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In Sweden, approximately seventy automotive mechanics persist to confront one of the globe's wealthiest corporations – Tesla. This labor strike targeting the American carmaker's 10 Swedish service centers has currently entered two years of duration, and there is little sign for a settlement.

Janis Kuzma has remained at the electric car company's protest line since the autumn of 2023.

"It's a difficult time," states the worker in his late thirties. With Sweden's chilly seasonal conditions arrives, it's likely to become more challenging.

The mechanic spends every start of the week with a fellow worker, standing near an electric vehicle garage on a business district located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, IF Metall, supplies accommodation in the form of a mobile builders' van, plus hot beverages and sandwiches.

But it remains operations continue normally nearby, where the workshop seems to be at full capacity.

This industrial action concerns an issue that reaches to the core of Scandinavia's labor traditions – the authority for worker organizations to bargain for pay & conditions representing their workforce. This principle of collective agreement has underpinned labor dynamics in Sweden for almost a century.

Today some seventy percent of Scandinavia's workers are members of a trade union, and 90% are covered by a collective agreement. Labor stoppages across the nation are rare.

It's an arrangement supported across the board. "We prefer the right to bargain directly with worker representatives and sign labor contracts," says a business representative of the Confederation of Swedish Businesses business organization.

But the electric car company has upset established practices. Vocal CEO the company leader has stated he "disagrees" with the concept of unions. "I just don't like anything that establishes a kind of lords and peasants situation," he told listeners in New York in 2023. "In my view the unions try to generate conflict within businesses."

The automaker entered the Scandinavian market starting in the mid-2010s, while the metalworkers' union has for years wanted to establish a collective agreement with the company.

"But they wouldn't respond," states Marie Nilsson, the union's president. "We formed the impression that they attempted to hide away or not discuss this with our representatives."

She says the union ultimately saw no other option except to announce a strike, which started on 27 October, last year. "Typically it's enough to make a warning," comments Ms Nilsson. "Employers usually signs the agreement."

However not in this case.

Janis Kuzma, originally of Latvian origin, began employment with the automaker several years ago. He claims that wages & work terms were often dependent on the discretion of managers.

He recalls a performance review where he states he was refused a salary increase on grounds he was "failing to meet company targets". At the same time, a colleague was reported to have been turned down for increased compensation due to he had the "wrong attitude".

However, not everyone went out in the industrial action. The company had some 130 technicians working when the strike was called. IF Metall says that today approximately seventy of their represented workers are participating in the action.

Tesla has since substituted these with replacement staff, a situation that has no precedent since the era of the Great Depression.

"The company has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly and systematically," 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 understand. However it violates all established norms. Yet the company shows no concern for conventions.

"They want to be convention challengers. So if anyone tells them, hey, you are breaking a norm, they perceive that as a compliment."

The automaker's local division declined attempts for comment in an email citing "all-time high deliveries".

Indeed, the automaker has given only one media interview in the two years after the strike started.

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", the executive, informed a financial publication that it suited the company more not to have a collective agreement, and instead "to work closely with employees and give workers the best possible terms".

The executive denied that the decision not to enter a labor contract was one made by US leadership in the US. "We have a mandate to make independent such decisions," he stated.

IF Metall is not completely alone in its fight. This industrial action has been supported by a number of labor organizations.

Port workers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries and Finland, are refusing to handle Teslas; waste is no longer collected from Tesla's Swedish facilities; while recently constructed power points remain linked to the grid across the nation.

Exists an example close to Stockholm Arlanda Airport, where 20 charging units remain unused. However a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, states Tesla owners are unaffected by the strike.

"There exists an alternative power point six miles from this location," he comments. "Plus we are able to continue to buy our cars, we can maintain our vehicles, we can charge our cars."

With consequences high on both sides, it's hard to see a resolution to the stand-off. IF Metall faces the danger of setting a precedent if it concedes the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

"The worry is that this could expand," states Mr Bender, "and ultimately {erode