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Across Sweden, around 70 automotive mechanics persist to confront one of the globe's richest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This labor strike at the American automaker's 10 Swedish service centers has currently reached two years of duration, and there is minimal indication for a settlement.

Janis Kuzma has remained on the electric car company's picket line starting from the autumn of 2023.

"It has been a tough time," states the 39-year-old. And as the nation's chilly seasonal conditions sets in, it's likely to grow even tougher.

Janis devotes every start of the week alongside a fellow worker, standing near a Tesla service center within a business district in Malmö. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides accommodation in the form of a mobile builders' van, as well as coffee and light meals.

However it remains business as usual across the road, at which the workshop seems to be in full swing.

This industrial action concerns a matter that reaches to the heart of Scandinavia's industrial culture – the authority of trade unions to bargain for pay and conditions representing their workforce. This principle of collective agreement has underpinned industrial relations in Sweden for nearly a century.

Today some 70% of Scandinavia's workers are members to labor organizations, and ninety percent fall under by a collective agreement. Labor stoppages across the nation are rare.

This is a system welcomed by all parties. "We favor the right to negotiate freely with the unions and establish collective agreements," states Mattias Dahl from the Association of Swedish Businesses employer group.

However Tesla has upset the apple cart. Vocal chief executive Elon Musk has said he "disagrees" with the concept of labor organizations. "I just disapprove of anything which creates a sort of hierarchical sort of thing," he told listeners in New York in 2023. "In my view labor groups attempt to generate conflict within businesses."

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

"But they wouldn't reply," says Marie Nilsson, the organization's leader. "And we got the belief that they attempted to hide away or evade discussing this with our representatives."

She says the union eventually found no other option than to announce industrial action, which started on 27 October, last year. "Typically the threat suffices to make the threat," says Ms Nilsson. "Employers usually agrees to the agreement."

But not on this occasion.

Janis Kuzma, originally of Latvian origin, started working for Tesla in 2021. He asserts that pay & conditions frequently subject to the whim of supervisors.

He recalls a performance review at which he says he was denied an annual pay rise because that he "not reaching Tesla's goals". Meanwhile, a colleague was reported to have been rejected for increased compensation because he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, not everyone went out in the industrial action. The company employed approximately 130 technicians employed at the time the strike was called. The union states currently around seventy of its members are on strike.

The automaker has since replaced these with replacement staff, for which that has not occurred since the 1930s.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly & methodically," says a labor researcher, an analyst at Arena Idé, a think tank financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It's not illegal, which is crucial to recognize. However it goes against all established norms. But the company shows no concern about norms.

"They aim to be norm breakers. So if somebody informs them, listen, you are violating a norm, they perceive that as praise."

The company's local division declined attempts for comment via correspondence mentioning "all-time high vehicle shipments".

In fact, the company has granted just a single media interview in the two years after the strike started.

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, the executive, told a financial publication that it benefited the company more to avoid a union contract, and instead "to work closely with the team and provide them optimal terms".

The executive rejected that the choice to avoid a labor contract was one made by US leadership in the US. "We have a mandate to make our own such choices," he said.

The union is not completely alone in this conflict. This industrial action has been supported by a number of other unions.

Dockworkers in nearby Denmark, Nordic countries & Finland, are refusing to handle Teslas; rubbish is no longer collected from the automaker's Swedish facilities; while recently constructed power points remain linked to power networks across the nation.

Exists an example near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, where twenty chargers stand idle. But a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, states vehicle owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There exists another charging station six miles from this location," he says. "Plus we are able to continue to purchase vehicles, we can service our cars, we can power our cars."

With consequences significant for all parties, it's hard to envision a resolution to the stand-off. The union faces the danger of setting a precedent if it concedes the principle of collective agreement.

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