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Across Sweden, around seventy automotive technicians continue to confront one of the globe's wealthiest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The industrial action at the American carmaker's 10 Swedish repair facilities has currently entered two years of duration, with minimal indication of a resolution.

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

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

The mechanic spends each Monday alongside a colleague, positioned outside an electric vehicle garage on an industrial park located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, IF Metall, supplies accommodation via a portable construction vehicle, plus coffee & sandwiches.

However it remains business as usual nearby, where the workshop appears to operate in full swing.

The strike concerns a matter that reaches to the heart of Swedish industrial culture – the right of trade unions to negotiate wages & conditions representing their members. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has supported labor dynamics in Sweden for nearly a century.

Today approximately seventy percent of Swedish employees belong of a trade union, while ninety percent are covered by a collective agreement. Strikes in Sweden are rare.

It's an arrangement welcomed across the board. "We prefer the right to negotiate freely with the unions and establish collective agreements," says Mattias Dahl from the Association of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

However the electric car company has upset the apple cart. Vocal chief executive the company leader has stated he "opposes" with the concept of labor organizations. "I simply disapprove of anything that establishes a sort of lords and peasants sort of thing," he informed listeners at an event in 2023. "In my view the unions attempt to create conflict within businesses."

The automaker came to Sweden back in 2014, while IF Metall has long sought to establish a labor contract with the company.

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

She states the union ultimately found no other option than to announce a strike, beginning in late October, 2023. "Usually it's enough to make a warning," comments the union leader. "Employers usually signs the contract."

However not on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, originally from Latvia, began employment with the automaker in 2021. He asserts that pay & work terms frequently dependent on the discretion of managers.

He recalls an evaluation meeting at which he states he was refused a salary increase because that he "failing to meet company targets". At the same time, a colleague was said to have been turned down for a pay rise because having an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, some workers participated in the industrial action. The company employed some 130 technicians working when the industrial action was called. IF Metall states that today around 70 of their represented workers are on strike.

The automaker has since replaced these with replacement staff, a situation that has not occurred since the era of the 1930s.

"The company has done it [found replacement staff] publicly & systematically," states a labor researcher, a researcher at Arena Idé, a policy organization supported by Swedish trade unions.

"It is not illegal, this being important to recognize. But it goes against all traditional norms. Yet Tesla doesn't care for conventions.

"They want to become norm breakers. Thus when somebody informs them, hey, you are breaking a standard, they see that as praise."

The company's local division refused requests for interview in an email citing "all-time high vehicle shipments".

Indeed, the company has granted just a single media interview during the entire period since the strike began.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, the executive, told a business paper that it benefited the organization more to avoid a union contract, 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 independent such decisions," he stated.

IF Metall is not entirely alone in this conflict. The strike has received backing by a number of labor organizations.

Port workers in neighbouring Denmark, Nordic countries and Finland, are refusing to process Teslas; rubbish is no longer collected from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; while newly built charging stations are not being connected to power networks in the country.

There is an example close to the capital's airport, where 20 chargers remain unused. But Tibor Blomhäll, the leader of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, states Tesla owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There exists an alternative power point 10km from this location," he comments. "Plus we are able to continue to buy our cars, we can service our vehicles, we can charge our cars."

With stakes high on both sides, it is difficult to see an end to the stand-off. The union faces the danger of setting a precedent should it surrender the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

"The worry is how that would spread," states the researcher, "and eventually {erode