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In Sweden, around 70 car technicians persist to challenge among the globe's wealthiest companies – Tesla. This labor strike at the American automaker's 10 Scandinavian service centers has now entered two years of duration, with little indication of a settlement.

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

"It's a difficult time," states the worker in his late thirties. And as the nation's cold seasonal conditions sets in, it's likely to become more challenging.

The mechanic devotes every start of the week with a fellow worker, positioned near a Tesla service center within a business district located in southern Sweden. His union, IF Metall, supplies accommodation via a portable construction vehicle, as well as hot beverages and light meals.

But it remains operations continue normally across the road, where the service facility appears to be in full swing.

The strike concerns a matter that reaches to the core of Swedish industrial culture – the authority of trade unions to bargain for pay & conditions on behalf of their workforce. This principle of collective agreement has supported labor dynamics across the nation for nearly a century.

Currently approximately seventy percent of Scandinavia's workers belong of a trade union, and ninety percent fall under by a collective agreement. Strikes in Sweden occur infrequently.

It's a system supported by all parties. "We favor the ability to negotiate freely with the unions and sign labor contracts," says a business representative from the Association of Swedish Businesses business organization.

However the electric car company has upset the apple cart. Outspoken chief executive the company leader has stated he "disagrees" with the idea of labor organizations. "I just don't like anything which creates a kind of lords and peasants sort of thing," he told an audience at an event last year. "I think labor groups attempt to generate conflict within businesses."

Tesla came to Sweden starting in the mid-2010s, and the metalworkers' union has long sought to establish a collective agreement with the automaker.

"But they did not reply," says Marie Nilsson, the organization's leader. "And we got the impression that they attempted to avoid or evade discussing the matter with us."

She states the organization ultimately found no alternative except to announce a strike, which started on 27 October, 2023. "Typically it's enough to issue the threat," says the union leader. "Employers usually agrees to the contract."

But not in this case.

The striking mechanic, who is of Latvian origin, started working for Tesla in 2021. He claims that pay & work terms frequently subject to the whim of managers.

He recalls an evaluation meeting where he says he was refused a salary increase because that he "failing to meet company targets". Meanwhile, a colleague was reported to have been rejected for increased compensation due to having an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, some workers went out in the industrial action. The company had approximately 130 technicians working at the time the industrial action was called. IF Metall says currently approximately 70 of their represented workers are participating in the action.

Tesla has long since replaced the striking workers with new workers, for which that has no precedent since the Great Depression.

"The company has done it [found replacement staff] openly & systematically," says a labor researcher, a researcher at a research institute, a policy organization financed by Swedish trade unions.

"It's not illegal, this being important to understand. But it goes against all established practices. Yet Tesla shows no concern for conventions.

"They want to be convention challengers. So if somebody tells them, listen, you are violating a norm, they see this as a compliment."

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary declined requests for comment in an email citing "all-time high deliveries".

Indeed, the automaker has given only one media interview during the entire period after the industrial action 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 collective agreement, and instead "to work closely with employees and provide them the best possible conditions".

Mr Stark rejected that the decision not to enter a collective agreement was one made at Tesla headquarters overseas. "Our division possesses authorization to take our own such decisions," he stated.

IF Metall is not entirely isolated in this conflict. This industrial action has been supported by a number of labor organizations.

Port workers in neighbouring Denmark, Norway & Finland, decline to process the company's vehicles; rubbish is not removed from the automaker's Swedish facilities; and newly built power points are not being connected to the grid in the country.

Exists an example close to Stockholm Arlanda Airport, where 20 charging units remain unused. However a Tesla enthusiast, the president of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, says vehicle owners remain unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's another charging station six miles from here," he says. "Plus we are able to continue to buy our cars, we can maintain our cars, we can power our electric cars."

With consequences significant for all parties, it's hard to envision a resolution to the deadlock. IF Metall risks establishing a pattern if it concedes the principle of collective agreement.

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