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In Sweden, around 70 automotive mechanics persist to confront among the world's wealthiest corporations – Tesla. The industrial action targeting the American automaker's 10 Swedish service centers has currently reached its second anniversary, with minimal sign for a settlement.

Janis Kuzma has been at the Tesla protest line since October 2023.

"It's a tough period," states the 39-year-old. With the nation's chilly seasonal conditions sets in, it is expected to become even tougher.

The mechanic devotes each Monday alongside a fellow worker, standing outside an electric vehicle garage on an industrial park located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, IF Metall, provides accommodation in the form of a mobile builders' van, plus hot beverages & sandwiches.

However it remains operations continue normally nearby, at which the service facility appears to be at full capacity.

The strike involves a matter that reaches to the core of Scandinavia's labor traditions – the right for worker organizations to bargain for pay & working terms on behalf of their members. This principle of collective agreement has supported labor dynamics in Sweden for nearly a century.

Currently approximately 70% of Swedish workers belong of a trade union, while 90% are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages in Sweden occur infrequently.

It's an arrangement welcomed by all parties. "We favor the ability to bargain directly with the unions and establish labor contracts," states a business representative from the Association of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

However the electric car company has upset the apple cart. Vocal CEO Elon Musk has stated he "opposes" with the concept of unions. "I just disapprove of anything that establishes a sort of hierarchical situation," he informed an audience in New York last year. "I think the unions try to generate conflict within businesses."

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

"Yet they did not reply," says the union president, the organization's leader. "We formed the belief that they attempted to hide away or evade discussing the matter with us."

She states the union eventually saw no other option except to call a strike, beginning in late October, 2023. "Typically it's enough to issue the threat," comments the union leader. "Employers usually agrees to the agreement."

But not on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, who is of Latvian origin, began employment for Tesla in 2021. He asserts that pay and conditions frequently subject to the whim of managers.

He remembers a performance review where he states he was denied an annual pay rise because that he "not reaching Tesla's goals". At the same time, a colleague was said to have been turned down for a pay rise because having an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, some workers participated in the industrial action. Tesla had some one hundred thirty mechanics working at the time the strike was initiated. IF Metall says currently approximately 70 of its members are on strike.

Tesla has since substituted these with new workers, a situation there is not occurred since the era of the 1930s.

"The company has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly and systematically," says a labor researcher, a researcher at Arena Idé, a think tank supported by Swedish trade unions.

"It's not against the law, this being crucial to recognize. However it violates all established norms. But Tesla shows no concern for conventions.

"They want to be norm breakers. Thus when anyone tells them, listen, you are breaking a norm, they perceive that as a compliment."

The company's Swedish subsidiary refused requests for interview in an email mentioning "all-time high vehicle shipments".

In fact, the automaker has given just a single media interview during the entire period after the strike started.

Earlier this year, the local division's "national manager, Jens Stark, told a financial publication that it suited the company more not to have a union contract, and instead "to work closely with the team and provide them the best possible terms".

The executive rejected that the choice not to enter a collective agreement was one made at Tesla headquarters overseas. "We have a mandate to take our own such choices," he said.

The union is not entirely alone in this conflict. This industrial action has received backing by a number of other unions.

Port workers in neighbouring Denmark, Norway & Finland, decline to handle Teslas; rubbish is no longer removed from Tesla's Swedish facilities; while recently constructed power points remain connected to power networks across the nation.

There is an example near the capital's airport, at which 20 chargers remain unused. But a Tesla enthusiast, the president of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, says vehicle owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There exists an alternative power point 10km from this location," he comments. "And we can continue to buy our cars, we can maintain our cars, we can charge our electric cars."

With stakes high on both sides, it is difficult to envision a resolution to the stand-off. The union risks establishing a pattern if it concedes the principle of collective agreement.

"The worry is that that would spread," states Mr Bender, "and eventually {erode