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In Sweden, approximately seventy automotive mechanics continue to challenge among the globe's richest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This industrial action targeting the US carmaker's ten Swedish service centers has now entered two years of duration, with minimal indication of a settlement.

Janis Kuzma has been on the Tesla picket line since the autumn of 2023.

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

The mechanic spends each Monday alongside a colleague, positioned outside an electric vehicle service center on an industrial park in Malmö. His union, IF Metall, supplies shelter in the form of a portable builders' van, plus coffee & light meals.

But it's operations continue normally nearby, at which the service facility seems to operate in full swing.

The strike involves a matter that goes to the core of Swedish industrial culture – the authority for worker organizations to negotiate pay & working terms on behalf of their members. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned industrial relations across the nation for nearly a century.

Today approximately seventy percent of Scandinavia's employees are members to labor organizations, and 90% fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes in Sweden occur infrequently.

It's a system supported across the board. "We prefer the right to bargain freely with the unions and sign collective agreements," states a business representative of the Confederation of Swedish Businesses business organization.

But Tesla has upset established practices. Vocal chief executive Elon Musk has said he "opposes" with the concept of labor organizations. "I just don't like any arrangement which creates a kind of lords and peasants sort of thing," he told an audience in New York last year. "In my view the unions try to create negativity in a company."

Tesla entered Sweden starting in the mid-2010s, and IF Metall has for years sought to establish a labor contract with the company.

"But they did not respond," says the union president, the organization's leader. "We formed the belief that they attempted to hide away or evade discussing this with us."

She states the organization eventually found no other option than to announce industrial action, which started on 27 October, last year. "Typically it's enough to issue a warning," says Ms Nilsson. "The company typically signs the agreement."

However not in this case.

The striking mechanic, who is of Latvian origin, began employment with the automaker in 2021. He claims that wages and conditions frequently subject to the whim of supervisors.

He recalls a performance review at which he states he was denied an annual pay rise on grounds that he "not reaching company targets". Meanwhile, a coworker was reported to be rejected for a pay rise because having an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, some workers went out in the industrial action. Tesla had approximately one hundred thirty mechanics working when the strike was initiated. The union states currently around seventy of its members are on strike.

Tesla has since replaced the striking workers with replacement staff, a situation there is no precedent since the era of the Great Depression.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly & methodically," says German Bender, an analyst at a research institute, a policy organization supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It's not illegal, which is crucial to understand. However it violates all traditional practices. But the company shows no concern about norms.

"They aim to become convention challengers. Thus when somebody tells them, hey, you are violating a standard, they perceive this as praise."

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary declined requests for interview in an email citing "all-time high vehicle shipments".

Indeed, the company has granted just a single press discussion during the entire period after the industrial action began.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, the executive, informed a business paper that it benefited the company more to avoid a collective agreement, and rather "to work closely with the team and provide them the best possible conditions".

Mr Stark rejected that the choice not to enter a collective agreement was one made by US leadership overseas. "Our division possesses authorization to make independent such choices," he said.

The union is not entirely isolated in its fight. The strike has been supported by a number of labor organizations.

Port workers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Norway & neighboring states, decline to process the company's vehicles; rubbish is not removed from Tesla's Swedish facilities; and newly built charging stations are not being linked to power networks across the nation.

Exists an example close to the capital's airport, where 20 chargers stand idle. However Tibor Blomhäll, the leader of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, says Tesla owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's another charging station 10km from here," he says. "And we can continue to buy our cars, we can maintain our vehicles, we can charge our cars."

With consequences high for all parties, it's hard to envision an end to the stand-off. IF Metall faces the danger of establishing a pattern should it surrender the principle of negotiated labor contracts.

"The concern is how this could expand," says the researcher, "and ultimately {erode