that establishes a sort of lords and peasants sort of thing," he informed an audience at an event in 2023. "In my view labor groups attempt to generate conflict within businesses."

The automaker entered the Scandinavian market starting in the mid-2010s, and IF Metall has long sought to secure a labor contract with the automaker.

"Yet they wouldn't reply," says the union president, the union's president. "And we got the impression that they attempted to hide away or evade discussing the matter with our representatives."

She says the union ultimately saw no other option except to announce a strike, beginning on 27 October, last year. "Usually the threat suffices to issue a warning," comments the union leader. "Employers typically signs the agreement."

But not in this case.

The striking mechanic, who is from Latvia, started working for Tesla several years ago. He claims that pay & work terms were often dependent on the discretion of managers.

He remembers an evaluation meeting where he says he was denied an annual pay rise because he was "not reaching company targets". At the same time, a coworker was said to have been turned down for a pay rise because he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, some workers went out on strike. Tesla employed some 130 technicians working at the time the strike was initiated. The union states currently around 70 of their represented workers are on strike.

The automaker has long since replaced the striking workers with new workers, a situation there is not occurred since the 1930s.

"Tesla has done it [found replacement staff] openly & systematically," says a labor researcher, an analyst at a research institute, a think tank financed by Swedish trade unions.

"It is not against the law, which is important to understand. But it goes against all traditional norms. But the company shows no concern for conventions.

"They want to become convention challengers. Thus when anyone tells them, listen, you are violating a standard, they perceive that as a compliment."

The company's local division declined attempts for interview via correspondence citing "record vehicle shipments".

In fact, the automaker has given only one press discussion during the entire period since the strike began.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", the executive, told a business paper that it suited the company more not to have a union contract, and instead "to work closely with employees and provide them the best possible conditions".

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

IF Metall is not completely isolated in its fight. This industrial action has been supported from several of other unions.

Port workers in neighbouring Denmark, Nordic countries and neighboring states, decline to handle the company's vehicles; waste is not collected from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; and recently constructed power points are not being linked to the grid across the nation.

Exists an example near the capital's airport, where 20 chargers remain unused. But a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, states Tesla owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's an alternative power point 10km from here," he says. "And we can still purchase vehicles, we can maintain our vehicles, we can power our electric cars."

With consequences high on both sides, it is difficult to envision an end to the deadlock. The union risks setting a precedent should it surrender the principle of collective agreement.

"The worry is that this could expand," says Mr Bender, "and eventually {erode