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In Sweden, around 70 automotive mechanics persist to confront one of the world's wealthiest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The labor strike targeting the US automaker's ten Swedish repair facilities has currently entered two years of duration, and there is minimal sign for a resolution.

One striking worker has been at the Tesla picket line since October 2023.

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

Janis spends every start of the week with a colleague, positioned outside a Tesla service center on an industrial park in Malmö. His union, IF Metall, provides shelter via a mobile construction vehicle, plus hot beverages and light meals.

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

This industrial action involves a matter that reaches to the core of Swedish industrial culture – the right for worker organizations to bargain for pay & conditions on behalf of their members. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has supported labor dynamics in Sweden for nearly one hundred years.

Today approximately 70% of Swedish workers are members of a trade union, while ninety percent fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages in Sweden are rare.

It's a system welcomed by all parties. "We favor the right to bargain freely with worker representatives and sign labor contracts," says Mattias Dahl from the Association of Swedish Businesses business organization.

But Tesla has upset the apple cart. Outspoken chief executive Elon Musk has stated he "disagrees" with the concept of labor organizations. "I simply disapprove of any arrangement that establishes a sort of lords and peasants sort of thing," he informed listeners in New York in 2023. "I think labor groups attempt to generate conflict in a company."

The automaker came to Sweden starting in the mid-2010s, while the metalworkers' union has for years wanted to secure a collective agreement with the company.

"Yet they did not respond," states Marie Nilsson, the union's president. "And we got the impression that they attempted to hide away or not discuss this with us."

She says the union ultimately found no other option than to call industrial action, beginning in late October, last year. "Typically the threat suffices to make a warning," says the union leader. "Employers typically signs the agreement."

However this did not happen in this case.

The striking mechanic, originally from Latvia, began employment with the automaker several years ago. He asserts that pay & conditions were often dependent on the discretion of supervisors.

He remembers a performance review at which he says he was refused a salary increase on grounds he was "not reaching Tesla's goals". At the same time, a coworker was said to be turned down for increased compensation because having the "wrong attitude".

However, not everyone participated in the industrial action. Tesla employed approximately one hundred thirty technicians working at the time the industrial action was initiated. The union says currently around seventy of its members are on strike.

Tesla has long since substituted the striking workers with new workers, a situation there is no precedent since the 1930s.

"Tesla has done it [found replacement staff] publicly and methodically," says German Bender, a researcher at Arena Idé, a think tank supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It's not illegal, this being important to understand. However it goes against all traditional norms. But the company doesn't care about norms.

"They want to be norm breakers. Thus when somebody informs them, hey, you are breaking a norm, they see this as a compliment."

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary refused requests for interview in an email citing "record vehicle shipments".

Indeed, the automaker has given only one press discussion in the two years after the strike began.

In March 2024, the local division's "national manager, the executive, informed a financial publication that it suited the company better to avoid a union contract, and instead "to collaborate directly with the team and provide them optimal terms".

The executive rejected that the choice not to enter a collective agreement was determined by US leadership in the US. "Our division possesses authorization to make our own such choices," he stated.

The union is not completely alone in this conflict. This industrial action has received backing by a number of other unions.

Dockworkers in neighbouring Denmark, Norway & Finland, decline to handle the company's vehicles; waste is not collected from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; while recently constructed charging stations are not being linked to the grid in the country.

Exists an example near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, where 20 chargers remain unused. But Tibor Blomhäll, the president of an owner's club the Swedish Tesla association, states Tesla owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There exists an alternative power point six miles from here," he says. "And we can still buy our cars, we can service our cars, we can charge our cars."

With consequences significant on both sides, it is difficult to envision an end to the stand-off. The union risks setting a precedent should it surrender the principle of negotiated labor contracts.

"The concern is that that would spread," says Mr Bender, "and eventually {erode