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Across Sweden, around seventy automotive mechanics continue to challenge one of the world's richest corporations – Tesla. The labor strike at the US carmaker's 10 Scandinavian service centers has now entered its second anniversary, with minimal indication of a settlement.

One striking worker has remained on the electric car company's protest line starting from the autumn of 2023.

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

Janis devotes every start of the week alongside a colleague, standing outside a Tesla garage on a business district located in southern Sweden. His union, IF Metall, supplies accommodation in the form of a mobile builders' van, as well as coffee and light meals.

But it remains operations continue normally across the road, at which the workshop seems to operate in full swing.

This industrial action concerns a matter that reaches to the heart of Swedish industrial culture – the authority of trade unions to bargain for wages and working terms on behalf of their workforce. This concept of collective agreement has underpinned industrial relations across the nation for almost a century.

Today some 70% of Scandinavia's workers are members of a trade union, while ninety percent fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages across the nation occur infrequently.

It's a system supported across the board. "We prefer the right to bargain directly with the unions and sign labor contracts," states Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Businesses employer group.

However the electric car company has upset established practices. Outspoken CEO the company leader has said he "disagrees" with the idea of unions. "I simply disapprove of anything which creates a kind of hierarchical sort of thing," he informed an audience in New York in 2023. "In my view the unions try to generate negativity within businesses."

Tesla came to Sweden starting in 2014, while IF Metall has long wanted to secure a collective agreement with the company.

"But they wouldn't reply," states Marie Nilsson, the organization's president. "And we got the belief that they attempted to avoid or evade discussing this with us."

She states the union ultimately found no other option except to announce a strike, which started on 27 October, last year. "Typically the threat suffices to make the threat," comments the union leader. "Employers usually signs the agreement."

But this did not happen in this case.

Janis Kuzma, who is of Latvian origin, started working with the automaker in 2021. He claims that pay & work terms frequently dependent on the discretion of supervisors.

He recalls a performance review where he says he was refused an annual pay rise on grounds he was "failing to meet Tesla's goals". Meanwhile, a colleague was said to be rejected for a pay rise because having the "wrong attitude".

However, not everyone went out in the industrial action. Tesla had approximately one hundred thirty mechanics working at the time the industrial action was called. IF Metall says that today around seventy of its members are on strike.

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

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly and systematically," states German Bender, a researcher at Arena Idé, a policy organization financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It's not against the law, this being important to recognize. However it goes against all established norms. But Tesla doesn't care for conventions.

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

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary declined requests for interview via correspondence mentioning "all-time high deliveries".

Indeed, the automaker has given only one media interview during the entire period since the industrial action began.

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, the executive, told a financial publication that it suited the organization better to avoid a collective agreement, and instead "to collaborate directly with employees and provide workers optimal conditions".

The executive denied that the choice not to enter a labor contract was one made at Tesla headquarters overseas. "Our division possesses a mandate to take independent such decisions," he stated.

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

Port workers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries & Finland, are refusing to handle the company's vehicles; rubbish is not collected from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; and newly built power points are not being linked to the grid across the nation.

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

"There exists an alternative power point 10km from here," he says. "Plus we are able to continue to buy our cars, we can maintain our cars, we can charge our electric cars."

With stakes high on both sides, it is difficult to envision a resolution to the deadlock. IF Metall risks setting a precedent should it surrender the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

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