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In Sweden, approximately 70 car mechanics continue to challenge among the globe's wealthiest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The industrial action targeting the American carmaker's 10 Swedish repair facilities has now entered its second anniversary, with minimal indication of a resolution.

Janis Kuzma has remained at the Tesla protest line starting from October 2023.

"It has been a difficult period," states the 39-year-old. With the nation's cold seasonal conditions arrives, it is expected to become more challenging.

The mechanic spends every start of the week with a fellow worker, standing near an electric vehicle garage on an industrial park in Malmö. The labor organization, IF Metall, supplies accommodation via a portable builders' van, plus hot beverages & sandwiches.

However it remains operations continue normally nearby, where the service facility seems to be at full capacity.

This industrial action involves an issue that reaches to the heart of Swedish industrial culture – the authority for worker organizations to bargain for pay & conditions representing their members. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has supported labor dynamics in Sweden for nearly one hundred years.

Today approximately 70% of Scandinavia's employees belong to labor organizations, while 90% are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages in Sweden are rare.

This is a system supported across the board. "We favor the right to negotiate freely with worker representatives and establish collective agreements," says a business representative of the Confederation of Swedish Businesses business organization.

But Tesla has disrupted established practices. Outspoken CEO the company leader has said he "disagrees" with the idea of labor organizations. "I simply disapprove of any arrangement which creates a sort of hierarchical sort of thing," he informed listeners at an event last year. "In my view the unions try to generate conflict within businesses."

Tesla entered Sweden starting in the mid-2010s, while the metalworkers' union has for years wanted to secure a collective agreement with the automaker.

"Yet they wouldn't reply," says the union president, the union's leader. "And we got the impression that they attempted to avoid or evade discussing this with us."

She states the union ultimately saw no other option except to call a strike, beginning on 27 October, 2023. "Typically it's enough to make the threat," comments Ms Nilsson. "Employers usually agrees to the contract."

But not on this occasion.

Janis Kuzma, originally of Latvian origin, began employment with the automaker in 2021. He asserts that wages & work terms frequently dependent on the discretion of managers.

He recalls an evaluation meeting where he says he was refused a salary increase on grounds he was "not reaching company targets". At the same time, a colleague was reported to be rejected for a pay rise because he had the "wrong attitude".

However, some workers went out in the industrial action. Tesla employed some 130 mechanics employed when the industrial action was called. IF Metall says currently approximately 70 of their represented workers are on strike.

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

"Tesla has done it [found replacement staff] publicly and systematically," states German Bender, an analyst at a research institute, a think tank supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not against the law, which is crucial to recognize. However it goes against all established practices. Yet the company shows no concern about norms.

"They want to be norm breakers. So if anyone tells them, listen, you are violating a norm, they see this as praise."

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary declined requests for interview in an email citing "record deliveries".

Indeed, the automaker has given just a single press discussion during the entire period after the industrial action started.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, the executive, informed a business paper that it benefited the company more not to have a union contract, and rather "to collaborate directly with employees and give them optimal terms".

Mr Stark rejected that the decision to avoid a collective agreement was determined at Tesla headquarters overseas. "We have authorization to take our own such decisions," he said.

The union is not completely isolated in its fight. This industrial action has been supported by a number of labor organizations.

Dockworkers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Norway & neighboring states, decline to handle the company's vehicles; waste is no longer collected from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; and recently constructed power points are not being connected to the grid in the country.

Exists an example near the capital's airport, where twenty chargers remain unused. However a Tesla enthusiast, the president of an owner's club the Swedish Tesla association, states vehicle owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

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

With stakes high on both sides, it's hard to envision a resolution to the deadlock. IF Metall faces the danger of setting a precedent if it concedes the principle of negotiated labor contracts.

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