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Across Sweden, approximately 70 car technicians continue to confront among the world's richest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This industrial action targeting the American carmaker's ten Swedish service centers has currently reached two years of duration, and there is little sign for a settlement.

Janis Kuzma has been at the Tesla protest line starting from the autumn of 2023.

"It's a difficult time," remarks the worker in his late thirties. And as Sweden's chilly seasonal conditions sets in, it's likely to grow even tougher.

The mechanic spends each Monday with a colleague, standing outside an electric vehicle service center within an industrial park located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, IF Metall, supplies accommodation in the form of a portable construction vehicle, as well as coffee & sandwiches.

But it remains operations continue normally across the road, where the service facility appears to be in full swing.

This industrial action concerns a matter that reaches to the heart of Scandinavia's labor traditions – the right for worker organizations to negotiate wages and conditions on behalf of their workforce. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has supported industrial relations in Sweden for nearly a century.

Today some seventy percent of Swedish workers are members to labor organizations, and ninety percent fall under by a collective agreement. Strikes in Sweden occur infrequently.

It's a system welcomed across the board. "We prefer the ability to bargain directly with worker representatives and sign collective agreements," states Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Businesses employer group.

However Tesla has upset established practices. Vocal chief executive the company leader has said he "disagrees" with the idea of labor organizations. "I simply disapprove of any arrangement that establishes a sort of lords and peasants situation," he told an audience at an event last year. "In my view labor groups try to generate negativity within businesses."

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

"But they wouldn't reply," states Marie Nilsson, the union's president. "We formed the impression that they attempted to hide away or evade discussing the matter with us."

She says the union eventually saw no alternative than to announce a strike, beginning in late October, last year. "Usually it's enough to issue the threat," comments the union leader. "The company typically signs the contract."

However this did not happen on this occasion.

Janis Kuzma, originally of Latvian origin, began employment for Tesla in 2021. He claims that pay & work terms frequently subject to the discretion of managers.

He recalls an evaluation meeting where he says he was denied a salary increase because that he "not reaching company targets". At the same time, a coworker was reported to be rejected for a pay rise due to he had the "wrong attitude".

Nevertheless, some workers participated in the industrial action. The company had some one hundred thirty mechanics working when the strike was initiated. The union states that today approximately seventy of their represented workers are on strike.

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

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly & systematically," states German Bender, an analyst at a research institute, a think tank financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It's not illegal, which is crucial to understand. But it goes against all established norms. But Tesla doesn't care about norms.

"They want to become norm breakers. Thus when anyone informs them, listen, you are violating a standard, they perceive that as praise."

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

Indeed, the automaker has given just a single press discussion during the entire period since the strike started.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, the executive, informed a business paper that it suited the organization better not to have a union contract, and instead "to work closely with the team and give workers the best possible terms".

The executive rejected that the choice not to enter a labor contract was determined by US leadership overseas. "We have authorization to make independent such choices," he stated.

IF Metall is not entirely isolated in its fight. This industrial action has received backing by a number of other unions.

Dockworkers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Norway and neighboring states, are refusing to handle the company's vehicles; waste is no longer collected from Tesla's Swedish facilities; while recently constructed power points remain linked to power networks across the nation.

There is one such facility close to Stockholm Arlanda Airport, where twenty charging units remain unused. However Tibor Blomhäll, the president of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, says Tesla owners are unaffected by the strike.

"There's another charging station 10km from this location," he says. "Plus we are able to continue to purchase vehicles, we can maintain our cars, we can power our cars."

With consequences significant on both sides, it's hard to see an end to the stand-off. The union faces the danger of setting a precedent should it surrender the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

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