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In Sweden, around seventy car technicians persist to confront one of the globe's wealthiest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The labor strike targeting the American automaker's ten Swedish repair facilities has now reached two years of duration, and there is little indication of a settlement.

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

"It's a difficult time," states the 39-year-old. With the nation's cold seasonal conditions arrives, it's likely to grow more challenging.

Janis devotes each Monday with a fellow worker, positioned outside an electric vehicle service center within an industrial park in Malmö. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides shelter via a portable construction vehicle, as well as coffee and sandwiches.

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

The strike concerns a matter that reaches to the core of Scandinavia's industrial culture – the authority of trade unions to negotiate pay & working terms on behalf of their members. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has supported industrial relations in Sweden for almost one hundred years.

Today some seventy percent of Swedish workers belong of a trade union, while ninety percent fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages in Sweden are rare.

This is a system supported by all parties. "We favor the right to bargain directly with worker representatives and sign labor contracts," says Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

However the electric car company has disrupted established practices. Outspoken CEO the company leader has stated he "opposes" with the idea of labor organizations. "I simply don't like any arrangement which creates a sort of hierarchical sort of thing," he told listeners at an event last year. "In my view labor groups try to generate conflict within businesses."

Tesla came to Sweden back in the mid-2010s, and the metalworkers' union has for years wanted to establish a collective agreement with the company.

"But they wouldn't reply," says the union president, the organization's leader. "And we got the impression that they tried to hide away or not discuss the matter with us."

She says the organization ultimately found no alternative than to call a strike, which started in late October, 2023. "Typically it's enough to issue a warning," says the union leader. "The company typically agrees to the contract."

However this did not happen on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, who is of Latvian origin, began employment with the automaker several years ago. He asserts that pay & work terms frequently subject to the discretion of supervisors.

He remembers an evaluation meeting where he says he was denied an annual pay rise on grounds he was "failing to meet company targets". Meanwhile, a colleague was said to be turned down for increased compensation because he had the "wrong attitude".

However, some workers participated on strike. The company had some one hundred thirty mechanics employed at the time the strike was called. IF Metall says that today around seventy of its members are on strike.

The automaker has since replaced these with replacement staff, a situation that has no precedent since the era of the Great Depression.

"The company has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly & systematically," states German Bender, a researcher at a research institute, a think tank supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

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

"They aim to be convention challengers. So if anyone informs them, listen, you are violating a norm, they see this as praise."

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary declined requests for interview via correspondence citing "all-time high deliveries".

Indeed, the company has granted just a single media interview during the entire period since the strike began.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, Jens Stark, told a financial publication that it benefited the company better not to have a union contract, and instead "to collaborate directly with the team and give workers the best possible conditions".

The executive rejected that the decision not to enter a labor contract was determined by US leadership in the US. "We have authorization to make our own such decisions," he stated.

IF Metall is not entirely isolated in this conflict. The strike has been supported from several of other unions.

Port workers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries & neighboring states, are refusing to process Teslas; waste is no longer collected from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; and recently constructed power points are not being connected to the grid in the country.

Exists an example close to the capital's airport, where twenty charging units remain unused. However a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, states Tesla owners are unaffected by the strike.

"There's an alternative power point six miles from here," he says. "And we can continue to purchase vehicles, we can maintain our cars, we can charge our electric cars."

With stakes high on both sides, it is difficult to see an end to the deadlock. IF Metall risks establishing a pattern should it surrender the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

"The worry is how that would spread," says the researcher, "and eventually {erode