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Across Sweden, approximately seventy car technicians persist to challenge among the globe's wealthiest corporations – Tesla. The industrial action at the US automaker's 10 Scandinavian service centers has currently reached its second anniversary, and there is minimal indication for a resolution.

One striking worker has remained on the Tesla picket line starting from October 2023.

"It's a difficult period," remarks the 39-year-old. And as Sweden's cold seasonal conditions arrives, it is expected to grow more challenging.

Janis devotes each Monday with a colleague, positioned near an electric vehicle garage within an industrial park located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies shelter in the form of a portable construction vehicle, plus hot beverages & light meals.

However it remains business as usual nearby, where the service facility seems to operate at full capacity.

The strike concerns a matter that reaches to the heart of Swedish labor traditions – the authority of trade unions to negotiate wages & working terms representing their workforce. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has supported labor dynamics across the nation for nearly one hundred years.

Currently approximately seventy percent of Scandinavia's workers are members to labor organizations, and ninety percent are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes in Sweden occur infrequently.

This is an arrangement supported across the board. "We favor the right to bargain freely with the unions and establish labor contracts," says Mattias Dahl from the Association of Swedish Businesses business organization.

But the electric car company has disrupted established practices. Vocal CEO Elon Musk has stated he "opposes" with the concept of unions. "I just don't like any arrangement that establishes a kind of lords and peasants sort of thing," he informed an audience in New York last year. "In my view labor groups try to create conflict within businesses."

The automaker entered Sweden starting in 2014, while the metalworkers' union has for years wanted to establish a collective agreement with the automaker.

"But they did not reply," states Marie Nilsson, the union's leader. "And we got the belief that they attempted to avoid or not discuss this with us."

She says the organization eventually found no other option than to call industrial action, beginning in late October, 2023. "Typically the threat suffices to issue a warning," comments the union leader. "The company typically signs the contract."

However not on this occasion.

Janis Kuzma, originally from Latvia, started working for Tesla in 2021. He asserts that wages and conditions frequently subject to the discretion of managers.

He remembers an evaluation meeting at which he states he was refused a salary increase because he was "not reaching Tesla's goals". At the same time, a colleague was said to be rejected for increased compensation because he had the "wrong attitude".

Nevertheless, some workers participated in the industrial action. The company employed some one hundred thirty mechanics working when the industrial action was initiated. IF Metall states currently approximately 70 of its members are participating in the action.

The automaker has since substituted these with new workers, for which there is not occurred since the Great Depression.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly and systematically," says German Bender, a researcher at a research institute, a think tank financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not illegal, this being crucial to recognize. However it goes against all established practices. But the company doesn't care about norms.

"They want to become convention challengers. Thus when anyone tells them, listen, you are violating a norm, they see this as a compliment."

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary refused attempts for comment via correspondence citing "all-time high vehicle shipments".

In fact, the automaker has given only one media interview in the two years since the strike started.

Earlier this year, the local division's "country lead", the executive, told a financial publication that it suited the organization more to avoid a collective agreement, and rather "to collaborate directly with employees and give them the best possible conditions".

The executive rejected that the decision not to enter a labor contract was determined at Tesla headquarters in the US. "We have authorization to take independent such choices," he stated.

The union is not entirely alone in this conflict. This industrial action has received backing from several of other unions.

Dockworkers in neighbouring Denmark, Nordic countries and Finland, decline to handle Teslas; waste is no longer collected from the automaker's Swedish facilities; and newly built power points remain linked to the grid across the nation.

Exists an example close to the capital's airport, where 20 charging units remain unused. But a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, says vehicle owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's another charging station 10km from here," he says. "And we can still purchase vehicles, we can service our vehicles, we can charge our electric cars."

With stakes high on both sides, it is difficult to see a resolution to the deadlock. IF Metall risks setting a precedent should it surrender the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

"The concern is that this could expand," states the researcher, "and eventually {erode