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In Sweden, around seventy automotive mechanics continue to challenge among the world's wealthiest companies – Tesla. The industrial action targeting the American automaker's ten Swedish service centers has currently reached two years of duration, with little sign for a settlement.

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

"It has been a tough time," states the 39-year-old. With the nation's cold winter weather arrives, it's likely to grow even tougher.

The mechanic devotes each Monday with a fellow worker, positioned outside a Tesla service center on a business district located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies shelter via a mobile builders' van, plus coffee and sandwiches.

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

This industrial action involves a matter that reaches to the heart of Scandinavia's labor traditions – the right of trade unions to bargain for pay & working terms on behalf of their workforce. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned industrial relations across the nation for almost one hundred years.

Currently approximately seventy percent of Scandinavia's workers belong of a trade union, and ninety percent fall under by a collective agreement. Labor stoppages across the nation are rare.

This is an arrangement welcomed across the board. "We favor the right to negotiate freely with the unions and sign labor contracts," says a business representative from the Association of Swedish Businesses employer group.

But Tesla has disrupted established practices. Vocal chief executive the company leader has said he "disagrees" with the concept of labor organizations. "I just disapprove of anything that establishes a sort of hierarchical sort of thing," he informed listeners at an event last year. "I think the unions attempt to generate negativity within businesses."

The automaker entered the Scandinavian market back in the mid-2010s, and IF Metall has long sought to establish a collective agreement with the automaker.

"Yet they did not reply," says the union president, the union's leader. "And we got the belief that they tried to avoid or evade discussing this with us."

She states the organization eventually saw no alternative except to announce industrial action, beginning on 27 October, last year. "Usually the threat suffices to issue a warning," says the union leader. "Employers typically signs the agreement."

But not on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, originally from Latvia, began employment with the automaker several years ago. He claims that wages & work terms were often subject to the whim of supervisors.

He recalls a performance review at which he states he was refused an annual pay rise because that he "not reaching Tesla's goals". At the same time, a coworker was said to be rejected for a pay rise due to he had the "wrong attitude".

However, some workers participated on strike. Tesla employed approximately 130 mechanics working when the strike was called. The union states that today approximately 70 of their represented workers are participating in the action.

The automaker has since replaced these with new workers, for which that has not occurred since the Great Depression.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly and methodically," states a labor researcher, a researcher at Arena Idé, a policy organization supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not against the law, which is crucial to recognize. However it goes against all established practices. Yet Tesla shows no concern about norms.

"They aim to be norm breakers. Thus when anyone tells them, hey, you are violating a norm, they see this as a compliment."

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary declined requests for comment via correspondence citing "record deliveries".

Indeed, the automaker has given only one media interview in the two years after the industrial action began.

In March 2024, the local division's "national manager, the executive, told a business paper that it suited the organization more not to have a union contract, and instead "to collaborate directly with employees and provide them optimal conditions".

Mr Stark denied that the choice to avoid a labor contract was one made by US leadership in the US. "Our division possesses authorization to take independent such choices," he said.

The union is not entirely alone in this conflict. The strike has received backing from several of other unions.

Port workers in nearby Denmark, Norway & Finland, decline to handle the company's vehicles; rubbish is not collected from the automaker's Swedish facilities; while recently constructed power points are not being linked to power networks in the country.

There is an example close to Stockholm Arlanda Airport, where twenty chargers remain unused. But a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, states vehicle owners remain unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There exists another charging station six miles from here," he comments. "Plus we are able to still purchase vehicles, we can service our cars, we can power our cars."

With stakes significant for all parties, it's hard to envision an end to the deadlock. IF Metall faces the danger of setting a precedent should it surrender the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

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