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Across Sweden, approximately 70 car mechanics continue to confront among the world's richest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The industrial action at the American automaker's ten Swedish service centers has now entered two years of duration, with little sign of a settlement.

Janis Kuzma has remained at the Tesla picket line starting from October 2023.

"It has been a difficult period," states the worker in his late thirties. And as the nation's cold winter weather sets in, it's likely to become even tougher.

Janis spends each Monday alongside a colleague, standing outside an electric vehicle service center within a business district in Malmö. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies shelter via a portable builders' van, as well as hot beverages & light meals.

However it's business as usual nearby, where the workshop seems to be at full capacity.

The strike concerns a matter that reaches to the core of Scandinavia's industrial culture – the right for worker organizations to negotiate pay & working terms on behalf of their members. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has supported industrial relations across the nation for nearly one hundred years.

Currently some seventy percent of Swedish employees belong of a trade union, and 90% fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages across the nation occur infrequently.

This is an arrangement welcomed by all parties. "We prefer the right to bargain directly with worker representatives and establish labor contracts," says a business representative from the Association of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

But the electric car company has upset the apple cart. Vocal chief executive Elon Musk has stated he "opposes" with the idea of unions. "I simply disapprove of anything that establishes a kind of hierarchical sort of thing," he informed listeners at an event last year. "I think labor groups attempt to generate negativity within businesses."

Tesla entered the Scandinavian market starting in the mid-2010s, and IF Metall has for years sought to secure a collective agreement with the automaker.

"Yet they did not respond," states the union president, the union's president. "We formed the impression that they attempted to hide away or not discuss the matter with our representatives."

She says the union eventually found no other option than to announce a strike, beginning on 27 October, 2023. "Typically the threat suffices to issue the threat," says Ms Nilsson. "Employers usually signs the agreement."

But not on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, who is from Latvia, began employment with the automaker in 2021. He asserts that pay and conditions were often dependent on the whim of managers.

He remembers an evaluation meeting where he states he was refused a salary increase on grounds he was "failing to meet company targets". Meanwhile, a coworker was reported to have been turned down for increased compensation due to he had the "wrong attitude".

However, some workers went out in the industrial action. Tesla had some one hundred thirty technicians working when the industrial action was called. The union states currently around seventy of its members are participating in the action.

The automaker has since replaced these with new workers, a situation that has no precedent since the era of the 1930s.

"The company has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly and systematically," says German Bender, a researcher at a research institute, a policy organization supported by Swedish trade unions.

"It's not illegal, this being important to recognize. However it goes against all established practices. But the company shows no concern for conventions.

"They aim to become norm breakers. So if anyone informs them, hey, you are violating a norm, they perceive this as a compliment."

The automaker's local division declined requests for comment via correspondence citing "record vehicle shipments".

In fact, the automaker has given only one press discussion during the entire period after the industrial action began.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", the executive, informed a business paper that it benefited the organization more not to have a collective agreement, and instead "to collaborate directly with the team and provide workers the best possible conditions".

The executive denied that the decision not to enter a collective agreement was one made at Tesla headquarters overseas. "Our division possesses a mandate to take independent such choices," he said.

IF Metall is not completely alone in this conflict. This industrial action has received backing from several of labor organizations.

Port workers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries & Finland, are refusing to handle Teslas; waste is not collected from Tesla's Swedish facilities; while recently constructed charging stations remain linked to the grid across the nation.

There is one such facility near the capital's airport, at which twenty charging units stand idle. But Tibor Blomhäll, the leader of an owner's club the Swedish Tesla association, says vehicle owners remain unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's another charging station six miles from here," he says. "Plus we are able to still buy our cars, we can service our cars, we can power our cars."

With stakes significant for all parties, it is difficult to see a resolution to the deadlock. IF Metall risks establishing a pattern if it concedes the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

"The worry is that this could expand," says Mr Bender, "and ultimately {erode