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Across Sweden, around 70 automotive mechanics persist to confront one of the globe's richest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This industrial action at the US carmaker's 10 Scandinavian repair facilities has currently entered its second anniversary, and there is minimal indication for a settlement.

Janis Kuzma has been at the electric car company's protest line since October 2023.

"It's a difficult time," remarks the worker in his late thirties. And as the nation's chilly winter weather arrives, it's likely to grow even tougher.

The mechanic devotes each Monday with a fellow worker, standing near an electric vehicle garage within an industrial park located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, IF Metall, provides shelter via a portable builders' van, as well as hot beverages & light meals.

But it remains operations continue normally across the road, where the service facility appears to be at full capacity.

This industrial action concerns a matter that reaches to the heart of Swedish labor traditions – the authority for worker organizations to bargain for wages & conditions on behalf of their members. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned industrial relations across the nation for nearly a century.

Today some 70% of Swedish workers are members of a trade union, and ninety percent fall under by a collective agreement. Strikes in Sweden occur infrequently.

This is an arrangement supported across the board. "We favor the ability to bargain directly with the unions and sign collective agreements," states Mattias Dahl from the Association of Swedish Businesses business organization.

However Tesla has disrupted established practices. Outspoken chief executive the company leader has said he "disagrees" with the idea of unions. "I just disapprove of any arrangement that establishes a kind of hierarchical sort of thing," he informed an audience at an event last year. "In my view labor groups try to generate conflict within businesses."

The automaker came to Sweden starting in the mid-2010s, while IF Metall has for years wanted to secure a labor contract with the automaker.

"Yet they did not respond," says Marie Nilsson, the union's president. "We formed the belief that they attempted to hide away or not discuss the matter with us."

She says the organization ultimately saw no alternative except to announce a strike, beginning in late October, last year. "Typically it's enough to make a warning," says the union leader. "The company typically agrees to the contract."

However not on this occasion.

Janis Kuzma, who is from Latvia, began employment for Tesla in 2021. He asserts that wages and conditions frequently subject to the discretion of managers.

He recalls an evaluation meeting where he says he was denied a salary increase on grounds that he "failing to meet Tesla's goals". Meanwhile, a colleague was said to have been rejected for a pay rise because having an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, not everyone participated on strike. The company employed approximately one hundred thirty mechanics employed when the strike was called. IF Metall says currently around seventy of its members are on strike.

Tesla has since substituted the striking workers with new workers, for which there is no precedent since the era of the 1930s.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly and methodically," states German Bender, a researcher at Arena Idé, a policy organization financed by Swedish trade unions.

"It is not against the law, this being important to recognize. But it violates all traditional norms. Yet Tesla shows no concern for conventions.

"They aim to become norm breakers. Thus when anyone informs them, hey, you are breaking a norm, they perceive that as praise."

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

In fact, the automaker has granted just a single media interview during the entire period since the industrial action began.

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, Jens Stark, told a business paper that it benefited the organization more not to have a collective agreement, and rather "to work closely with employees and provide workers the best possible conditions".

The executive rejected that the choice to avoid a collective agreement was one made at Tesla headquarters overseas. "We have a mandate to take independent such decisions," he said.

IF Metall is not entirely alone in its fight. The strike has received backing by a number of other unions.

Port workers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries & neighboring states, are refusing to process the company's vehicles; waste is no longer removed from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; and recently constructed charging stations remain linked to the grid in the country.

Exists one such facility near the capital's airport, at which 20 chargers stand idle. But a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, states Tesla owners are unaffected by the strike.

"There exists another charging station six miles from this location," he comments. "Plus we are able to still purchase vehicles, we can maintain our cars, we can charge our electric cars."

With consequences significant on both sides, it is difficult to envision a resolution to the deadlock. IF Metall risks establishing a pattern should it surrender the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

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