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Across Sweden, around seventy automotive mechanics persist to confront one of the globe's richest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This industrial action targeting the American automaker's ten Swedish repair facilities has currently entered two years of duration, and there is minimal indication for a settlement.

Janis Kuzma has been on the electric car company's protest line starting from October 2023.

"It has been a difficult period," states the 39-year-old. And as the nation's cold seasonal conditions sets in, it's likely to grow more challenging.

The mechanic devotes each Monday alongside a fellow worker, positioned outside an electric vehicle garage on an industrial park located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, IF Metall, provides accommodation in the form of a mobile construction vehicle, as well as hot beverages and light meals.

However it's business as usual nearby, at which the service facility seems to operate in full swing.

This industrial action concerns a matter that goes to the heart of Scandinavia's industrial culture – the right of trade unions to negotiate wages & working terms on behalf of their workforce. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned industrial relations across the nation for almost a century.

Currently some 70% of Swedish employees belong to labor organizations, while 90% fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes across the nation are rare.

It's an arrangement welcomed across the board. "We favor the right to negotiate freely with worker representatives and establish collective agreements," says a business representative from the Association of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

But Tesla has upset established practices. Outspoken CEO Elon Musk has said he "opposes" with the concept of unions. "I simply disapprove of anything which creates a kind of lords and peasants situation," he informed listeners at an event last year. "In my view the unions try to create negativity in a company."

The automaker entered the Scandinavian market back in the mid-2010s, while IF Metall has for years wanted to establish a labor contract with the company.

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

She says the union eventually found no alternative except to announce industrial action, which started on 27 October, 2023. "Usually it's enough to issue a warning," comments Ms Nilsson. "Employers usually signs the contract."

But not in this case.

Janis Kuzma, originally from Latvia, began employment with the automaker several years ago. He asserts that wages and work terms were often subject to the whim of managers.

He remembers an evaluation meeting where he says he was denied an annual pay rise because he was "not reaching Tesla's goals". At the same time, a coworker was said to have been turned down for increased compensation because he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, some workers participated in the industrial action. Tesla employed approximately 130 mechanics employed at the time the strike was called. IF Metall says currently approximately seventy of their represented workers are on strike.

Tesla has since substituted these with new workers, a situation there is no precedent since the Great Depression.

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

"It is not against the law, which is crucial to recognize. However it violates all established practices. Yet Tesla doesn't care about norms.

"They want to become convention challengers. So if anyone tells them, hey, you are breaking a norm, they see this as praise."

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

Indeed, the company has granted just a single press discussion during the entire period after the strike began.

Earlier this year, the local division's "country lead", Jens Stark, told a business paper that it benefited the company better to avoid a union contract, and rather "to collaborate directly with the team and give them the best possible conditions".

Mr Stark denied that the choice to avoid a collective agreement was one made by US leadership in the US. "Our division possesses a mandate to make our own such decisions," he said.

IF Metall is not entirely isolated in this conflict. This industrial action has received backing by a number of labor organizations.

Port workers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Norway & Finland, decline to handle Teslas; waste is not collected from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; while recently constructed charging stations remain linked to power networks across the nation.

Exists an example near the capital's airport, at which 20 chargers stand idle. But Tibor Blomhäll, the president of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, states Tesla owners remain unaffected by the strike.

"There exists another charging station six miles from here," he comments. "And we can continue to purchase vehicles, we can maintain our cars, we can charge our electric cars."

With stakes significant for all parties, it's hard to envision a resolution to the deadlock. IF Metall risks establishing a pattern if it concedes the principle of negotiated labor contracts.

"The concern is how that would spread," says the researcher, "and eventually {erode