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In Sweden, around seventy car technicians continue to challenge among the world's wealthiest corporations – Tesla. This industrial action at the US automaker's 10 Scandinavian repair facilities has now entered two years of duration, with minimal sign for a settlement.

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

"It has been a difficult time," remarks the worker in his late thirties. And as the nation's cold winter weather arrives, it's likely to become even tougher.

The mechanic spends every start of the week with a colleague, positioned near a Tesla service center on an industrial park in Malmö. His union, IF Metall, supplies accommodation in the form of a portable construction vehicle, plus hot beverages and light meals.

However it's business as usual across the road, where the service facility seems to be in full swing.

This industrial action involves an issue that reaches to the heart of Swedish industrial culture – the right for worker organizations to bargain for pay and working terms on behalf of their members. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned industrial relations in Sweden for nearly one hundred years.

Currently approximately 70% of Swedish employees belong to labor organizations, and ninety percent are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages across the nation are rare.

This is an arrangement welcomed by all parties. "We favor the ability to bargain directly with worker representatives and sign labor contracts," says a business representative of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

However Tesla has disrupted established practices. Vocal chief executive Elon Musk has said he "opposes" with the idea of labor organizations. "I simply disapprove of any arrangement which creates a sort of hierarchical sort of thing," he told listeners in New York last year. "In my view the unions attempt to create negativity within businesses."

The automaker entered the Scandinavian market back in the mid-2010s, and IF Metall has for years sought to establish a labor contract with the automaker.

"But they wouldn't reply," says Marie Nilsson, the organization's leader. "We formed the impression that they attempted to hide away or evade discussing the matter with us."

She says the union eventually found no alternative except to announce industrial action, beginning on 27 October, last year. "Typically it's enough to make a warning," comments the union leader. "The company usually signs the agreement."

But not on this occasion.

Janis Kuzma, originally of Latvian origin, started working with the automaker several years ago. He asserts that wages & conditions frequently dependent on the discretion of supervisors.

He remembers an evaluation meeting at which he says he was refused an annual pay rise because he was "not reaching Tesla's goals". At the same time, a coworker was reported to have been turned down for increased compensation due to having an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, some workers participated on strike. Tesla employed some one hundred thirty mechanics employed at the time the strike was initiated. The union states currently approximately seventy of its members are participating in the action.

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

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly & systematically," says a labor researcher, a researcher at a research institute, a think tank supported by Swedish trade unions.

"It's not illegal, this being important to recognize. However it goes against all traditional practices. Yet Tesla doesn't care about norms.

"They want to become convention challengers. So if anyone informs them, hey, you are violating a standard, they see that as praise."

The company's Swedish subsidiary refused requests for comment in an email mentioning "record vehicle shipments".

In fact, the company has given only one press discussion during the entire period since the industrial action began.

Earlier this year, the local division's "country lead", the executive, informed a business paper that it benefited the organization better not to have a union contract, and instead "to work closely with employees and provide workers the best possible terms".

Mr Stark rejected that the decision not to enter a labor contract was determined by US leadership in the US. "Our division possesses authorization to make independent such decisions," he said.

The union is not completely alone in this conflict. This industrial action has been supported from several of labor organizations.

Port workers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries and neighboring states, are refusing to handle Teslas; waste is no longer removed from the automaker's Swedish facilities; and recently constructed charging stations remain linked to power networks across the nation.

Exists an example near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, where 20 charging units stand idle. However Tibor Blomhäll, the president of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, states Tesla owners remain unaffected by the strike.

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

With consequences significant for all parties, it is difficult to see a resolution to the stand-off. IF Metall faces the danger of establishing a pattern if it concedes the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

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