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In Sweden, around 70 automotive technicians persist to confront among the globe's richest corporations – Tesla. This industrial action targeting the American automaker's ten Scandinavian repair facilities has currently entered its second anniversary, with minimal sign of a resolution.

One striking worker has remained at the Tesla picket line starting from the autumn of 2023.

"It's a difficult period," states the 39-year-old. With the nation's cold winter weather sets in, it is expected to become more challenging.

Janis devotes each Monday alongside a colleague, positioned near an electric vehicle service center within a business district in Malmö. The labor organization, IF Metall, provides shelter in the form of a portable construction vehicle, as well as hot beverages & light meals.

However it's operations continue normally across the road, where the service facility seems to be at full capacity.

The strike involves a matter that reaches to the core of Swedish labor traditions – the authority for worker organizations to negotiate wages & working terms representing their workforce. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has supported labor dynamics in Sweden for almost one hundred years.

Today approximately 70% of Swedish employees are members to labor organizations, and 90% fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes across the nation are rare.

It's an arrangement supported across the board. "We favor the ability to bargain directly with worker representatives and establish labor contracts," says a business representative from the Association of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

However Tesla has upset established practices. Vocal chief executive the company leader has stated he "opposes" with the idea of labor organizations. "I simply disapprove of any arrangement that establishes a kind of lords and peasants sort of thing," he informed listeners in New York last year. "In my view labor groups attempt to generate conflict within businesses."

Tesla came to Sweden back in 2014, while IF Metall has for years sought to secure a labor contract with the automaker.

"Yet they did not reply," says the union president, the organization's leader. "And we got the belief that they tried to hide away or not discuss the matter with us."

She states the union eventually saw no alternative except to call a strike, beginning in late October, 2023. "Typically it's enough to issue the threat," comments the union leader. "The company usually agrees to the contract."

But this did not happen in this case.

Janis Kuzma, originally of Latvian origin, began employment for Tesla several years ago. He claims that wages & work terms frequently subject to the whim of supervisors.

He remembers an evaluation meeting at which he states he was denied an annual pay rise because he was "not reaching company targets". At the same time, a colleague was said to be turned down for a pay rise because having the "wrong attitude".

Nevertheless, not everyone participated on strike. Tesla employed some 130 technicians employed when the industrial action was called. IF Metall states currently around 70 of their represented workers are on strike.

Tesla has long since substituted these with new workers, for which there is no precedent since the era of the 1930s.

"Tesla has done it [found replacement staff] publicly & systematically," says German Bender, an analyst at Arena Idé, a policy organization financed by Swedish trade unions.

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

"They aim to be norm breakers. Thus when somebody informs them, listen, you are breaking a standard, they perceive this as a compliment."

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary refused attempts for interview via correspondence citing "all-time high deliveries".

In fact, the automaker has given only one media interview in the two years since the strike started.

In March 2024, the local division's "national manager, Jens Stark, informed a financial publication that it benefited the company more not to have a collective agreement, and instead "to collaborate directly with the team and provide workers optimal conditions".

Mr Stark rejected that the choice to avoid a collective agreement was one made at Tesla headquarters overseas. "We have a mandate to make our own such choices," he said.

The union is not completely alone in this conflict. The strike has been supported from several of labor organizations.

Dockworkers in neighbouring Denmark, Nordic countries and neighboring states, are refusing to process Teslas; rubbish is not removed from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; while newly built power points are not being connected to the grid in the country.

There is an example near the capital's airport, where twenty charging units stand idle. But a Tesla enthusiast, the president of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, says vehicle owners are unaffected by the strike.

"There's an alternative power point 10km from this location," he comments. "Plus we are able to continue to buy our cars, we can service our vehicles, we can charge our electric cars."

With consequences significant for all parties, it is difficult to see a resolution to the deadlock. The union risks setting a precedent should it surrender the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

"The worry is how that would spread," states the researcher, "and ultimately {erode