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In Sweden, approximately seventy automotive technicians continue to confront among the globe's richest corporations – Tesla. The labor strike targeting the American carmaker's 10 Scandinavian repair facilities has now reached its second anniversary, with minimal indication for a resolution.

One striking worker has remained on the electric car company's protest line since the autumn of 2023.

"It has been a tough period," remarks the 39-year-old. With the nation's cold winter weather sets in, it's likely to grow more challenging.

The mechanic spends each Monday with a colleague, positioned near a Tesla garage within an industrial park located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, IF Metall, provides accommodation via a portable builders' van, as well as hot beverages and sandwiches.

But it's operations continue normally across the road, at which the service facility seems to operate at full capacity.

This industrial action concerns an issue that reaches to the heart of Swedish industrial culture – the authority for worker organizations to bargain for pay & working terms on behalf of their workforce. This principle of collective agreement has underpinned industrial relations in Sweden for almost one hundred years.

Today approximately 70% of Scandinavia's employees are members to labor organizations, and ninety percent are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages across the nation occur infrequently.

This is an arrangement welcomed across the board. "We favor the ability to bargain freely with the unions and sign labor contracts," states Mattias Dahl from the Association of Swedish Businesses business organization.

But the electric car company has upset established practices. Outspoken chief executive the company leader has stated he "opposes" with the concept of unions. "I simply disapprove of anything that establishes a sort of lords and peasants situation," he informed listeners in New York last year. "I think the unions try to generate negativity in a company."

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

"But they wouldn't reply," says Marie Nilsson, the organization's leader. "And we got the impression that they tried to avoid or not discuss the matter with our representatives."

She states the union ultimately saw no alternative than to announce a strike, beginning in late October, last year. "Typically the threat suffices to make a warning," says Ms Nilsson. "The company typically signs the agreement."

However not on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, who is of Latvian origin, started working for Tesla several years ago. He claims that pay and conditions frequently subject to the whim of managers.

He recalls a performance review where he states he was refused an annual pay rise because he was "failing to meet Tesla's goals". Meanwhile, a coworker was reported to be rejected for increased compensation because he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, not everyone went out in the industrial action. Tesla employed approximately 130 mechanics working at the time the strike was initiated. IF Metall says that today around seventy of its members are participating in the action.

Tesla has since substituted these with new workers, for which there is no precedent since the Great Depression.

"The company has done it [found replacement staff] publicly and methodically," says a labor researcher, an analyst at Arena Idé, a policy organization supported by Swedish trade unions.

"It is not illegal, which is crucial to understand. However it goes against all traditional norms. But Tesla doesn't care about norms.

"They aim to become convention challengers. Thus when anyone tells them, hey, you are violating a norm, they see that as praise."

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary refused attempts for comment in an email citing "record deliveries".

In fact, the company has granted only one press discussion in the two years after the industrial action started.

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", Jens Stark, informed a business paper that it benefited the organization better to avoid a union contract, and instead "to work closely with employees and provide workers optimal terms".

The executive rejected that the decision to avoid a collective agreement was one made by US leadership in the US. "Our division possesses authorization to make independent such choices," he said.

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

Port workers in neighbouring Denmark, Norway and neighboring states, decline to process Teslas; rubbish is not removed from the automaker's Swedish facilities; while newly built power points remain linked to the grid across the nation.

There is an example close to Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which 20 charging units stand idle. But a Tesla enthusiast, the president of an owner's club the Swedish Tesla association, says vehicle owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There exists another charging station six miles from this location," he says. "Plus we are able to continue to purchase vehicles, we can service our cars, we can charge our electric cars."

With stakes significant for all parties, it's hard to see an end to the deadlock. The union risks setting a precedent if it concedes the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

"The worry is that this could expand," says the researcher, "and eventually {erode