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In Sweden, approximately 70 car technicians persist to challenge one of the globe's richest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The industrial action targeting the US carmaker's 10 Swedish repair facilities has currently entered its second anniversary, and there is little indication for a resolution.

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

"It's a difficult time," remarks the worker in his late thirties. With the nation's cold seasonal conditions arrives, it's likely to become even tougher.

Janis devotes each Monday with a colleague, positioned outside a Tesla service center within a business district in Malmö. His union, IF Metall, supplies accommodation in the form of a mobile builders' van, as well as hot beverages and sandwiches.

But it remains business as usual across the road, where the workshop appears to operate at full capacity.

The strike involves an issue that goes to the core of Swedish labor traditions – the right for worker organizations to negotiate wages & working terms representing their members. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned industrial relations across the nation for nearly a century.

Today approximately seventy percent of Swedish workers are members to labor organizations, while 90% fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages across the nation are rare.

This is a system supported by all parties. "We favor the ability to bargain directly with the unions and sign labor contracts," says a business representative of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

But Tesla has disrupted established practices. Outspoken CEO the company leader has said he "disagrees" with the concept of labor organizations. "I just don't like anything which creates a sort of hierarchical situation," he informed an audience at an event last year. "I think labor groups try to create conflict within businesses."

The automaker entered the Scandinavian market back in 2014, and the metalworkers' union has for years wanted to secure a collective agreement with the automaker.

"But they did not reply," states the union president, the organization's leader. "And we got the impression that they attempted to avoid or evade discussing this with our representatives."

She states the union eventually saw no other option except to announce industrial action, which started on 27 October, 2023. "Typically it's enough to issue the threat," says Ms Nilsson. "Employers typically agrees to the agreement."

However this did not happen in this case.

Janis Kuzma, originally of Latvian origin, began employment for Tesla several years ago. He claims that pay and conditions were often subject to the whim of managers.

He remembers a performance review where he says he was denied an annual pay rise because that he "not reaching Tesla's goals". At the same time, a colleague was said to have been rejected for increased compensation because he had the "wrong attitude".

However, not everyone went out on strike. Tesla employed some one hundred thirty mechanics employed when the strike was initiated. IF Metall states that today approximately seventy of their represented workers are participating in the action.

Tesla has since replaced these with replacement staff, for which there is no precedent since the 1930s.

"The company has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly and systematically," states a labor researcher, an analyst at a research institute, a think tank financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It's not against the law, which is crucial to understand. But it goes against all traditional practices. But the company shows no concern for conventions.

"They aim to become convention challengers. So if somebody tells them, listen, you are breaking a standard, they see this as praise."

The company's local division refused attempts for comment via correspondence mentioning "record deliveries".

Indeed, the automaker has given just a single media interview in the two years after the industrial action began.

Earlier this year, the local division's "country lead", Jens Stark, told a financial publication that it benefited the company more to avoid a union contract, and instead "to work closely with employees and provide workers the best possible conditions".

The executive rejected that the decision not to enter a labor contract was determined at Tesla headquarters in the US. "Our division possesses authorization to take independent such decisions," he stated.

IF Metall is not entirely alone in this conflict. This industrial action has received backing from several of other unions.

Port workers in nearby Denmark, Norway and neighboring states, decline to process the company's vehicles; rubbish is not collected from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; and newly built power points are not being linked to power networks in the country.

There is one such facility near the capital's airport, at which 20 charging units remain unused. But a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, says Tesla owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

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

With consequences significant on both sides, it's hard to envision an end to the deadlock. The union faces the danger of establishing a pattern if it concedes the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

"The worry is that this could expand," states the researcher, "and eventually {erode