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In Sweden, approximately seventy car technicians persist to confront one of the globe's richest companies – Tesla. The labor strike targeting the American carmaker's 10 Scandinavian repair facilities has now entered its second anniversary, with little indication for a settlement.

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

"It's a tough period," remarks the 39-year-old. With Sweden's chilly seasonal conditions sets in, it's likely to grow even tougher.

Janis spends every start of the week with a fellow worker, positioned outside a Tesla garage on a business district in Malmö. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides accommodation in the form of a portable construction vehicle, as well as coffee and sandwiches.

However it's operations continue normally across the road, where the service facility seems to operate at full capacity.

The strike involves a matter that reaches to the core of Swedish industrial culture – the right for worker organizations to bargain for wages & conditions representing their workforce. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has supported industrial relations across the nation for nearly one hundred years.

Currently some seventy percent of Swedish workers belong to labor organizations, while 90% are covered by a collective agreement. Labor stoppages across the nation occur infrequently.

This is an arrangement welcomed by all parties. "We prefer the right to bargain freely with the unions and sign labor contracts," says a business representative of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

But the electric car company has disrupted established practices. Vocal chief executive the company leader has said he "disagrees" with the idea of unions. "I just disapprove of anything which creates a sort of hierarchical sort of thing," he told listeners in New York last year. "In my view labor groups try to generate conflict within businesses."

Tesla entered Sweden starting in 2014, and IF Metall has long sought to establish a labor contract with the company.

"But they did not respond," states Marie Nilsson, the organization's president. "And we got the impression that they tried to avoid or evade discussing this with our representatives."

She says the union ultimately found no alternative except to announce industrial action, beginning in late October, last year. "Usually the threat suffices to issue the threat," says Ms Nilsson. "The company usually agrees to the contract."

However this did not happen on this occasion.

Janis Kuzma, who is of Latvian origin, began employment with the automaker in 2021. He asserts that pay and work terms were often subject to the discretion of managers.

He recalls a performance review where he says he was denied an annual pay rise on grounds that he "failing to meet company targets". Meanwhile, a coworker was reported to be rejected for a pay rise because he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, not everyone went out in the industrial action. Tesla employed approximately one hundred thirty technicians working when the strike was initiated. IF Metall states currently approximately seventy of its members are on strike.

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

"The company has done it [found replacement staff] publicly and methodically," states German Bender, an analyst at Arena Idé, a policy organization supported by Swedish trade unions.

"It is not against the law, this being important to understand. However it violates all established norms. Yet Tesla shows no concern about norms.

"They aim to become convention challengers. Thus when anyone informs them, hey, you are breaking a norm, they see that as praise."

The automaker's local division refused attempts for interview in an email citing "all-time high vehicle shipments".

In fact, the company has granted only one press discussion in the two years since the industrial action began.

In March 2024, the local division's "country lead", the executive, told a business paper that it suited the organization better to avoid a collective agreement, and instead "to collaborate directly with employees and give them the best possible conditions".

The executive denied that the decision to avoid a collective agreement was determined at Tesla headquarters in the US. "Our division possesses authorization to take our own such choices," he said.

The union is not entirely alone in its fight. The strike has received backing from several of other unions.

Dockworkers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Norway & neighboring states, are refusing to process the company's vehicles; rubbish is no longer collected from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; and newly built power points remain linked to power networks across the nation.

Exists an example near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which twenty charging units stand idle. However Tibor Blomhäll, the president of an owner's club the Swedish Tesla association, states vehicle owners remain unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's an alternative power point 10km from this location," he says. "Plus we are able to still purchase vehicles, we can service our cars, we can power our cars."

With consequences high on both sides, it is difficult to envision a resolution to the deadlock. IF Metall faces the danger of establishing a pattern should it surrender the principle of negotiated labor contracts.

"The concern is how this could expand," says the researcher, "and eventually {erode