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In Sweden, approximately 70 car mechanics persist to confront one of the world's wealthiest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This labor strike targeting the US carmaker's ten Swedish service centers has now entered its second anniversary, with little indication for a resolution.

One striking worker has been on the Tesla protest line starting from the autumn of 2023.

"It has been a tough time," states the 39-year-old. With the nation's chilly seasonal conditions sets in, it's likely to grow more challenging.

Janis devotes each Monday alongside a colleague, positioned outside a Tesla service center on a business district in Malmö. His union, IF Metall, supplies shelter in the form of a mobile builders' van, plus coffee & light meals.

But it remains operations continue normally across the road, at which the service facility appears to operate in full swing.

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

Today some 70% of Swedish employees belong to labor organizations, and 90% are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes across the nation are rare.

It's an arrangement welcomed across the board. "We prefer the right to negotiate freely with the unions and sign collective agreements," says Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Businesses business organization.

However Tesla has upset the apple cart. Vocal chief executive Elon Musk has said he "opposes" with the concept of labor organizations. "I simply don't like anything that establishes a kind of lords and peasants situation," he informed an audience at an event in 2023. "I think the unions attempt to create conflict within businesses."

The automaker came to the Scandinavian market back in the mid-2010s, and IF Metall has for years sought to secure a labor contract with the company.

"But they did not reply," says Marie Nilsson, the organization's leader. "We formed the belief that they tried to avoid or not discuss this with us."

She states the organization ultimately saw no alternative except to call industrial action, beginning in late October, last year. "Usually the threat suffices to issue a warning," says the union leader. "The company usually signs the contract."

But not in this case.

Janis Kuzma, who is from Latvia, started working for Tesla several years ago. He asserts that pay and work terms were often dependent on the whim of managers.

He recalls an evaluation meeting at which he says he was denied an annual pay rise because he was "not reaching company targets". Meanwhile, a colleague was reported to be rejected for a pay rise due to he had the "wrong attitude".

Nevertheless, not everyone went out on strike. Tesla employed approximately 130 technicians working at the time the strike was called. IF Metall states currently around 70 of its members are on strike.

Tesla has long since substituted the striking workers with new workers, a situation there is not occurred since the era of the Great Depression.

"Tesla has done it [found replacement staff] openly and methodically," states a labor researcher, an analyst at Arena Idé, a policy organization financed by Swedish trade unions.

"It is not against the law, which is important to recognize. However it goes against all traditional practices. Yet the company doesn't care about norms.

"They want to be norm breakers. So if somebody tells them, hey, you are breaking a standard, they see this as praise."

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

In fact, the company has granted just a single press discussion during the entire period after the industrial action began.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, the executive, told a financial publication that it benefited the company better to avoid a collective agreement, and rather "to collaborate directly with employees and provide them optimal terms".

Mr Stark rejected that the choice to avoid a collective agreement was one made at Tesla headquarters overseas. "We have a mandate to make our own such choices," he said.

IF Metall is not completely alone in its fight. The strike has been supported from several of labor organizations.

Dockworkers in neighbouring Denmark, Norway & neighboring states, decline to handle Teslas; waste is not collected from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; while recently constructed charging stations remain linked to power networks across the nation.

Exists one such facility close to Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which 20 chargers stand idle. But a Tesla enthusiast, the president of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, says vehicle owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's another charging station six miles from this location," he says. "And we can still buy our cars, we can maintain our cars, we can power our electric cars."

With stakes significant for all parties, it is difficult to envision an end to the deadlock. The union risks setting a precedent should it surrender the principle of collective agreement.

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