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In Sweden, approximately seventy car technicians persist to confront among the world's wealthiest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The labor strike at the American carmaker's 10 Swedish service centers has now entered two years of duration, with little indication of a settlement.

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

"It's a tough time," states the worker in his late thirties. And as the nation's chilly seasonal conditions sets in, it's likely to grow even tougher.

The mechanic devotes every start of the week with a colleague, standing outside an electric vehicle service center within an industrial park in Malmö. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies accommodation via a mobile construction vehicle, as well as coffee & light meals.

However it's operations continue normally across the road, where the workshop appears to be in full swing.

The strike concerns an issue that goes to the core of Scandinavia's industrial culture – the authority of trade unions to negotiate pay and conditions on behalf of their workforce. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has supported industrial relations across the nation for almost a century.

Currently some seventy percent of Swedish workers belong to labor organizations, while 90% are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes across the nation are rare.

It's a system welcomed across the board. "We prefer the ability to negotiate freely with the unions and establish collective agreements," says a business representative of the Confederation of Swedish Businesses business organization.

However the electric car company has upset established practices. Vocal chief executive Elon Musk has said he "opposes" with the concept of unions. "I simply don't like any arrangement that establishes a sort of hierarchical situation," he informed listeners in New York in 2023. "I think labor groups attempt to create conflict within businesses."

The automaker came to the Scandinavian market back in the mid-2010s, and the metalworkers' union has long sought to establish a collective agreement with the company.

"Yet they did not reply," says the union president, the organization's president. "We formed the belief that they tried to avoid or not discuss this with us."

She states the organization ultimately saw no alternative except to call industrial action, beginning in late October, last year. "Typically it's enough to make a warning," comments the union leader. "The company typically signs the contract."

But not in this case.

The striking mechanic, who is from Latvia, began employment for Tesla several years ago. He asserts that wages & work terms frequently dependent on the discretion of managers.

He remembers a performance review at which he states he was refused a salary increase on grounds he was "failing to meet company targets". Meanwhile, a colleague was said to be rejected for a pay rise due to having an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, not everyone participated in the industrial action. Tesla had some 130 technicians employed when the strike was initiated. IF Metall says currently approximately seventy of its members are on strike.

The automaker has long since substituted these with replacement staff, for which there is no precedent since the Great Depression.

"Tesla has done it [found replacement staff] publicly & methodically," states German Bender, a researcher at Arena Idé, a policy organization financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not against the law, this being important to recognize. But it goes against all established norms. Yet the company shows no concern for conventions.

"They aim to become convention challengers. Thus when somebody tells them, listen, you are breaking a norm, they see that as praise."

The automaker's local division declined requests for comment via correspondence mentioning "record deliveries".

Indeed, the automaker has granted only one media interview during the entire period after 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 instead "to collaborate directly with employees and give workers the best possible terms".

The executive rejected that the choice not to enter a labor contract was one made at Tesla headquarters overseas. "We have authorization to take our own such choices," he stated.

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

Dockworkers in neighbouring Denmark, Norway and Finland, are refusing to process Teslas; rubbish is no longer removed from the automaker's Swedish facilities; and recently constructed charging stations remain connected to power networks in the country.

There is one such facility close to Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which twenty charging units remain unused. But a Tesla enthusiast, the president of an owner's club the Swedish Tesla association, says vehicle owners remain unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There exists another charging station 10km from here," he comments. "And we can still buy our cars, we can maintain our vehicles, we can charge our electric cars."

With stakes high on both sides, it's hard 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 that this could expand," states the researcher, "and eventually {erode