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Across Sweden, around seventy automotive mechanics persist to confront one of the world's richest companies – Tesla. The labor strike at the American carmaker's ten Scandinavian service centers has now reached its second anniversary, and there is minimal sign for a settlement.

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

"It's a difficult time," states the worker in his late thirties. And as the nation's chilly seasonal conditions arrives, it is expected to grow even tougher.

The mechanic spends each Monday alongside a fellow worker, positioned outside an electric vehicle service center on a business district in Malmö. His union, IF Metall, supplies shelter in the form of a mobile construction vehicle, plus coffee and sandwiches.

But it remains business as usual nearby, where the service facility appears to operate at full capacity.

This industrial action involves an issue that goes to the heart of Scandinavia's labor traditions – the authority of trade unions to bargain for pay & working terms representing their workforce. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned industrial relations in Sweden for almost one hundred years.

Currently approximately 70% of Swedish workers are members of a trade union, while ninety percent are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages across the nation are rare.

It's a system supported by all parties. "We favor the ability to negotiate directly with the unions and establish labor contracts," states Mattias Dahl from the Association of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

But Tesla has upset established practices. Outspoken chief executive the company leader has stated he "opposes" with the idea of labor organizations. "I just don't like any arrangement which creates a sort of lords and peasants situation," he informed an audience in New York in 2023. "In my view the unions try to create conflict in a company."

Tesla entered the Scandinavian market starting in 2014, and IF Metall has long wanted to secure a labor contract with the automaker.

"Yet they did not reply," says the union president, the union's president. "And we got the belief that they tried to avoid or not discuss the matter with us."

She states the organization eventually found no other option except to call industrial action, which started in late October, 2023. "Typically it's enough to make the threat," comments Ms Nilsson. "The company usually agrees to the agreement."

However not in this case.

Janis Kuzma, who is from Latvia, started working with the automaker in 2021. He claims that pay and work terms were often dependent on the whim of supervisors.

He remembers a performance review where he says he was denied an annual pay rise on grounds he was "failing to meet Tesla's goals". Meanwhile, a colleague was reported to be rejected for increased compensation because he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, some workers went out on strike. The company employed some one hundred thirty technicians working when the strike was called. The union states currently around 70 of their represented workers are participating in the action.

The automaker has since replaced the striking workers with new workers, a situation there is not occurred since the era of the Great Depression.

"The company has done it [found replacement staff] publicly & methodically," states German Bender, a researcher at a research institute, a think tank supported by Swedish trade unions.

"It's not illegal, this being crucial to recognize. However it violates all traditional practices. But Tesla shows no concern about norms.

"They want to be norm breakers. Thus when somebody informs them, listen, you are violating a norm, they perceive that as a compliment."

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary refused attempts for comment via correspondence citing "record vehicle shipments".

In fact, the automaker has granted only one press discussion in the two years since the strike began.

In March 2024, the local division's "country lead", Jens Stark, informed a business paper that it suited the organization more to avoid a collective agreement, and instead "to collaborate directly with the team and give workers optimal conditions".

Mr Stark rejected that the choice to avoid a labor contract was one made at Tesla headquarters in the US. "We have authorization to make our own such choices," 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 Denmark, Nordic countries and neighboring states, decline to handle the company's vehicles; waste is not removed from the automaker's Swedish facilities; while recently constructed power points remain connected to the grid across the nation.

There is one such facility near the capital's airport, where 20 chargers remain unused. However a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, says Tesla owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There exists another charging station 10km from here," he comments. "And we can continue to purchase vehicles, we can maintain our vehicles, we can charge our cars."

With consequences significant on both sides, it is difficult to see a resolution to the deadlock. The union risks establishing a pattern if it concedes the principle of collective agreement.

"The worry is how this could expand," states the researcher, "and eventually {erode