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In Sweden, approximately 70 car mechanics continue to challenge one of the globe's wealthiest corporations – Tesla. The industrial action targeting the US carmaker's 10 Scandinavian service centers has currently entered two years of duration, and there is little sign of a resolution.

Janis Kuzma has been at the electric car company's protest line since October 2023.

"It has been a difficult period," states the 39-year-old. And as the nation's cold winter weather arrives, it is expected to become even tougher.

The mechanic devotes each Monday alongside a fellow worker, positioned near an electric vehicle service center within a business district located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, IF Metall, provides shelter in the form of a mobile construction vehicle, plus hot beverages & light meals.

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

This industrial action concerns an issue that reaches to the heart of Scandinavia's industrial culture – the right for worker organizations to negotiate pay & conditions representing their members. This concept of collective agreement has underpinned labor dynamics in Sweden for almost one hundred years.

Currently approximately seventy percent of Scandinavia's workers belong to labor organizations, while ninety percent fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages across the nation are rare.

It's a system supported by all parties. "We favor the right to negotiate freely with the unions and establish labor contracts," states Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

However Tesla has upset the apple cart. Outspoken chief executive the company leader has stated he "opposes" with the idea of labor organizations. "I just disapprove of anything which creates a kind of hierarchical situation," he told listeners in New York in 2023. "In my view the unions attempt to create negativity within businesses."

The automaker came to Sweden starting in the mid-2010s, while the metalworkers' union has long wanted to establish a labor contract with the company.

"But they wouldn't respond," states Marie Nilsson, the union's president. "And we got the belief that they attempted to hide away or not discuss this with us."

She says the union eventually found no alternative than to call industrial action, beginning on 27 October, 2023. "Usually the threat suffices to make a warning," says the union leader. "Employers typically signs the agreement."

However this did not happen on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, originally from Latvia, started working for Tesla several years ago. He asserts that wages and conditions frequently subject to the whim of managers.

He remembers an evaluation meeting where he states he was refused an annual pay rise on grounds he was "not reaching company targets". At the same time, a coworker was said to be rejected for a pay rise because having the "wrong attitude".

However, not everyone participated in the industrial action. Tesla employed approximately one hundred thirty technicians working when the industrial action was called. IF Metall says currently approximately 70 of their represented workers are on strike.

Tesla has long since replaced the striking workers with replacement staff, a situation that has not occurred since the era of the 1930s.

"The company has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly & methodically," states German Bender, an analyst at Arena Idé, a think tank financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not against the law, this being crucial to understand. But it goes against all established practices. Yet Tesla shows no concern for conventions.

"They aim to be norm breakers. So if somebody informs them, hey, you are violating a standard, they see this as praise."

The automaker's local division refused requests for interview in an email mentioning "record deliveries".

In fact, the company has given just a single press discussion during the entire period after the strike began.

In March 2024, the local division's "national manager, the executive, told a business paper that it suited the company better to avoid a collective agreement, and rather "to collaborate directly with employees and provide workers the best possible conditions".

Mr Stark denied that the decision not to enter a labor contract was one made by US leadership in the US. "Our division possesses a mandate to make independent such choices," he stated.

IF Metall is not completely alone in this conflict. The strike has received backing from several of labor organizations.

Dockworkers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Norway and neighboring states, decline to process Teslas; rubbish is not collected from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; while newly built power points are not being connected to the grid across the nation.

Exists one such facility near the capital's airport, at which 20 chargers remain unused. However Tibor Blomhäll, the leader of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, says Tesla owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There exists an alternative power point 10km from this location," he says. "Plus we are able to continue to purchase vehicles, we can service our cars, we can charge our cars."

With consequences high for all parties, it is difficult to see a resolution to the stand-off. IF Metall risks establishing a pattern if it concedes the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

"The worry is how this could expand," states Mr Bender, "and eventually {erode