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In Sweden, around 70 automotive mechanics continue to challenge one of the globe's richest corporations – Tesla. This industrial action at the American carmaker's ten Scandinavian service centers has now entered its second anniversary, and there is minimal sign for a settlement.

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

"It has been a tough period," remarks the 39-year-old. With the nation's chilly winter weather arrives, it is expected to grow even tougher.

Janis spends each Monday alongside a fellow worker, standing near an electric vehicle service center within a business district located in southern Sweden. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies shelter in the form of a mobile builders' van, plus coffee & sandwiches.

However it's operations continue normally across the road, at which the service facility seems to be in full swing.

The strike concerns an issue that reaches to the core of Swedish industrial culture – the right of trade unions to bargain for pay & conditions on behalf of their members. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned labor dynamics in Sweden for almost a century.

Currently approximately 70% of Scandinavia's employees belong to labor organizations, and ninety percent fall under by a collective agreement. Labor stoppages in Sweden are rare.

This is a system welcomed by all parties. "We prefer the ability to bargain directly with worker representatives and establish collective agreements," states Mattias Dahl from the Association of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

But the electric car company has disrupted established practices. Outspoken chief executive Elon Musk has said he "opposes" with the idea of unions. "I simply disapprove of any arrangement which creates a kind of lords and peasants sort of thing," he told listeners in New York last year. "In my view labor groups attempt to create conflict within businesses."

The automaker came to Sweden back in 2014, and IF Metall has for years wanted to secure a collective agreement with the automaker.

"Yet they did not respond," states Marie Nilsson, the union's president. "And we got the impression that they tried to avoid or evade discussing the matter with us."

She states the union eventually found no alternative than to call a strike, which started on 27 October, last year. "Typically the threat suffices to issue a warning," comments the union leader. "The company usually agrees to the agreement."

But not in this case.

Janis Kuzma, who is of Latvian origin, began employment for Tesla several years ago. He claims that pay & conditions frequently subject to the discretion of managers.

He recalls an evaluation meeting at which he states he was refused an annual pay rise because that he "not reaching company targets". At the same time, a coworker was said to have been rejected for a pay rise because he had the "wrong attitude".

However, some workers participated on strike. The company had some 130 mechanics working when the strike was initiated. The union says currently around seventy of their represented workers are on strike.

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

"Tesla has done it [found replacement staff] publicly & methodically," says a labor researcher, a researcher at Arena Idé, a policy organization supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not against the law, this being crucial to understand. But it violates all established norms. But Tesla doesn't care for conventions.

"They aim to be convention challengers. Thus when anyone tells them, hey, you are breaking a standard, they see this as a compliment."

The company's Swedish subsidiary declined attempts for comment via correspondence citing "all-time high vehicle shipments".

In fact, the company has granted only one media interview during the entire period since the strike started.

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, the executive, told a financial publication that it benefited the organization better to avoid a union contract, and instead "to work closely with employees and provide them the best possible terms".

Mr Stark rejected that the decision to avoid a collective agreement was one made at Tesla headquarters overseas. "Our division possesses authorization to take independent such decisions," he stated.

IF Metall is not entirely alone in this conflict. This industrial action has been supported from several of labor organizations.

Dockworkers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Norway & neighboring states, decline to process the company's vehicles; waste is not collected from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; and recently constructed power points are not being linked to the grid in the country.

Exists an example near the capital's airport, where twenty chargers stand idle. However a Tesla enthusiast, the president of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, states Tesla owners are unaffected by the strike.

"There exists another charging station 10km from here," he comments. "And we can still buy our cars, we can service our vehicles, we can power our cars."

With consequences significant on both sides, it's hard to see an end to the deadlock. IF Metall faces the danger of establishing a pattern should it surrender the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

"The worry is how that would spread," says Mr Bender, "and eventually {erode