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In Sweden, approximately seventy automotive mechanics continue to challenge among the world's richest companies – Tesla. The labor strike targeting the US carmaker's ten Scandinavian repair facilities has currently entered two years of duration, with minimal indication for a resolution.

One striking worker has been on the Tesla protest line since October 2023.

"It's a difficult time," states the worker in his late thirties. With Sweden's chilly seasonal conditions arrives, it is expected to grow more challenging.

Janis spends every start of the week alongside a fellow worker, positioned near an electric vehicle service center on an industrial park located in southern Sweden. His union, IF Metall, supplies shelter in the form of a portable builders' van, as well as hot beverages and sandwiches.

However it remains business as usual across the road, at which the workshop seems to be in full swing.

The strike concerns an issue that reaches to the heart of Scandinavia's industrial culture – the authority of trade unions to negotiate wages and conditions representing their workforce. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned industrial relations across the nation for nearly one hundred years.

Currently approximately 70% of Swedish workers belong of a trade union, while ninety percent are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes in Sweden are rare.

It's a system supported across the board. "We favor the ability to bargain freely with the unions and sign collective agreements," states Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

But Tesla has upset established practices. Vocal CEO the company leader has stated he "disagrees" with the idea of unions. "I simply don't like anything which creates a sort of hierarchical situation," he told an audience in New York last year. "I think labor groups attempt to create conflict within businesses."

The automaker came to the Scandinavian market starting in 2014, while the metalworkers' union has long sought to secure a collective agreement with the company.

"But they did not respond," says the union president, the organization's president. "And we got the belief that they tried to hide away or evade discussing this with us."

She states the organization ultimately found no alternative except to announce industrial action, which started in late October, 2023. "Typically the threat suffices to make a warning," says Ms Nilsson. "The company usually signs the contract."

But this did not happen on this occasion.

Janis Kuzma, originally of Latvian origin, began employment for Tesla several years ago. He asserts that wages & conditions frequently subject to the whim of managers.

He recalls a performance review at which he says he was denied a salary increase on grounds he was "not reaching Tesla's goals". Meanwhile, a coworker was said to be turned down for increased compensation due to having an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, some workers participated in the industrial action. The company had approximately one hundred thirty mechanics employed at the time the strike was initiated. The union states that today around 70 of their represented workers are participating in the action.

The automaker has long since substituted these with replacement staff, for which there is no precedent since the 1930s.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly and systematically," states a labor researcher, a researcher at Arena Idé, a policy organization financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not against the law, which is important to understand. However it violates all established practices. Yet the company doesn't care for conventions.

"They aim to become norm breakers. So if somebody informs them, hey, you are violating a norm, they see that as a compliment."

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

In fact, the automaker has given just a single media interview during the entire period after the industrial action started.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, the executive, told a financial publication that it suited the company more not to have a union contract, and instead "to collaborate directly with employees and give them the best possible conditions".

The executive rejected that the decision to avoid a collective agreement was determined by US leadership overseas. "Our division possesses authorization to take independent such decisions," he stated.

The union is not entirely isolated in this conflict. This industrial action has been supported by a number of other unions.

Port workers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Norway and neighboring states, decline to process Teslas; rubbish is no longer removed from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; while newly built power points remain linked to power networks across the nation.

Exists one such facility near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which 20 chargers stand idle. However a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, states vehicle owners remain unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There exists another charging station 10km from this location," he says. "Plus we are able to continue to purchase vehicles, we can service our cars, we can power our electric cars."

With stakes high on both sides, it is difficult to envision an end to the deadlock. The union faces the danger of establishing a pattern if it concedes the principle of collective agreement.

"The worry is that that would spread," states the researcher, "and ultimately {erode