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In Sweden, around 70 car technicians persist to confront among the globe's richest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The labor strike targeting the US carmaker's ten Swedish service centers has currently reached two years of duration, with minimal indication of a resolution.

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

"It has been a difficult period," remarks the 39-year-old. With the nation's cold winter weather arrives, it's likely to grow more challenging.

The mechanic devotes each Monday alongside a fellow worker, standing near an electric vehicle service center on an industrial park located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides shelter in the form of a portable construction vehicle, plus hot beverages & light meals.

However it's operations continue normally across the road, at which the workshop appears to operate in full swing.

The strike involves a matter that goes to the core of Scandinavia's labor traditions – the authority for worker organizations to bargain for pay and conditions on behalf of their members. This concept of collective agreement has supported industrial relations across the nation for nearly one hundred years.

Currently approximately seventy percent of Swedish employees are members to labor organizations, while ninety percent are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages across the nation occur infrequently.

It's a system welcomed across the board. "We prefer the right to bargain freely with the unions and establish labor contracts," says a business representative from the Association of Swedish Businesses business organization.

However the electric car company has upset established practices. Outspoken CEO Elon Musk has said he "disagrees" with the concept of unions. "I simply disapprove of anything which creates a kind of hierarchical situation," he informed an audience in New York in 2023. "In my view the unions try to generate conflict within businesses."

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

"But they did not respond," says the union president, the organization's president. "And we got the belief that they tried to hide away or evade discussing the matter with our representatives."

She says the union eventually found no other option except to announce a strike, beginning in late October, last year. "Typically it's enough to make a warning," says Ms Nilsson. "The company typically agrees to the contract."

However not on this occasion.

Janis Kuzma, who is of Latvian origin, started working for Tesla several years ago. He claims that pay & conditions frequently subject to the whim of managers.

He recalls a performance review where he says he was denied a salary increase on grounds that he "not reaching company targets". At the same time, a coworker was reported to have been rejected for a pay rise because having an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, not everyone participated on strike. Tesla employed approximately one hundred thirty technicians employed when the industrial action was initiated. IF Metall says that today around seventy of its members are on strike.

Tesla has since replaced the striking workers with new workers, a situation there is not occurred since the 1930s.

"Tesla has done it [found replacement staff] openly and methodically," says German Bender, an analyst at Arena Idé, a think tank supported by Swedish trade unions.

"It is not illegal, this being important to recognize. However it goes against all established norms. But Tesla doesn't care for conventions.

"They want to be norm breakers. Thus when somebody informs them, hey, you are breaking a norm, they perceive that as praise."

The company's local division declined attempts for comment in an email mentioning "all-time high deliveries".

Indeed, the company has given just a single media interview in the two years after the strike started.

In March 2024, the local division's "country lead", Jens Stark, told a financial publication that it suited the organization better to avoid a collective agreement, and rather "to work closely with employees and provide them the best possible conditions".

Mr Stark denied that the decision to avoid a collective agreement was one made by US leadership overseas. "Our division possesses authorization to make independent such decisions," he stated.

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

Dockworkers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Norway and Finland, are refusing to handle the company's vehicles; waste is no longer collected from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; while recently constructed power points are not being connected to power networks across the nation.

Exists an example near the capital's airport, at which 20 chargers remain unused. But a Tesla enthusiast, the president of an owner's club the Swedish Tesla association, states vehicle owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's an alternative power point 10km from here," he comments. "Plus we are able to still purchase vehicles, we can maintain our vehicles, we can power our cars."

With consequences significant for all parties, it's hard to envision a resolution to the stand-off. IF Metall risks setting a precedent should it surrender the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

"The concern is how this could expand," states Mr Bender, "and ultimately {erode