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Across Sweden, approximately seventy automotive technicians persist to confront one of the world's wealthiest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This labor strike targeting the US automaker's 10 Scandinavian service centers has currently reached its second anniversary, with minimal indication of a resolution.

One striking worker has remained on the Tesla protest line starting from October 2023.

"It has been a tough period," states the worker in his late thirties. With the nation's chilly seasonal conditions sets in, it is expected to become more challenging.

Janis spends every start of the week with a fellow worker, positioned near an electric vehicle service center within an industrial park located in southern Sweden. His union, IF Metall, provides shelter via a portable builders' van, plus coffee & sandwiches.

But it remains business as usual across the road, at which the service facility appears to be at full capacity.

The strike involves an issue that reaches to the heart of Swedish labor traditions – the authority of trade unions to negotiate wages and conditions on behalf of their members. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned labor dynamics in Sweden for almost one hundred years.

Today some seventy percent of Swedish workers are members to labor organizations, while 90% fall under by a collective agreement. Strikes across the nation are rare.

It's a system supported across the board. "We favor the right to negotiate directly with worker representatives and establish labor contracts," states a business representative from the Association of Swedish Businesses business organization.

However Tesla has disrupted established practices. Vocal CEO Elon Musk has stated he "opposes" with the idea of labor organizations. "I just don't like anything which creates a sort of lords and peasants sort of thing," he informed listeners at an event in 2023. "I think labor groups attempt to generate conflict within businesses."

Tesla entered the Scandinavian market back in the mid-2010s, and the metalworkers' union has long sought to secure a labor contract with the automaker.

"But they wouldn't reply," says the union president, the union's president. "We formed the impression that they attempted to avoid or evade discussing the matter with our representatives."

She says the organization ultimately found no alternative except to announce industrial action, which started on 27 October, last year. "Usually it's enough to make the threat," comments Ms Nilsson. "The company typically agrees to the contract."

However not in this case.

Janis Kuzma, originally of Latvian origin, started working with the automaker several years ago. He claims that pay & conditions frequently dependent on the whim of supervisors.

He remembers a performance review where he states he was denied a salary increase on grounds he was "not reaching company targets". At the same time, a coworker was said to be rejected for increased compensation due to he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, not everyone went out on strike. Tesla employed approximately one hundred thirty mechanics working at the time the strike was initiated. IF Metall says currently approximately 70 of their represented workers are on strike.

The automaker has long since substituted these with replacement staff, a situation there is no precedent since the 1930s.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly and methodically," says a labor researcher, an analyst at Arena Idé, a think tank supported by Swedish trade unions.

"It's not illegal, this being crucial to recognize. But it violates all traditional practices. Yet Tesla doesn't care about norms.

"They want to be convention challengers. So if somebody tells them, listen, you are breaking a norm, they perceive this as a compliment."

The company's local division declined attempts for interview via correspondence citing "record vehicle shipments".

In fact, the automaker has granted only one media interview during the entire period since the industrial action began.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", Jens Stark, told a financial publication that it suited the company better not to have a collective agreement, and instead "to work closely with the team and give workers the best possible conditions".

Mr Stark rejected that the choice not to enter a labor contract was one made at Tesla headquarters in the US. "Our division possesses a mandate to take our own such choices," he stated.

IF Metall is not entirely alone in its fight. This industrial action has been supported from several of other unions.

Port workers in nearby Denmark, Nordic countries and Finland, are refusing to handle Teslas; rubbish is not removed from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; while recently constructed charging stations are not being linked to power networks in the country.

There is one such facility near the capital's airport, where twenty charging units remain unused. But Tibor Blomhäll, the leader of an owner's club the Swedish Tesla association, states Tesla owners remain unaffected by the strike.

"There exists another charging station 10km from this location," he comments. "And we can still purchase vehicles, we can service our vehicles, we can power our electric cars."

With consequences significant on both sides, it is difficult to envision a resolution to the stand-off. The union risks setting a precedent if it concedes the principle of collective agreement.

"The worry is how that would spread," states Mr Bender, "and ultimately {erode