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Across Sweden, approximately seventy automotive mechanics persist to challenge one of the globe's richest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This labor strike targeting the US carmaker's ten Scandinavian repair facilities has now entered two years of duration, and there is minimal indication of a settlement.

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

"It's a tough time," states the 39-year-old. With the nation's cold winter weather sets in, it is expected to grow even tougher.

The mechanic devotes each Monday with a fellow worker, positioned near a Tesla service center on an industrial park located in southern Sweden. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies accommodation in the form of a portable builders' van, plus hot beverages & sandwiches.

But it remains business as usual across the road, at which the workshop appears to operate at full capacity.

This industrial action involves an issue that reaches to the heart of Swedish labor traditions – the right for worker organizations to bargain for pay & working terms representing their workforce. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has supported labor dynamics across the nation for almost a century.

Currently some 70% of Scandinavia's employees belong to labor organizations, while 90% fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes across the nation are rare.

It's an arrangement welcomed across the board. "We prefer the right to negotiate directly with worker representatives and sign labor contracts," states Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

However the electric car company has disrupted established practices. Outspoken chief executive Elon Musk has said he "opposes" with the idea of unions. "I just don't like anything that establishes a kind of hierarchical sort of thing," he told an audience in New York in 2023. "I think labor groups try to generate conflict in a company."

The automaker came to the Scandinavian market back in the mid-2010s, while the metalworkers' union has long sought to secure a labor contract with the company.

"Yet they wouldn't respond," states Marie Nilsson, the organization's leader. "And we got the belief that they attempted to avoid or not discuss this with our representatives."

She says the union ultimately found no other option except to announce a strike, beginning in late October, 2023. "Usually the threat suffices to issue the threat," comments Ms Nilsson. "The company usually signs the contract."

But not on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, who is of Latvian origin, started working for Tesla several years ago. He asserts that pay and work terms were often dependent on the discretion of managers.

He recalls a performance review at which he says he was denied a salary increase because he was "failing to meet Tesla's goals". At the same time, a coworker was reported to be rejected for a pay rise due to having the "wrong attitude".

However, some workers went out in the industrial action. The company had approximately one hundred thirty technicians employed when the industrial action was initiated. IF Metall states currently around 70 of its members are on strike.

The automaker has long since replaced these with new workers, for which that has no precedent since the 1930s.

"The company has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly and methodically," states a labor researcher, an analyst at a research institute, a think tank financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It's not illegal, which is crucial to recognize. However it goes against all traditional practices. Yet Tesla shows no concern about norms.

"They want to become norm breakers. So if somebody tells them, listen, you are violating a norm, they see this as praise."

The company's Swedish subsidiary refused requests for comment via correspondence mentioning "all-time high deliveries".

Indeed, the automaker has granted just a single media interview during the entire period after the industrial action began.

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", Jens Stark, informed a financial publication that it suited the organization better not to have a union contract, and instead "to work closely with the team and give them optimal terms".

Mr Stark rejected that the decision to avoid a collective agreement was one made at Tesla headquarters overseas. "We have a mandate to make our own such decisions," he stated.

IF Metall is not entirely isolated in this conflict. This industrial action has been supported by a number of other unions.

Port workers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Norway and Finland, are refusing to handle the company's vehicles; waste is no longer removed from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; while recently constructed charging stations are not being connected to power networks across the nation.

There is an example near the capital's airport, at which twenty charging units stand idle. However a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, states Tesla owners remain unaffected by the strike.

"There's another charging station six miles from this location," he comments. "And we can still purchase vehicles, we can service our vehicles, we can charge our electric cars."

With stakes high for all parties, it is difficult to see a resolution to the deadlock. IF Metall risks setting a precedent should it surrender the principle of negotiated labor contracts.

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