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In Sweden, approximately seventy automotive technicians persist to confront among the world's richest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This labor strike at the US carmaker's ten Swedish repair facilities has now reached two years of duration, and there is little sign of a settlement.

Janis Kuzma has been on the Tesla picket line starting from October 2023.

"It's a tough time," states the worker in his late thirties. With the nation's cold seasonal conditions sets in, it's likely to grow more challenging.

Janis spends every start of the week with a colleague, standing outside a Tesla service center on an industrial park in Malmö. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies shelter via a mobile construction vehicle, plus coffee and light meals.

However it remains business as usual nearby, where the workshop appears to operate in full swing.

The strike concerns a matter that goes to the heart of Scandinavia's industrial culture – the right of trade unions to bargain for pay & working terms representing their workforce. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has supported labor dynamics in Sweden for almost one hundred years.

Today approximately 70% of Scandinavia's employees belong of a trade union, while ninety percent fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes in Sweden occur infrequently.

This is a system welcomed across the board. "We favor the ability to negotiate directly with worker representatives and establish collective agreements," says a business representative from the Association of Swedish Businesses employer group.

However Tesla has upset the apple cart. Vocal CEO Elon Musk has stated he "opposes" with the concept of labor organizations. "I simply don't like any arrangement which creates a kind of hierarchical sort of thing," he informed listeners at an event in 2023. "In my view the unions try to generate conflict in a company."

Tesla came to Sweden back in the mid-2010s, while the metalworkers' union has long wanted to secure a collective agreement with the company.

"But they wouldn't respond," states Marie Nilsson, the union's president. "We formed the impression that they attempted to hide away or not discuss the matter with us."

She states the organization ultimately found no other option except to call industrial action, beginning on 27 October, 2023. "Usually it's enough to make a warning," says the union leader. "Employers usually agrees to the agreement."

But this did not happen in this case.

The striking mechanic, who is from Latvia, started working with the automaker several years ago. He claims that pay and work terms frequently subject to the discretion of supervisors.

He remembers a performance review where he says he was refused an annual pay rise on grounds he was "not reaching company targets". Meanwhile, a coworker was said to have been rejected for increased compensation because having the "wrong attitude".

Nevertheless, some workers participated on strike. The company employed approximately one hundred thirty technicians working when the strike was initiated. The union says that today approximately seventy of its members are participating in the action.

The automaker has since substituted the striking workers with new workers, a situation that has not occurred since the 1930s.

"Tesla has done it [found replacement staff] openly & methodically," says a labor researcher, an analyst at Arena Idé, a think tank supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not illegal, which is important to understand. But it goes against all established norms. Yet Tesla shows no concern about norms.

"They aim to be norm breakers. Thus when somebody tells them, listen, you are violating a standard, they see this as praise."

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

Indeed, the company has granted only one press discussion in the two years since the strike started.

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", the executive, informed a financial publication that it benefited the company more not to have a union contract, and rather "to collaborate directly with the team and give workers optimal conditions".

Mr Stark rejected that the decision not to enter a labor contract was determined by US leadership overseas. "Our division possesses a mandate to make our own such choices," he stated.

The union is not completely isolated in its fight. This industrial action has received backing from several of labor organizations.

Dockworkers in neighbouring Denmark, Nordic countries and Finland, decline to handle Teslas; waste is no longer collected from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; while recently constructed charging stations remain connected to the grid in the country.

There is one such facility close to the capital's airport, where 20 charging units remain unused. But Tibor Blomhäll, the president of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, says vehicle owners remain unaffected by the strike.

"There's an alternative power point 10km from here," he comments. "And we can still buy our cars, we can maintain our cars, we can power our cars."

With consequences significant for all parties, it's hard to envision a resolution to the stand-off. IF Metall faces the danger of establishing a pattern if it concedes the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

"The concern is how that would spread," says Mr Bender, "and eventually {erode