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In Sweden, approximately 70 car mechanics persist to confront among the world's wealthiest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This labor strike targeting the US automaker's ten Swedish service centers has currently reached two years of duration, with minimal sign for a resolution.

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

"It has been a tough time," remarks the worker in his late thirties. And as Sweden's cold seasonal conditions arrives, it is expected to become more challenging.

Janis spends each Monday alongside a colleague, standing outside a Tesla garage within a business district in Malmö. His union, IF Metall, supplies shelter in the form of a mobile construction vehicle, as well as coffee and light meals.

But it's business as usual across the road, at which the workshop seems to operate at full capacity.

The strike concerns a matter that reaches to the core of Swedish labor traditions – the authority of trade unions to bargain for wages and conditions on behalf of their members. This concept of collective agreement has underpinned labor dynamics across the nation for almost one hundred years.

Currently approximately 70% of Swedish employees belong to labor organizations, and ninety percent are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages across the nation occur infrequently.

This is a system welcomed across the board. "We prefer the right to negotiate freely with worker representatives and sign collective agreements," states Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

However the electric car company has disrupted the apple cart. Outspoken chief executive the company leader has stated he "disagrees" with the concept of labor organizations. "I simply don't like anything which creates a sort of lords and peasants sort of thing," he told an audience in New York in 2023. "In my view the unions try to generate conflict within businesses."

Tesla came to Sweden starting in the mid-2010s, and IF Metall has for years sought to establish a collective agreement with the company.

"But they wouldn't respond," states Marie Nilsson, the organization's leader. "We formed the belief that they tried to avoid or not discuss the matter with us."

She states the organization ultimately saw no other option except to announce a strike, which started on 27 October, 2023. "Usually it's enough to issue a warning," says the union leader. "Employers typically agrees to the contract."

But not in this case.

Janis Kuzma, originally from Latvia, began employment with the automaker several years ago. He asserts that pay and conditions were often dependent on the whim of supervisors.

He remembers an evaluation meeting at which he says he was refused an annual pay rise on grounds he was "not reaching company targets". Meanwhile, a colleague was said to have been turned down for increased compensation due to he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, some workers went out on strike. Tesla had some one hundred thirty mechanics working when the industrial action was called. IF Metall says currently approximately 70 of their represented workers are on strike.

The automaker has since substituted the striking workers with replacement staff, for which there is not occurred since the Great Depression.

"Tesla has done it [found replacement staff] publicly & systematically," states German Bender, an analyst at a research institute, a policy organization financed by Swedish trade unions.

"It is not illegal, which is important to recognize. However it violates all traditional norms. Yet the company shows no concern for conventions.

"They aim to become norm breakers. Thus when somebody tells them, listen, you are violating a norm, they perceive this as praise."

The company's Swedish subsidiary refused requests for interview via correspondence citing "all-time high vehicle shipments".

In fact, the company has granted only one press discussion during the entire period after the industrial action began.

In March 2024, the local division's "country lead", Jens Stark, told a financial publication that it suited the organization better to avoid a union contract, and rather "to collaborate directly with employees and provide them optimal terms".

Mr Stark rejected that the choice to avoid a collective agreement was determined by US leadership overseas. "Our division possesses authorization to take independent such decisions," he said.

The union is not completely isolated in its fight. The strike has been supported by a number of labor organizations.

Dockworkers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries and Finland, decline to process Teslas; rubbish is no longer collected from the automaker's Swedish facilities; and recently constructed charging stations are not being linked to power networks in the country.

There is an example near the capital's airport, at which twenty charging units remain unused. But a Tesla enthusiast, the president of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, says Tesla owners remain unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There exists another charging station 10km from here," he says. "Plus we are able to continue to purchase vehicles, we can maintain our vehicles, we can charge our cars."

With consequences significant for all parties, it is difficult to envision a resolution to the deadlock. The union risks establishing a pattern should it surrender the principle of collective agreement.

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