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Across Sweden, around seventy car technicians persist to confront among the globe's wealthiest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This industrial action targeting the American automaker's 10 Scandinavian service centers has currently entered its second anniversary, with little sign of a settlement.

Janis Kuzma has remained on the Tesla protest line starting from October 2023.

"It has been a difficult period," remarks the 39-year-old. And as Sweden's cold seasonal conditions sets in, it is expected to grow even tougher.

The mechanic spends every start of the week with a fellow worker, positioned near a Tesla garage on a business district in Malmö. The labor organization, IF Metall, provides shelter in the form of a mobile construction vehicle, as well as coffee and light meals.

However it remains operations continue normally nearby, where the workshop appears to be at full capacity.

The strike concerns an issue that goes to the core of Swedish industrial culture – the authority of trade unions to negotiate pay & conditions on behalf of their members. This principle of collective agreement has underpinned labor dynamics in Sweden for almost one hundred years.

Today approximately seventy percent of Scandinavia's workers are members of a trade union, while ninety percent are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes in Sweden are rare.

It's a system supported across the board. "We favor the right to negotiate directly with the unions and establish collective agreements," states a business representative from the Association of Swedish Businesses business organization.

But Tesla has upset established practices. Outspoken CEO Elon Musk has stated he "disagrees" with the idea of unions. "I simply disapprove of any arrangement that establishes a kind of lords and peasants situation," he told an audience at an event last year. "In my view labor groups try to create conflict in a company."

Tesla entered Sweden back in the mid-2010s, while IF Metall has long sought to secure a collective agreement with the automaker.

"Yet they did not respond," states the union president, the union's leader. "And we got the impression that they attempted to hide away or not discuss this with us."

She states the organization ultimately found no other option than to announce a strike, which started in late October, 2023. "Usually the threat suffices to make a warning," comments Ms Nilsson. "The company typically agrees to the contract."

However this did not happen on this occasion.

Janis Kuzma, originally of Latvian origin, started working with the automaker in 2021. He asserts that pay & conditions frequently dependent on the whim of supervisors.

He remembers a performance review where he states he was refused an annual pay rise because that he "not reaching Tesla's goals". Meanwhile, a colleague was reported to be rejected for increased compensation due to having the "wrong attitude".

However, not everyone participated in the industrial action. The company had some 130 technicians working at the time the industrial action was called. IF Metall states currently around 70 of their represented workers are participating in the action.

Tesla has since substituted these with replacement staff, for which that has no precedent since the era of the Great Depression.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly & methodically," states German Bender, a researcher at Arena Idé, a policy organization supported by Swedish trade unions.

"It's not illegal, which is crucial to recognize. But it violates all established practices. But Tesla shows no concern for conventions.

"They aim to become norm breakers. So if anyone informs them, listen, you are violating a norm, they see that as praise."

The automaker's local division declined attempts for interview via correspondence citing "all-time high vehicle shipments".

In fact, the company has given just a single media interview during the entire period since the strike began.

Earlier this year, the local division's "national manager, Jens Stark, informed a financial publication that it suited the company better to avoid a union contract, and instead "to collaborate directly with the team and give them optimal terms".

The executive denied that the decision not to enter a collective agreement was one made at Tesla headquarters in the US. "We have authorization to make independent such decisions," he said.

The union is not entirely isolated in this conflict. The strike has received backing by a number of labor organizations.

Port workers in nearby Denmark, Norway & neighboring states, are refusing to process Teslas; waste is no longer removed from Tesla's Swedish facilities; and recently constructed power points remain linked to the grid in the country.

There is one such facility near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, where twenty chargers remain unused. However a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, says Tesla owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There exists another charging station six miles from here," he comments. "Plus we are able to continue to buy our cars, we can maintain our cars, we can charge our electric cars."

With consequences high on both sides, it is difficult to see a resolution to the deadlock. The union risks establishing a pattern should it surrender the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

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