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Across Sweden, around 70 car mechanics continue to challenge among the world's richest corporations – Tesla. The labor strike targeting the American carmaker's 10 Scandinavian service centers has currently reached two years of duration, with minimal indication of a settlement.

One striking worker has remained on the Tesla protest line starting from the autumn of 2023.

"It's a tough time," states the worker in his late thirties. With Sweden's chilly seasonal conditions sets in, it's likely to become even tougher.

The mechanic devotes every start of the week with a fellow worker, standing outside a Tesla garage on an industrial park in Malmö. His union, IF Metall, supplies shelter via a portable builders' van, plus hot beverages & light meals.

However it remains operations continue normally across the road, at which the service facility seems to operate at full capacity.

The strike concerns a matter that goes to the heart of Scandinavia's labor traditions – the authority for worker organizations to bargain for wages and working terms on behalf of their members. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has supported industrial relations in Sweden for nearly one hundred years.

Today approximately 70% of Scandinavia's employees are members to labor organizations, and ninety percent fall under by a collective agreement. Strikes across the nation occur infrequently.

It's a system supported by all parties. "We prefer the ability to negotiate freely with worker representatives and sign labor contracts," states Mattias Dahl from the Association of Swedish Businesses employer group.

However Tesla has disrupted established practices. Outspoken CEO the company leader has said he "opposes" with the concept of unions. "I simply disapprove of anything which creates a kind of lords and peasants sort of thing," he told listeners in New York last year. "In my view labor groups attempt to generate conflict within businesses."

Tesla came to Sweden starting in the mid-2010s, and the metalworkers' union has long sought to secure a labor contract with the automaker.

"Yet they wouldn't respond," states the union president, the organization's president. "And we got the impression that they tried to avoid or evade discussing this with our representatives."

She says the union ultimately saw no other option except to call a strike, beginning on 27 October, last year. "Usually the threat suffices to issue a warning," says the union leader. "The company typically signs the contract."

However not in this case.

Janis Kuzma, who is of Latvian origin, began employment with the automaker several years ago. He claims that wages & work terms were often dependent on the discretion of managers.

He recalls an evaluation meeting at which he states he was refused an annual pay rise on grounds he was "failing to meet Tesla's goals". Meanwhile, a coworker was reported to have been rejected for increased compensation due to having the "wrong attitude".

However, not everyone participated on strike. Tesla employed some 130 mechanics employed at the time the strike was called. IF Metall states that today approximately seventy of their represented workers are on strike.

Tesla has long since replaced these with new workers, for which that has no precedent since the 1930s.

"Tesla has done it [found replacement staff] openly and systematically," says German Bender, a researcher at Arena Idé, a think tank supported by Swedish trade unions.

"It is not illegal, this being crucial to recognize. But it goes against all established practices. But the company shows no concern for conventions.

"They want to become convention challengers. Thus when anyone tells them, hey, you are breaking a standard, they perceive this as praise."

The automaker's local division declined requests for interview via correspondence citing "all-time high vehicle shipments".

In fact, the company has given just a single press discussion during the entire period after the industrial action started.

Earlier this year, the local division's "country lead", Jens Stark, told a financial publication that it benefited the organization better to avoid a collective agreement, and rather "to collaborate directly with employees and provide workers optimal conditions".

Mr Stark denied that the choice not to enter a labor contract was one made at Tesla headquarters overseas. "We have a mandate to make our own such choices," he stated.

IF Metall is not entirely isolated in this conflict. The strike has been supported from several of labor organizations.

Dockworkers in nearby Denmark, Nordic countries & neighboring states, decline to process Teslas; rubbish is not collected from the automaker's Swedish facilities; while newly built power points are not being connected to the grid in the country.

Exists an example near the capital's airport, at which 20 charging units stand idle. But Tibor Blomhäll, the leader of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, states vehicle owners are unaffected by the strike.

"There exists an alternative power point six miles from here," he comments. "And we can still buy our cars, we can maintain our vehicles, we can charge our cars."

With stakes significant on both sides, it's hard to see a resolution to the stand-off. IF Metall risks setting a precedent if it concedes the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

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