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Across Sweden, around seventy car technicians persist to confront one of the globe's wealthiest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The labor strike at the US automaker's 10 Scandinavian repair facilities has currently reached two years of duration, and there is minimal indication of a settlement.

One striking worker has been at the electric car company's picket line since the autumn of 2023.

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

Janis spends each Monday alongside a fellow worker, standing near an electric vehicle service center on an industrial park located in southern Sweden. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies shelter via a mobile builders' van, plus hot beverages and sandwiches.

However it remains business as usual across the road, at which the service facility appears to be in full swing.

The strike involves an issue that goes to the core of Swedish industrial culture – the right for worker organizations to negotiate wages & conditions on behalf of their members. This concept of collective agreement has underpinned industrial relations in Sweden for nearly one hundred years.

Today some 70% of Scandinavia's workers belong of a trade union, and 90% are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages across the nation occur infrequently.

It's a system supported by all parties. "We prefer the ability to bargain freely with the unions and establish labor contracts," says Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

However Tesla has upset established practices. Outspoken CEO the company leader has said he "opposes" with the concept of labor organizations. "I just disapprove of any arrangement which creates a kind of lords and peasants sort of thing," he informed listeners at an event last year. "I think labor groups try to create negativity in a company."

Tesla entered the Scandinavian market back in the mid-2010s, while IF Metall has for years sought to establish a labor contract with the automaker.

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

She says the union eventually saw no other option than to announce industrial action, which started on 27 October, 2023. "Usually it's enough to issue the threat," comments the union leader. "Employers typically agrees to the agreement."

However not on this occasion.

Janis Kuzma, originally of Latvian origin, started working with the automaker in 2021. He asserts that wages & conditions frequently subject to the whim of managers.

He recalls an evaluation meeting where he states he was refused an annual pay rise on grounds that he "failing to meet Tesla's goals". Meanwhile, a coworker was reported to have been turned down for a pay rise due to he had the "wrong attitude".

Nevertheless, some workers participated on strike. The company had approximately 130 mechanics working at the time the strike was initiated. The union says currently approximately seventy of its members are on strike.

The automaker has since replaced these with replacement staff, for which that has not occurred since the era of the 1930s.

"The company has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly & methodically," says a labor researcher, an analyst at a research institute, a policy organization financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not against the law, which is important to understand. However it goes against all established norms. But Tesla shows no concern for conventions.

"They want to become convention challengers. Thus when somebody informs them, listen, you are breaking a standard, they perceive this as a compliment."

The company's Swedish subsidiary declined attempts for comment via correspondence citing "all-time high deliveries".

In fact, the company has granted just a single press discussion in the two years after the strike started.

In March 2024, 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 rather "to work closely with the team and provide them optimal conditions".

The executive rejected that the choice to avoid a collective agreement was determined by US leadership in the US. "Our division possesses authorization to make independent such decisions," he said.

IF Metall is not completely isolated in its fight. This industrial action has been supported by a number of labor organizations.

Port workers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Norway & neighboring states, are refusing to handle Teslas; rubbish is no longer collected from Tesla's Swedish facilities; while newly built power points are not being linked to power networks in the country.

Exists one such facility near the capital's airport, where 20 chargers remain unused. However a Tesla enthusiast, the president of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, states vehicle owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's another charging station six miles from here," he says. "And we can still buy our cars, we can maintain our vehicles, we can charge our cars."

With consequences high on both sides, it's hard to envision an end to the deadlock. IF Metall risks setting a precedent should it surrender the principle of collective agreement.

"The worry is how that would spread," states the researcher, "and ultimately {erode