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In Sweden, approximately seventy car mechanics persist to challenge one of the globe's wealthiest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The industrial action targeting the US automaker's 10 Scandinavian service centers has now reached two years of duration, and there is minimal indication of a settlement.

Janis Kuzma has remained at the Tesla picket line starting from October 2023.

"It's a tough time," states the worker in his late thirties. And as the nation's cold seasonal conditions arrives, it is expected to grow more challenging.

The mechanic spends every start of the week with a colleague, positioned outside a Tesla garage on a business district located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies shelter via a mobile construction vehicle, plus hot beverages & light meals.

However it remains operations continue normally across the road, where the service facility appears to be at full capacity.

The strike involves an issue that reaches to the core of Scandinavia's industrial culture – the right of trade unions to negotiate pay & conditions representing their workforce. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has supported labor dynamics across the nation for nearly a century.

Currently approximately seventy percent of Swedish employees belong of a trade union, while ninety percent are covered by a collective agreement. Labor stoppages across the nation occur infrequently.

This is a system supported across the board. "We favor the ability to bargain freely with the unions and establish labor contracts," says Mattias Dahl from the Association of Swedish Businesses employer group.

However the electric car company has disrupted the apple cart. Vocal chief executive Elon Musk has stated he "disagrees" with the idea of labor organizations. "I just don't like anything that establishes a kind of hierarchical situation," he told listeners at an event in 2023. "In my view the unions attempt to generate conflict in a company."

Tesla came to the Scandinavian market back in 2014, while the metalworkers' union has for years sought to secure a collective agreement with the company.

"Yet they wouldn't respond," states Marie Nilsson, the union's president. "We formed the impression that they attempted to hide away or evade discussing this with our representatives."

She says the organization ultimately saw no other option than to call a strike, beginning in late October, last year. "Typically the threat suffices to issue the threat," comments Ms Nilsson. "Employers usually agrees to the contract."

But this did not happen on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, originally from Latvia, began employment for Tesla in 2021. He claims that pay & work terms were often dependent on the whim of supervisors.

He remembers a performance review at which he states he was refused an annual pay rise because that he "not reaching Tesla's goals". Meanwhile, a coworker was reported to be turned down for a pay rise because he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, not everyone participated on strike. The company employed approximately 130 technicians employed when the industrial action was initiated. The union states currently around seventy of its members are on strike.

Tesla has since replaced these with new workers, a situation that has no precedent since the Great Depression.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly & methodically," says German Bender, an analyst at Arena Idé, a policy organization supported by Swedish trade unions.

"It is not against the law, which is important to understand. But it violates all established practices. But the company doesn't care about norms.

"They aim to be norm breakers. So if anyone tells them, hey, you are breaking a norm, they perceive this as a compliment."

The company's local division refused attempts for interview via correspondence mentioning "record deliveries".

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

In March 2024, the local division's "national manager, Jens Stark, told a business paper that it suited the company better to avoid a collective agreement, and rather "to collaborate directly with the team and give workers the best possible terms".

Mr Stark denied that the choice not to enter a labor contract was determined at Tesla headquarters overseas. "We have authorization to make independent such choices," he stated.

The union is not completely isolated in this conflict. This industrial action has received backing by a number of labor organizations.

Dockworkers in neighbouring Denmark, Norway and neighboring states, are refusing to process Teslas; rubbish is not collected from Tesla's Swedish facilities; while newly built power points are not being connected to power networks across the nation.

There is one such facility close to the capital's airport, where twenty charging units stand idle. However Tibor Blomhäll, the president of an owner's club the Swedish Tesla association, states vehicle owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

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

With consequences significant on both sides, it's hard to see an end to the deadlock. IF Metall faces the danger of establishing a pattern should it surrender the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

"The concern is that this could expand," says Mr Bender, "and eventually {erode