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In Sweden, approximately seventy car mechanics persist to confront among the globe's wealthiest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This labor strike targeting the US carmaker's ten Scandinavian service centers has now entered its second anniversary, and there is little indication of a resolution.

Janis Kuzma has remained at the Tesla protest line since the autumn of 2023.

"It's a tough period," states the worker in his late thirties. With Sweden's chilly seasonal conditions sets in, it's likely to grow even tougher.

Janis devotes every start of the week with a colleague, standing outside a Tesla garage on a business district in Malmö. His union, IF Metall, supplies accommodation via a portable builders' van, as well as hot beverages and sandwiches.

However it's business as usual nearby, at which the service facility appears to be at full capacity.

The strike concerns an issue that reaches to the core of Swedish industrial culture – the authority for worker organizations to bargain for wages and conditions on behalf of their workforce. This principle of collective agreement has supported industrial relations across the nation for almost a century.

Currently approximately seventy percent of Swedish employees are members to labor organizations, while ninety percent are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages in Sweden occur infrequently.

It's an arrangement supported by all parties. "We prefer the right to negotiate directly with worker representatives and sign collective agreements," states a business representative of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

However the electric car company has disrupted the apple cart. Outspoken CEO Elon Musk has stated he "opposes" with the concept of labor organizations. "I just don't like any arrangement that establishes a kind of hierarchical situation," he told listeners in New York last year. "I think labor groups attempt to create conflict within businesses."

The automaker came to the Scandinavian market back in the mid-2010s, while IF Metall has long sought to secure a collective agreement with the automaker.

"But they did not reply," states the union president, the organization's leader. "And we got the impression that they tried to avoid or not discuss the matter with us."

She says the union ultimately found no other option than to announce a strike, beginning on 27 October, 2023. "Usually it's enough to issue the threat," comments the union leader. "Employers typically signs the contract."

But this did not happen in this case.

Janis Kuzma, who is from Latvia, began employment for Tesla several years ago. He claims that pay and conditions frequently subject to the whim of managers.

He recalls a performance review at which he states he was refused an annual pay rise because that he "failing to meet company targets". At the same time, a coworker was reported to be turned down for a pay rise due to having an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, not everyone participated on strike. Tesla employed some one hundred thirty technicians working when the industrial action was called. The union says currently around 70 of its members are participating in the action.

The automaker has since replaced the striking workers with new workers, a situation there is not occurred since the era of the 1930s.

"Tesla has done it [found replacement staff] openly & methodically," states German Bender, a researcher at Arena Idé, a think tank financed by Swedish trade unions.

"It is not against the law, which is important to recognize. However it violates all traditional practices. But the company doesn't care for conventions.

"They aim to be convention challengers. So if anyone informs them, listen, you are breaking a norm, they see that as praise."

The company's local division declined requests for comment in an email mentioning "record vehicle shipments".

Indeed, the automaker has given only one press discussion during the entire period after the industrial action started.

Earlier this year, the local division's "national manager, Jens Stark, told a financial publication that it benefited the company better not to have a collective agreement, and instead "to collaborate directly with employees and provide them optimal conditions".

The executive rejected that the choice to avoid a labor contract was determined at Tesla headquarters overseas. "We have authorization to take independent such decisions," he stated.

IF Metall is not entirely isolated in this conflict. The strike has been supported by a number of labor organizations.

Port workers in neighbouring Denmark, Nordic countries and neighboring states, are refusing to process Teslas; waste is not removed from Tesla's Swedish facilities; while newly built power points remain connected to the grid in the country.

Exists one such facility near the capital's airport, where twenty charging units stand idle. But a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, says Tesla owners remain unaffected by the strike.

"There's an alternative power point 10km from here," he comments. "And we can continue to buy our cars, we can service our vehicles, we can charge our cars."

With consequences high on both sides, it is difficult to see an end to the deadlock. The union risks establishing a pattern should it surrender the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

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