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Across Sweden, approximately seventy automotive technicians persist to challenge one of the globe's wealthiest corporations – Tesla. The labor strike targeting the US carmaker's 10 Scandinavian repair facilities has currently reached its second anniversary, with little sign of a settlement.

Janis Kuzma has remained on the electric car company's picket line since October 2023.

"It has been a difficult time," remarks the worker in his late thirties. With Sweden's chilly seasonal conditions arrives, it's likely to become more challenging.

Janis spends each Monday with a fellow worker, positioned near an electric vehicle garage on an industrial park located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies shelter in the form of a mobile builders' van, as well as hot beverages and sandwiches.

However it's operations continue normally nearby, where the workshop appears to be in full swing.

The strike concerns an issue that reaches to the heart of Swedish labor traditions – the authority for worker organizations to negotiate pay & working terms representing their members. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned labor dynamics in Sweden for almost one hundred years.

Today approximately 70% of Swedish employees are members of a trade union, and 90% are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages across the nation occur infrequently.

It's a system welcomed across the board. "We favor the right to bargain freely with the unions and sign labor contracts," says Mattias Dahl from the Association of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

However the electric car company has disrupted established practices. Outspoken chief executive the company leader has stated he "opposes" with the idea of labor organizations. "I just don't like anything that establishes a kind of lords and peasants situation," he told an audience at an event last year. "I think the unions attempt to create negativity in a company."

Tesla entered the Scandinavian market starting in 2014, while IF Metall has long wanted to establish a collective agreement with the automaker.

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

She says the union eventually saw no alternative except to call a strike, beginning on 27 October, last year. "Typically the threat suffices to issue a warning," says the union leader. "The company usually signs the agreement."

However not on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, originally from Latvia, started working with the automaker several years ago. He asserts that wages & conditions frequently dependent on the whim of supervisors.

He remembers an evaluation meeting at which he states he was refused a salary increase because that he "failing to meet company targets". Meanwhile, a colleague was said to have been rejected for a pay rise due to he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, some workers participated on strike. Tesla employed some one hundred thirty technicians employed when the strike was initiated. IF Metall says that today approximately seventy of their represented workers are participating in the action.

The automaker has long since substituted the striking workers with new workers, a situation there is no precedent since the era of the Great Depression.

"The company has done it [found replacement staff] publicly & methodically," says German Bender, a researcher at Arena Idé, a think tank financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It's not against the law, this being crucial to recognize. However it violates all established norms. But the company shows no concern about norms.

"They aim to become norm breakers. Thus when anyone informs them, hey, you are breaking a standard, they see this as a compliment."

The automaker's local division refused attempts for interview via correspondence mentioning "all-time high vehicle shipments".

In fact, the company has given just a single media interview in the two years after the industrial action started.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", Jens Stark, informed a financial publication that it benefited the company better not to have a collective agreement, and instead "to work closely with employees and provide them optimal conditions".

The executive rejected that the decision not to enter a collective agreement was determined at Tesla headquarters overseas. "Our division possesses authorization to make our own such decisions," he said.

IF Metall is not completely alone in its fight. The strike has been supported by a number of other unions.

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

Exists one such facility near the capital's airport, at which twenty charging units remain unused. However a Tesla enthusiast, the president of an owner's club the Swedish Tesla association, states Tesla owners remain unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There exists an alternative power point six miles from this location," he comments. "Plus we are able to still purchase vehicles, we can service our cars, we can charge our cars."

With stakes significant for all parties, it's hard to envision an end to the deadlock. The union risks setting a precedent if it concedes the principle of collective agreement.

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