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In Sweden, around 70 automotive mechanics persist to challenge among the globe's richest corporations – Tesla. The industrial action at the American carmaker's ten Swedish repair facilities has currently reached its second anniversary, with minimal sign for a settlement.

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

"It has been a tough period," remarks the worker in his late thirties. With the nation's chilly winter weather sets in, it's likely to become more challenging.

Janis devotes every start of the week alongside a fellow worker, positioned near an electric vehicle garage on a business district in Malmö. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies shelter via a mobile builders' van, plus coffee & sandwiches.

But it's business as usual nearby, where the service facility seems to operate in full swing.

This industrial action concerns an issue that goes to the core of Scandinavia's industrial culture – the authority of trade unions to negotiate wages and conditions representing their members. This concept of collective agreement has underpinned labor dynamics across the nation for almost a century.

Today some 70% of Scandinavia's employees belong to labor organizations, and ninety percent fall under by a collective agreement. Strikes in Sweden are rare.

It's an arrangement supported by all parties. "We prefer the right to negotiate freely with worker representatives and sign labor contracts," states Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

But Tesla has upset established practices. Vocal CEO the company leader has stated he "opposes" with the idea of labor organizations. "I just don't like anything that establishes a kind of lords and peasants situation," he informed an audience in New York in 2023. "I think labor groups attempt to generate conflict within businesses."

Tesla came to the Scandinavian market back in the mid-2010s, and the metalworkers' union has for years wanted to establish a collective agreement with the company.

"But they did not respond," states the union president, the union's president. "And we got the impression that they tried to hide away or evade discussing the matter with our representatives."

She says the union ultimately found no other option except to announce industrial action, beginning on 27 October, last year. "Typically it's enough to make the threat," says Ms Nilsson. "The company typically agrees to the agreement."

However not on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, originally of Latvian origin, began employment with the automaker in 2021. He asserts that wages & work terms frequently subject to the discretion of supervisors.

He recalls a performance review where he states he was denied a salary increase because he was "failing to meet Tesla's goals". At the same time, a coworker was said to have been rejected for a pay rise due to having the "wrong attitude".

Nevertheless, some workers participated in the industrial action. Tesla employed approximately one hundred thirty mechanics employed when the strike was called. The union says currently around 70 of their represented workers are on strike.

The automaker has since substituted the striking workers with new workers, for which there is not occurred since the 1930s.

"The company has done it [found replacement staff] openly & methodically," states German Bender, a researcher at a research institute, a policy organization financed by Swedish trade unions.

"It is not against the law, this being important to recognize. However it goes against all established norms. Yet Tesla doesn't care for conventions.

"They aim to become norm breakers. Thus when anyone tells them, hey, you are breaking a standard, they see that as praise."

The company's local division declined requests for interview in an email citing "record vehicle shipments".

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

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, Jens Stark, told a financial publication that it suited the company more not to have a union contract, and instead "to work closely with employees and give workers the best possible terms".

Mr Stark denied that the choice not to enter a labor contract was one made at Tesla headquarters in the US. "Our division possesses a mandate to take our own such decisions," he stated.

IF Metall is not completely alone in its fight. This industrial action has received backing by a number of other unions.

Dockworkers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries & Finland, are refusing to handle the company's vehicles; waste is not collected from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; while recently constructed charging stations remain linked to power networks across the nation.

There is one such facility near the capital's airport, at which 20 charging units remain unused. But a Tesla enthusiast, the president of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, says vehicle owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's another charging station six miles from here," he says. "Plus we are able to still purchase vehicles, we can maintain our cars, we can charge our electric cars."

With consequences high on both sides, it's hard to see a resolution to the stand-off. The union risks establishing a pattern should it surrender the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

"The worry is how this could expand," says Mr Bender, "and ultimately {erode