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Across Sweden, approximately 70 car mechanics persist to confront one of the world's richest corporations – Tesla. This labor strike at the US automaker's 10 Swedish service centers has currently entered two years of duration, with minimal indication of a settlement.

Janis Kuzma has been on the electric car company's protest line since the autumn of 2023.

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

Janis spends every start of the week alongside a fellow worker, standing near a Tesla garage within a business district in Malmö. His union, IF Metall, supplies shelter in the form of a portable builders' van, as well as hot beverages & light meals.

But it's operations continue normally nearby, at which the service facility appears to be in full swing.

This industrial action involves an issue that goes to the heart of Scandinavia's industrial culture – the right of trade unions to negotiate wages and working terms representing their workforce. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has supported labor dynamics across the nation for nearly one hundred years.

Today approximately seventy percent of Scandinavia's workers belong to labor organizations, and ninety percent are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages across the nation are rare.

This is an arrangement supported by all parties. "We prefer the ability to negotiate freely with the unions and sign labor contracts," says a business representative from the Association of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

However the electric car company has disrupted established practices. Vocal chief executive the company leader has stated he "opposes" with the concept of labor organizations. "I just disapprove of anything that establishes a sort of lords and peasants situation," he informed listeners at an event last year. "In my view labor groups try to create negativity within businesses."

Tesla came to the Scandinavian market back in 2014, while the metalworkers' union has for years sought to secure a labor contract with the automaker.

"Yet they did not reply," states Marie Nilsson, the organization's leader. "We formed the impression that they tried to hide away or not discuss the matter with our representatives."

She says the union ultimately saw no other option than to announce a strike, which started in late October, 2023. "Usually it's enough to make the threat," says Ms Nilsson. "The company usually agrees to the agreement."

But not in this case.

The striking mechanic, originally of Latvian origin, began employment for Tesla several years ago. He claims that pay and conditions frequently dependent on the whim of managers.

He remembers an evaluation meeting at which he says he was refused a salary increase because that he "failing to meet company targets". At the same time, a colleague was said to have been turned down for increased compensation due to he had the "wrong attitude".

Nevertheless, not everyone participated in the industrial action. The company employed approximately 130 mechanics employed at the time the strike was called. IF Metall says currently approximately 70 of its members are participating in the action.

Tesla has long since substituted the striking workers with new workers, for which that has not occurred since the era of the 1930s.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly and systematically," states German Bender, an analyst at Arena Idé, a policy organization financed by Swedish trade unions.

"It's not against the law, this being important to understand. However it violates all traditional practices. But the company shows no concern for conventions.

"They want to be convention challengers. So if anyone informs them, listen, you are breaking a standard, they see this as praise."

The company's Swedish subsidiary declined requests for interview in an email mentioning "record vehicle shipments".

In fact, the company has given only one media interview during the entire period after the strike began.

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", the executive, told a business paper that it benefited the company better not to have a union contract, and rather "to work closely with employees and give workers optimal terms".

The executive denied that the decision to avoid a labor contract was one made by US leadership overseas. "Our division possesses authorization to take our own such choices," he said.

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

Dockworkers in neighbouring Denmark, Nordic countries & Finland, decline to process the company's vehicles; waste is not collected from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; while newly built charging stations are not being linked to the grid across the nation.

Exists one such facility near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which twenty chargers remain unused. But Tibor Blomhäll, the leader of an owner's club the Swedish Tesla association, says Tesla owners remain unaffected by the strike.

"There exists an alternative power point 10km from here," he says. "And we can continue to purchase vehicles, we can maintain our cars, we can charge our cars."

With stakes high on both sides, it's hard to envision an end to the deadlock. IF Metall risks setting a precedent if it concedes the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

"The worry is how this could expand," says Mr Bender, "and ultimately {erode